§ 3.8 p.m.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what their attitude is towards President Carter's proposals for "reducing arms sales" and "having very tight restraints on arms manufacturers to initiate sales".
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, as I told the United Nations General Assembly on 2nd November last year, the Government wish to see a reduction in global military spending and a halt to the vast build-up of conventional weapons throughout the world. We shall continue to encourage international discussion of the possibility of reducing arms transfers and await with interest further details of President Carter's proposals. The Government will continue to exercise strict control over our arms exports through the licensing system.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, is the Minister aware that only yesterday the American Administration declared itself in favour of the control of "massive transfer of conventional arms", and is not the trade in arms now going, cruelly, to developing countries becoming an absolute scandal? Does the Minister know that many of us think that the arms trade is just as immoral as the international drug trade and the white slave traffic? It is intended for mass murder.
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, I am well aware of the strength of feeling on this issue, with many aspects of which I, and I think everybody in the House, participate. Through the new President and his Secretary of State, the American Administration have indeed made very helpful and hopeful comments on the possibility of engaging in new initiatives on this important matter. We shall stand ready to support in every possible way a practical implementation of those hopes. As to the developing nations, it is a fact that they, like probably every other country, are spending far too much money on arms which could be 1745 more usefully devoted to internal development. But in many cases one is faced with a very strong demand for arms by developing countries, for reasons best known to themselves; and, indeed, the percentage increase in the last five to seven years in ground arms has been greater in developing countries than in developed countries.
§ Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARY-LEBONEMy Lords, do not the chief exponents of exports of arms to developing countries include the Iron Curtain countries who sell through their Governments?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, it is a fact that it is not only this country which is engaged in this traffic. Indeed, this country's participation in the global transfer is some 5 per cent. and that of the Soviet Union is 30 per cent.
§ Baroness GAITSKELLMy Lords, does not the responsibility also lie with the developing countries themselves, since in every resolution in the Human Rights Committee of the General Assembly there is a plea for armed struggle?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, I am afraid that far too frequently this is the case. Indeed, the problem of the control or prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons comes up against protests and reservations from developing parts of the world; that, in some way, such a non-proliferation system might deprive them, as they see it, of certain civil and military advantages, that developed countries enjoy. But as my noble friend, with her experience of the operations of the United Nations General Assembly, quite rightly says, these views are expressed there as well as bilaterally to us.
Lord CHELWOODMy Lords, tight restraints on arms manufacturers would, of course, involve a reliable system of verification in which we could have confidence. In the past, as the noble Lord knows, the Soviet Union has always refused to have such a system. Is the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, correct or not in saying that there has been some breakthrough here?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSYes, my Lords; I think he is right in saying that there has been a substantial move forward by the Soviet Union in the direction of verification. As I think I said a few weeks ago from this Box, it is not yet enough. The noble Lord is quite right in stressing that there can be no really effective disarmament unless it rests on confidence that verification is real and thorough.
Lord BRUCE of DONINGTONMy Lords, will my noble friend give consideration to the possibility of Her Majesty's Government drawing up their own proposals for reducing arms sales?—otherwise the impression might be created that we are merely waiting for an initiative from the United States. Does not my noble friend think that we could very properly take the initiative in what, as my noble friend Lord Brockway has already said, has become in many quarters an iniquitous trade?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, it would not be quite right to say that over the years no initiatives have been taken by the United Kingdom. When I said that we were very carefully examining the helpful and perhaps hopeful proposals of the American President and his Secretary of State, it meant that we were hopeful because so much of that initiative reminds us of previous initiatives made by us in the past.
§ Lord WYNNE-JONESMy Lords, my noble friend the Minister said that 5 per cent. of the supply of arms to developing countries comes from this country and that 30 per cent., I think he said, comes from the Soviet Union. Where does the remaining 65 per cent. come from?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, my noble friend is not quite right. Of the global transfer of arms, we are engaged in 5 per cent. of that total, and the Soviet Union is engaged in 30 per cent. of it. I believe that the United States is engaged in 45 per cent. of the total, while the rest is shared by the arms producing countries, most of them in Western Europe.
§ Lord BROCKWAYMy Lords, is it not the case, as stated in the Question, that 1747 President Carter has asked for very tight restrictions on arms manufacturers initiating sales? Also, is it not the case that, while, unfortunately, militarist Governments in developing countries have demanded arms, there has been incitement to do that by the manufacturers, as shown by the Commission in the United States which has reported to that effect?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, the latter half of my noble friend's remarks may well be true in certain parts of the world. As to the first point that my noble friend made, certainly the American President and this Government very much wish to see a reduction and indeed, if possible, a cessation of arms transfers. The point is that for this to be effective it must be multilateral. This is not to make any special pleading for any one country; it is to point to an obvious fact of disarmament. Disarmament is not a fact until it is seen and felt with confidence to be multilateral, applying to everybody. For that reason it is utterly sound that we, the Americans and anybody else who wants to join in should try to effect a system of diminution of provision—or, rather, to extend together the system of discouragement. If it is done by one country or one group of countries while the rest carry on and even increase their activity it will not achieve my noble friend's objective.
Earl FERRERSMy Lords, the noble Lord was asked whether the Government will take the initiative to ensure that these arms sales are lessened. Will he give an assurance that the Government will not take such an initiative unless there is to be a multilateral exercise?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSYes, my Lords, it is always an initiative of informed suggestion. The point of verification was raised. I do not want to detain the House, but as a member of the group of countries associated with the conference of the Committee on Disarmament we are now engaged in the very helpful exercise of assessing how far seismic verification can be applied to the question of the comprehensive test ban which my noble friend mentioned. In that sense—and it is a very valuable sense indeed—British policy and British technology is constantly proposing initiatives, 1748 that is, initiatives not of propaganda and headlines, but of practical steps to take hold of this problem and to do something effective about it.
§ Baroness GAITSKELLMy Lords, is it not true that when it comes to the sale of arms one is reminded of Noel Coward's old song, "Everybody's doing it"? There is another point that I want to put to the Minister. Is it not true that Soviet aid is given to developing countries in the form of arms, whereas we sell arms and also give aid which has nothing whatever to do with arms?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, the only possible answer to that question is, Yes, indeed. I hope, transferring myself to another function at this Box, that we may now move on to the next Question.