DISARMAMENT:GENEVA COMMITTEE (Hansard, 23 January 1980)

§ Lord BROCKWAY
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ Lord TREFGARNE
My Lords, the committee has not met since July last year, although the disarmament debate has continued in the United Nations General Assembly. I therefore have nothing to add to the Answer I gave to my noble friend on 23rd October last year.

§ Lord BROCKWAY
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some of us have been able to obtain greater details than he has been able to give us? Is it not the case that the Geneva Committee has been unable to discuss the test ban; nuclear weapons; chemical weapons and verification, because those matters are already being discussed by the two super-powers? Is it not desirable that those matters should be discussed, for two reasons? The first is that there has been a long delay—the test ban has been discussed for 10 years. Secondly, is it not important to have the views of the 40 members of the committee, and not only those of the two super-powers?

§ Lord TREFGARNE
My Lords, yes, it is important to have the views of all the members of the committee. I can 432 tell the noble Lord that the next session of the committee will begin on 5th February. We expect that it will continue its discussions of the important issues mentioned by the noble Lord—such as, the bans on nuclear testing as regards chemical weapons—and indeed get down to actual negotiations on the draft treaty to ban radiological weapons. It will also consider elements for a comprehensive negotiating programme drawn up last year by the United Nations Disarmament Commission

§ Lord BROCKWAY
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Is it the case that the Soviet Union proposed halting the manufacture of all nuclear weapons and proposed their gradual reduction until ultimate destruction, and that the West's delegates declined to discuss that? Will the Government in the discussions this year support the proposals of the unaligned 21 Governments that that resolution should be considered?

§ Lord TREFGARNE
My Lords, we shall certainly consider all the proposals put forward by the USSR and anyone else. But the most important feature of any proposal that we consider must be its capability of proper vertification.

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Lord to confirm two or three facts about the so-called disarmament negotiations. The first matter is that the Vienna talks are practically all concentrated on what we call conventional arms, with certain overtones of tactical nuclear weapon discussions; and nuclear discussions are substantially confined to the SALT talks. Therefore, Vienna tackles the conventional side. Secondly, on the important point raised by my noble friend about chemical weapons, is it not a fact that on British initiative a draft treaty on the banning of chemical weapons was prepared for the Geneva Committee, and it was then that the two super-powers undertook to consider that draft treaty and to return it with their observations to Geneva, where in fact the enlarged committee of 40 members—again the result of British initiative last year or the year before—will look at the treaty plus the comments of the two super-powers?

§ Lord TREFGARNE
My Lords, I should like to make two points. On the question of the MBFR talks in Vienna, yes, it is certainly right that they are principally, but not exclusively, concerned with conventional weapons although, as I mentioned in the House last week, I think, those talks are now more or less stalled, although not dead. As for the chemical weapons treaty, it is now, as the noble Lord rightly says, principally a matter between the two super-powers, but we shall continue to play our part in the discussions. However, as in the other proposals in the area of disarmament, verification remains an important matter.

§ Lord SHINWELL
My Lords, if the Russians are represented at the next Geneva conference on disarmament, could they be asked whether their invasion of Afghanistan is one of their contributions to disarmament?

§ Lord TREFGARNE
My Lords, that might be a very useful question.

§ Lord AVEBURY
My Lords, as regards verification, does it not appear from the development of nuclear weapons by countries such as Pakistan that, if any nation is sufficiently determined to divert nuclear materials from a civilian programme, it can, with the minimum technical competence, manufacture useable nuclear bombs? In view of those developments, would the disarmament conference take on hoard the need to tighten up the safeguards on the use of civil nuclear technologies, to ensure that very large numbers of developing countries do not obtain nuclear weapons in unstable parts of the world?

§ Lord TREFGARNE
My Lords, yes, we attach considerable importance to non-proliferation. As a depositary power for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, we shall work hard to ensure a successful outcome of the Second Review Conference of the treaty in August 1980. A successful conference would strengthen a non-proliferation regime and assist the development of a new and wider consensus on non-proliferation and nuclear trade for peaceful purposes in the 1980s.
On the question of Pakistan, which was very properly raised by the noble Lord, the Pakistan authorities have repeatedly 434 said that their nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. We very much hope that no country in the Indian subcontinent would build nuclear weapons. It would be a development which would have the most serious implications for the stability of the area and for the future of international non-proliferation arrangements.

§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to return to one very important point made by my noble friend Lord Brockway when he referred to the future of the chemical weapons ban treaty. I hope that the Minister is in a position to confirm that, while that treaty and its provisions have been given to the superpowers for their study and comments, it is understood that they will return it to the Geneva Committee, which has now been enlarged, so that there will be final participation by a wide range of countries about the ultimate proposals of a chemical warfare ban treaty. It will return to Geneva, will it not?

§ Lord TREFGARNE
Yes, my Lords. We expect the matter to be raised when the Geneva Conference resumes in February.