UN World Disarmament Campaign (Hansard, 16 February 1982)

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

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Trefgarne)
My Lords, the resolution adopted by the General Assembly invites Governments to submit their suggestions and comments on implementing the report to the Secretary-General by 15th April. We shall do so, in concert with our European partners. Meanwhile we are exerting ourselves to provide full, balanced and objective information on arms control and disarmament matters to the British public.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, in view of the widespread belief that Her Majesty's Government are more interested in nuclear rearmament than in disarmament, will the noble Lord take whatever steps he can to disprove that belief?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, anybody who has listened to the exchanges on these matters in your Lordships' House in recent weeks would, I think, hardly have arrived at that conclusion. Certainly we accept the importance of disarmament matters and, indeed, we accept the importance of the dissemination of disarmament information on a wide scale, as I implied in the last sentence of my main Answer.

§ The Earl of Lauderdale
My Lords, can my noble friend tell the House whether the proposed disarmament campaign might have some effect on the arrest of peace campaigners in East Germany and also on the disappearance from time to time of dissenters in Russia?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I must confess that I do not think it will have the slightest effect.

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there has already been organised in this country a world disarmament campaign, to which many important bodies and several political parties have affiliated, including my own and that of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am aware of the campaign to which the noble Lord refers, which, I think I am right in saying, is led by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and the noble Lord, Lord Noel-Baker. But I do not think that that campaign is a unilateral campaign, which I believe is the preferred course of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney.

§ Lord Brockway
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the world disarmament campaign in this country has had negotiations in New York with the Experts' Committee set up by the United Nations General Assembly, and that those negotiations have led to the likelihood that the Experts' Committee will propose to the United Nations an international campaign to secure world disarmament, as demanded by the Assembly in 1978?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am not aware of the discussions to which the noble Lord refers, but of course Her Majesty's Government have constantly supported proposals which would lead to balanced and verifiable measures of disarmament in whatever fora.

§ Lord Clifford of Chudleigh
My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind, from an historical point of view, the effect of the Peace Pledge Union in encouraging the last war, and will he point out the similarity between that and the CND movement, to which the noble Lord referred?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I think that the shortcomings of the various disarmament moves which took place prior to the Second World War were shortcomings which we seek to avoid now and, so far as I am aware of them—and I confess that it was long before my time—those shortcomings were that they were neither balanced nor verifiable.

§ The Earl of Onslow
My Lords, is my noble friend not aware that we would all much rather spend money on disarmament, on hospitals, on roads and on other things of social use, but that, when we see what has happened in Afghanistan, Poland, and Angola and the Berlin Wall—which is a horror and an affront to all human dignity—we must keep our own proper defences in good and upright order?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, my noble friend is, of course, right when he implies, as he does, that we have to take the Soviet Union's actions into account, and not their words.

§ Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that those of us who were around 455 during the Peace Pledge Union and the rest of it would not for one moment accept that they were unbalanced in any sense at all? They were very strongly backed by the majority of people in this country. Further, although one accepts his sincerity and the belief of the Government in trying to get disarmament, can I ask him not to adopt this political attitude of trying to separate the unilateralists from the multilateralists? Would he accept that he gives the impression that that is more important to him in answering these questions than in trying to attain the most important thing of all, which is world disarmament?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I think that there is a very distinct difference between unilateral disarmament and multilateral disarmament. This Government support measures of balanced and verifiable multilateral disarmament. We do not support the approach which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, with all sincerity advances, that we should disarm unilaterally.
As to the various disarmament measures which occurred before the Second World War, I do not think that the noble Baroness remembers them either.

§ Lord Kennet
My Lords, is the noble Lord in a position to give the House any news of the probable date when the strategic arms reduction talks will begin? —which have been delayed by the United States as a result of events in Poland.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am afraid that I am not able to give the House a date when those talks will recommence. That, of course, is a matter for the Soviet Union and the United States to decide between themselves. The United Kingdom is not directly involved in those talks, as the noble Lord will know. But I hope that it will be before too long.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, as my name has been brought into the matter, is the noble Lord aware that I am on the executive of the world disarmament campaign—the multilateralist body—as well as being connected with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament —the unilateralist body? Is he not further aware that this proves that multilateralism and unilateralism are complementary to, and not in competition with, each other? As I cannot hope to convert the noble Lord to unilateralism, will he do what he can to convert some of his noble friends to real multilateral disarmament?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I have no need to convert my noble friends to genuine multilateral disarmament because they already believe in it. As to the assertion that the noble Lord adheres to both schools of thought, I am afraid that that puzzles me all the more.