US Weapons Development and Deployment (Hansard, 5 July 1982)

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

§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Belstead)
No, my Lords. The production of weapons which are to be held on United States territory is a matter for the United States Government.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the proposal is that these weapons shall be located in this country? Is he not concerned about that? Is he aware that the Labour Party has written to President Reagan saying that it opposes the decision of his Administration to produce the enhanced new neutron warhead and to start a new chemical weapons production programme? Is he further aware that the Labour Party goes on to say that a Labour Government would not permit the stationing of these weapons or of cruise missiles in Britain? Will he not follow the same course?

§ Lord Kinnaird
My Lords—

Several noble Lords
Order!

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, no proposals for the deployment of either of these lots of weapons have 547 been made. So far as the views of the Labour Party are concerned, I hope that the Opposition Front Bench will not think that I am being discourteous when I say that it comes as a great relief to me that Labour Party views do not necessarily reflect world opinion.

§ Lord Kinnaird
My Lords, this Question compels me to ask my noble friend two questions. Firstly, what world, and whose opinion? Secondly, is not the using of your Lordships' House to repeatedly ask Questions of this nature either dangerously naive or bordering on the subversive?

Several noble Lords
Oh!

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, my noble friend has, I think, every reason to ask the supplementary Question he has asked, because it is quite clear that the question was asked whilst labouring under a misapprehension. My first reply was that no proposals for deployment have been made. That was the answer to the first supplementary question which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, asked me and to which, presumably, he attached importance. Under those circumstances, it does mean that a Question of this nature is damaging if it is inaccurate—and it is inaccurate.

§ Lord Peart
My Lords, is not the noble Lord the Minister accepting a strange criterion? I believe my noble friend has every right to ask a Question of this kind. I disagree with him in many ways but he does have a perfect right, and there is a large section of the community which agrees with him, whether you like it or not. I am surprised at the noble Lord's answer.

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Peart, says that he is surprised at my answer, but the original Answer made it quite clear that the production of weapons which are to be held on United States territory is a matter for the United States Government. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, immediately asked a supplementary question which refuted that Answer. All I can do is to repeat what is the truth: at the moment there are no proposals for deployment of these weapons outside the United States.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, surely the truth is that production of these weapons by either the Soviet Union or the United States is a matter of genuine concern to many hundreds of millions of people all over the world. Is it not perfectly right that this country, and indeed all the allies of the United States, should be using their influence, now that the START talks have begun in Geneva, to try to obtain the maximum possible reduction of nuclear weapons on both sides?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, the START talks will not cover these particular weapons.

§ Lord Derwent
My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, is entitled to ask the Question, which undoubtedly he is, whether one likes it or not, is there any reason why my noble friend the Minister should alter his original Answer?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. The reason why I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, and, with respect, the noble Lord, Lord Peart, is that the supplementary question to the original Question simply refuted the truth of what the Government said. I assure the House that what the Government said in their original Answer is at the moment the case.

§ Baroness Wootton of Abinger
My Lords, am I mistaken in thinking that there is an international convention relating to the production of chemical weapons—as distinct from the other kind, the neutron weapons?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, there is. The hope of the United Kingdom is that there will be a complete ban on chemical weapons, which we, of course, discarded 10 years ago. We put forward proposals for a draft convention in 1976, and now we have put forward proposals for verification—which is at the very heart of being able to ban—at the Geneva talks. I very much hope that we shall be able to make progress in this direction.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, is it not a fact that we unilaterally discarded chemical weapons 10 years ago? Far from that setting an example to be followed by the Soviet Union, they have multiplied many times the chemical weapons they now have on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain and all their exercises are conducted on the assumption that they will use chemical warfare weapons.

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, because here again I think it is important to realise what the facts are. Yes, my noble friend is quite right in suggesting that we in the United Kingdom discarded chemical weapons some 10 years ago. So far as quantities are concerned, the Soviet Union has a huge quantity of up to 700,000 tonnes of chemical agent, really enough to sink Europe, far less to destroy it.

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, is not the noble Lord going a little far in saying that the production on a large scale of chemical weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union is simply a matter for those countries? Surely that is going too far. The British Government are, I hope, already playing an active part on this subject in the United Nations disarmament conference. Is the noble Lord really right to say that the production of any form of weapons, even though not for deployment outside the United States, is not a matter for her allies in NATO? Surely he is going too far.

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question relates to why the United Kingdom six years ago put forward proposals for a ban on the production and the holding of chemical weapons. Because verification always lies at the heart of these matters, we have now put forward proposals for verification in the disarmament talks in Geneva. So far as our interest and concern in production, either in the Soviet Union or in the United States, is 549 concerned, I repeat that, contrary to what is being done by the Soviet Union, there are at the moment no proposals for deployment outside the United States of either of the weapons mentioned in Lord Jenkins' Question.

§ Lord Brockway
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that, at the Special Session on Disarmament of the United Nations now meeting in New York, proposals are being made for the prohibition of all new weapons of mass destruction, including the neutron bomb, as well as a proposal for a more comprehensive convention banning the use and production of chemical weapons? What is the attitude of Her Majesty's Government to those proposals now under consideration?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, I will reply to that head on. We are encouraged by the Soviet proposals that there should be international verification by means of on-site inspection, something which the Soviet Union has consistently refused to recognise over the years.

Viscount St. Davids
My Lords, is not napalm a chemical weapon? Have we not refused to use it ourselves? Can the noble Lord confirm that it was, in fact, used against us in the Falkland Islands?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, I think that the noble Viscount is touching on a different question. I think that napalm does not fall into the context of chemical weapons.

Lord Spens
My Lords, will the Minister agree that our unilateral abandonment of the production of chemical weapons, far from encouraging other nations to abandon them, in fact seems to have encouraged them to increase their manufacture?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, if that is the road we were to go down then I would agree with the noble Lord that that would be the result.

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I think that it might be to the convenience of your Lordships' House if we moved on to the next Question.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords—

Several noble Lords
Order!

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I thought I had sensed the mood of the House that we had had a fairly long run on this Question and that it might meet with the approval of the House if we moved on.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, why should the noble Lord not ask a second supplementary?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, it is simply this, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, knows only too well: the way in which the House operates is by general consent. I think that we have been on this particular Question for some 12 minutes. I am only acting as Leader of your Lordships' House. If I am wrong, then of course I am perfectly happy to take a different view. However, I understood from the remarks which 550 were made both opposite and behind me that it was to the convenience of your Lordships to move on.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords—