HL Deb 25 April 1983 vol 441 cc720-2

2.48 p.m.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Questions was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that tactical nuclear weapons are now deployed which have three or four times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb and whether they will reject the idea of a limited nuclear war.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Belstead)

My Lords, we are aware that many nuclear weapons below the strategic level, including those aimed at Western Europe, have a larger yield than the Hiroshima bomb. We have always made clear our abhorrence of any nuclear war, limited or otherwise. The purpose of our deploying nuclear weapons is to ensure that the Russians do not risk starting any form of war.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, while it is possible to think of strategic nuclear weapons as deterrent, battlefield nuclear weapons are designed and deployed to be used in war? Having regard to the inevitability of escalation, will the Government place more emphasis on conventional defence and less on a nuclear response?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, the noble Lord mentioned battlefield nuclear weapons. The noble Lord may not have noticed that the Americans have recently withdrawn 1,000 warheads from Europe. I have not observed any response from the Russians.

Lord Gladwyn

My Lords, while recognising that it is essential for the West, in principle, to have adequate nuclear weapons in order to deter the use of nuclear weapons by the other side, would not the Government agree that any attempt by us to make first use of nuclear weapons—in other words, to initiate a nuclear war—would be both absurd and self-defeating?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, we go, in a sense, further than that. NATO has always said that it would never use any weapons, except in response to attack.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, was not the Hiroshima bomb, which put Japan out of the war, strategic to Japan? If it was, in what sense are larger weapons now aimed at Europe not strategic to Europe?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, the expressions "strategic" and "intermediate" are expressions which have been used. I think that they derive from SALT I. But they are used to divide up the talks which are taking place in Geneva at the present time.

Lord Brockway

My Lords, would not the Minister agree that my noble friend has been very modest in referring to bombs with only three or four times the yield of the bomb on Hiroshima? Have the Government noted the report of the experts to the United Nations that a nuclear weapon has now been created which is 4,000 times as powerful as that which fell on Hiroshima? Will the Government at least support the policy of ending underground tests and revise the judgment at the United Nations December meeting which led them to abstain even on a motion which advocated verification of such tests?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, at the moment we are a very long way, I am afraid, from the objective which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, wants. I wish that that were not the case.

The Earl of Halsbury

My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that nuclear weapons, by and large, are too powerful to be credible and that making them more so does not render them more credible?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, that may be right, but let us, if we may, come back to the original Answer of the Government to the original Question: the purpose of our deploying nuclear weapons is to ensure that the Russians do not risk starting any form of war, nuclear or conventional.

Lord Orr-Ewing

My Lords, in order to put the matter in perspective and allow us to judge the amount of support behind this Question, could my noble friend say what is the strength of the SS20s deployed, as compared with the Hiroshima weapon, allowing for the fact that there are three nuclear warheads in each of the 320 SS20s deployed by the Soviets against Western Europe?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I am sorry, but I cannot answer my noble friend's point in that particular question. It has been the policy of successive Governments not to answer questions on details of nuclear stockpiles, including yields. However, I am anxious to be as helpful as possible to my noble friend. Therefore, perhaps I may simply say to the House that we are talking at present about the Soviet Union having about 1,140 intermediate range nuclear missiles facing Europe. There are none in return.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that if the Government were to abandon the policy of a nuclear response to a conventional attack and to concentrate, as I suggested in my first supplementary, more on a conventional response to a conventional attack, they would be responding to a wide body of opinion which is not confined either to these Benches or to this country?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, NATO must maintain a sufficient range and balance of weapons, both conventional and nuclear, in order to present a convincing deterrent. The point on which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, does not agree with the Government is, I emphasise to the House, that this policy of deterrence has kept the peace in Europe for nearly 40 years.

Lord Ellenborough

My Lords, would it be possible for my noble friend to ascertain the attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, and leading supporters of CND to the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and whether they would—as presumably they would—have been prepared to sacrifice the lives of a million allied troops and of perhaps three or five million Japanese before the Japanese surrendered?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, that is a question which I neither can nor should answer.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that, as I was one of the troops concerned at the time, I am very aware of the situation which the noble Lord has described?