Strategic Arms Reductions

HL Deb 18 November 1987 vol 490 cc260-79

7.30 p.m.

Lord Kennet rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy towards strategic arms reductions by the nuclear powers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, all those who think that disarmament is a sensible way of making war less likely—and they are many—must favour the INF agreement which will probably be signed quite shortly between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is now perhaps time to look beyond that to the shape of the world that it will usher in.

Many questions about the future political and military shape of Europe will have to be faced. Will it make France more Atlantic? Will it make Germany more European? What will be our own right course if either or both of these things happen given that, as the Foreign Secretary has put it, the whole development of world events [now] underlines the importance of increasingly effective European unity on political as well as economic matters"? Many national questions will also arise, and those are what I want to put to the Government tonight.

Since the House last debated these matters, we have had the news that our Trident missiles are to be returned to a sort of United States pool for servicing whenever they need it, and that we shall not actually know whether we are getting the same one back again. It is worth reminding the House of the sequence of revelations in this matter. First of all, the missiles were to be serviced in Scotland, and that was a lot of work for British dockyards. Then they were to be serviced not in Scotland but in the United States, and bang went another bit of British work and another bit of British sovereign control over the whole system.

Then they were to be returned for servicing as part of the US cycle. The Government call it servicing, but admit that includes complete rebuilding. So in fact we should simply be using a rolling part of the United States stock: US-made and US-serviced from the moment a missile is first fitted into one of our boats by US experts until the final junking of that missile or its successor, or its successor's successor, say 30 years later.

The fact that, as the Government have emphasised, there will be some sort of agreement that in some way the things belong to us is neither here nor there. Negative physical control of them will be at all times in the hands of the United States. Moreover, the US agreement to sell us the missiles in the first place does not bind any administration after next year. The system is supposed to last, say, 30 years. That is eight administrations. Many noble Lords will know—and some may even remember personally—that the United States has twice before now gone back on its agreements to collaborate with us in nuclear ventures: once at the end of the war under President Truman, and once with Skybolt under President Kennedy.

The Government are now putting us at risk of being unilaterally disarmed by the United States at their convenience, which is a position Churchill and Attlee were careful never to put us in. Let me repeat that: the Government have put us in a position where the United States will be able, at its convenience, unilaterally to disarm this country.

Now, my Lords, how likely is this to happen? The superpowers are agreed in principle to proceed next to 50 per cent. reductions of strategic nuclear weapons, and they have even agreed and published their agreement on some of the details. This cannot but call the United States-United Kingdom pool of Trident missiles into question. Maybe all new missile production will have to be stopped when the 50–50 agreement is reached. Even if not, a 50 per cent. cut in the intended size of that pool would affect us immediately and severely.

Since the missiles which we have been promised by this Administration will be coming out of the common pool there is no way the American negotiators can refuse to talk about them with the Russians. The whole pool is under American control, and that is that. The Prime Minister only yesterday was saying that there is: no question of putting Britain's independent deterrent into the [50 per cent.] equation. The fact is that it will unavoidably be in the 50 per cent. equation because it will be in the United States' pool.

As a matter of fact, it is already clear that the overall reduction of 50 per cent. may be going to be obtained by different percentage reductions in different legs of the triad. I hope that your Lordships follow me. It is complicated, but not all that complicated. Opinions will differ but my own opinion is that the proportion by which the Trident pool is likely to be cut, if anything is cut at all, is more than 50 per cent.

As Ambassador Lehman has told us, the Soviet Union is pressing the United States to shape its reduced strategic triad more like the existing Russian triad. As everyone knows, the Russian one has a proportionately smaller submarine element than the American one. The United States will no doubt stand out for the so-called "freedom to mix", but many of the political and strategic arguments are going to push it to reduce that common UK-US submarine launched maxi-missile pool by more than 50 per cent., not less.

Then there are all the old Scowcroft arguments: still valid. Too many warheads on too many missiles carried on too few platforms is still the classic recipe for strategic vulnerability and will continue to be so during a disarmament process.

Then too there are the economic pressures on both superpowers to disarm very rapidly—perhaps more rapidly than either has yet contemplated. The United States deficits—I use the plural—now dominate the world economy. In this matter I declare myself a Lawsonite, not a Thatcherite. I do not see why Germany and Japan should be required to finance US Government expenditure when the United States is historically, and still potentially, the strongest economy in the world, and when its military spending dwarfs that of all other nations. Just because Germany and Japan are efficient and were once defeated does not mean that they have a duty to present the American voter for ever with low taxes and colossal armed forces. And I do not think they will, either.

It is strange to see a Conservative Prime Minister of this country veering towards approval for an international effort to help the United States maintain and increase these super-colossal para-Keynesian stockpiles. That the Soviet Union needs disarmament for economic reasons is a commonplace, but in this context what is the difference between "economic" and "financial"? My Lords, it is just this: when the Russians beggar themselves for arms they suffer alone. When the Americans do, they pull the world economy down with them. Already Mr. Carlucci is speaking of smaller US military forces and his enthusiasm for the strategic defence initiative seems quite modest.

Then there is the greatest, and perhaps least discussed, question of all. The US aerospace industry is going through an alarmingly bad patch which started with the shuttle disaster. MX has major faults; the B1 bomber has major faults. What if Trident does not work? It has not yet even been test fired from underwater. I submit that the Government are pinning their hopes to a very risky set of propositions indeed.

Since its foundation, the SDP, together with the Liberal Party, has said that Trident was a bad decision. We said that then and we still say it now. We also said that we would cancel it if and when we were in a position of power. We are not in a position of power, though we fully intend to be by 1992. If we are, and if Trident is there—that is to say, if the opportunity to receive Trident missiles out of the pool is still there, despite all the political, military and physical risks—then we should have to see whether the disarmament scene at that time gave us a world in which it would improve our national security to discontinue that project, or, on the other hand, a world where our national security demanded that it be continued. If disarmament had made it safe to do so, we should discontinue the project; if not, then we should not do so.

That is not enough. There has to be a fall-back plan. It is now our duty, as an opposition party, to point out to the Government that it is their duty to have a fall-back plan. If the US decides to break the Trident agreement because the Scowcroft reasoning prevails in a world of heavy strategic reductions, or if they are forced to by debt, or because Trident does not work, or, most likely of all, if all those things happen to some extent and combine to force a switch in American policy, what will our Government do? That question is as real today as it was before the election, perhaps even more real.

The fall-back policy has to be worked out now and it has to be valid throughout the proposed lifetime of the Trident system: 30 years; eight American Administrations. It is just as likely to be needed in 20 years' time as it is now. The fall-back policy could be an Anglo-French airborne standoff system, though the Government's mulish rejection of European space development—and indeed, of Britain's own—may have made that very difficult. The fall-back could be many other things.

The Government will make the country safer only if they agree to share their thoughts a little. What is against taking the country into the Government's confidence? If INF comes, if 50–50 comes, there will first have to be multilateral negotiations among the nuclear powers, and then among others, in order to shape and fulfil the third stage. For 40 years I have hoped to be around at that time, and I still do—just. It has been short sight, narrowness of vision, lack of continuity in the relevant jobs in all our countries and in Russia which have prevented progress so far. I wonder what the Government will have to say tonight.

7.45 p.m.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, on introducing the subject, unamusing and positively paralysing though it is. Those of us who, in spite of that, force ourselves to bring our minds to it on occasion can perhaps understand the fact that the television companies have decided to protect the wider audience from the subject. They would prefer people to be entertained with more local horrors and other forms of violence, rather than the generalised violence which we are discussing—the possibility of the extinction of the human race. It is clear that the television companies do not want the people of this country to think about that matter.

I do not want to think about the matter much either, because none of us finds it easy to bring our minds to it. However, in the back of our minds we know that that possibility—which is there continually for the first time in the experience of the human race—ought to engage us more closely, more carefully and more particularly than any other subject.

We ought not to be too hopeful. The wording of the Motion and the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, more or less assume that the INF Treaty is in the bag. I hope that it is, but there is many a slip. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, touched on another consideration that we ought to bear in mind; namely, the fact that the United States is making sure that the loss of its land-based intermediaries is more than covered by air and seaborne missiles. Almost certainly, they are more deadly than those they are replacing. It would be reasonable to suppose that the Soviet Union may be doing something similar.

What are we likely to be celebrating? Can we say that this is the beginning of the outbreak of peace? I fear that that statement would be a little overoptimistic. If we are celebrating anything—and I sincerely hope that we are—it is not so much a reduction in the totality of the threat as the beginning of a process of negotiation. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, implied that. It is the negotiation between the super powers and other nuclear powers which could, if all goes well, eventually lead to a real and general reduction in arms and, conceivably, to the elimination of the nuclear threat. We are a long way from that state at the present time. The odds seem to be increasingly stacked against ultimate success. Nevertheless, I welcome the first sign by the super powers of a readiness at least to try to eliminate a particular group of nuclear weapons.

The game is played in terms of nomenclature and euphemism. Even a cruise missile changes its nature according to its location. If the INF agreement is reached, the Greenham Common cruises go, but a similar missile located on a submarine in Holy Loch becomes a strategic nuclear weapon. It can stay there and be added to because it is not covered by the INF Treaty; hence the importance of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, in drawing our attention to strategic nuclear missiles. That is the next stage that we must travel if the process upon which we hope we are embarking is not to prove an empty failure.

What are the nuclearphiliacs worried about? Not all noble Lords will be aware that about 70 members of the European raving Right, plus (I do not include them in that description) such luminaries as the noble Lords, Lord Chalfont and Lord Orr-Ewing, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, have placed an advertisement in the Washington Post. That advertisement suggests that they think that the conclusion of an INF agreement will have the end result of sovietising Western Europe. Are they really quite so barmy? Well, some of them are, and they are probably already envisaging the snow on Russian boots.

However, the less imaginative members of the group are perhaps more reasonable, and perhaps more dangerous. They are people who do not want any kind of agreement with the Soviet Union about anything and to whom anti-sovietism and anti-communism have become a way of life and a raison d'être. They would be at a loss for something to hate if, as an inevitable sequence of events, they were to discover to their horror that there was not any Russian threat at all.

Yet of course there would be a threat. A friendly and unfrightening Soviet Union might be most alarming of all. It could be that the people actually came to like the kind of society that they found in the Soviet Union, which could improve—and there are signs of it happening already—to the point at which it is thought a good idea to import some of the Soviet ideas into this country. At worst, they might start voting communist. At best, it would shake the Stock Exchange gambling on which our acquisitive society rests, and shake it to its already shaky roots.

So what do such people want? They want a continuation of the arms race. They do not want peace at any price. Their world would collapse with the arrival of real and permanent détente leading to friendship between peoples and nations. To ensure that nothing of the sort takes place, Mrs. Thatcher has ordered Trident—I am sorry; I nearly called her Mrs. Trident—which represents a fourfold increase in the throw-weight of Britain's nuclear weaponry and which has a first strike capability.

Let us suppose the situation were reversed. Would we conclude an INF agreement if a nuclear submarine weapon capable of annihilating London and all Londoners were located in a Bulgarian port and said to be excluded from that agreement? Mrs. Thatcher has said that she will never give up our independent nuclear deterrent. The noble Lord, Lord Wilson, blew the gaff on that argument, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, suggested, when years ago he said that we did not have an independent nuclear deterrent. We probably do not have one now, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has suggested. Are our nuclear submarine communications under American control? Can we target without using American-controlled satellites? What about the missiles? Mrs. Thatcher is talking nonsense, and very dangerous nonsense at that.

The situation in the Middle East contains an increasing nuclear element. I do not know whether any of your Lordships watched the recent Channel 4 programme called "The Plutonium Black Market". That programme suggested that there is a market—curiously enough, based on Khartoum—in which weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium is being traded. According to that programme, there seems to be good reason for believing that not only Israel but also Iraq and Iran now possess weapons-grade plutonium. If that is the case, the outbreak of nuclear war between the super powers, about which we are always concerned in this Chamber, may not be the start of the process which might destroy us all. That may take place elsewhere because, as we have learnt from Chernobyl, one does not need a nuclear weapon to create a situation in which life on earth may become difficult to sustain, to say the least.

The situation is dangerous in the extreme. In this country we ought to give an air of urgency to these matters and not appear to be dragging our feet and arguing that we do not want to proceed along that path. We do want to proceed along that path, firmly and surely, and we want to go on and on until we reduce the nuclear threat if we cannot eliminate it altogether.

If humanity is to survive, we must go on from an INF agreement to conclude other agreements. I think that that is the message brought to us by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. Mrs. Thatcher and her supporters who want no agreement are a danger to the future of the world.

I have spoken with unusual frankness, which perhaps some of your Lordships may think unbecoming to this Chamber; but it is because I believe that the subject is of such supreme importance that I have not hesitated to say what I think on this matter. I hope that your Lordships will at least take into consideration and recognise the position in which we find ourselves today. We are not on the edge of the abolition of nuclear weapons but on the edge of a situation in which we must say to ourselves once again that we must get rid of the nuclear weapon before the nuclear weapon gets rid of us.

7.56 p.m.

Lord Gladwyn

My Lords, I listened with attention to the interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet; and I am in very great measure in agreement with him. However, I think that he will understand that my own approach may be a little different. One can have different views on such a tremendous subject.

We are considering the specific subject of a possible reduction in strategic nuclear arms by the super powers. Personally, I feel that although the question will certainly come up once agreement, (which we all hope will take place) is reached on intermediate weapons at the coming summit meeting, it is quite unlikely, in view of its complexity, that similar agreement will be reached on strategic arms before the end of the present American administration—if then. And it is still less likely that senatorial ratification, which is essential, will be possible before that time. Apart from anything else, verification (which is difficult enough, as we know, in respect of intermediate weapons) will be considerably greater in respect of strategic weapons. That is undeniable.

Having said that, it seems to me that it is also true—and in this regard I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Kennet—that once discussion on strategic arms limitation between the super powers gets under way, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and other factors, it will inevitably bring up the future role of the strategic nuclear weapons now possessed by the United Kingdom and France. In any case, it is on the assumption that it will do so that in the 10 minutes at my disposal I should like to make a few general observations which might serve as a background to what our defence policy in such circumstances—I repeat, in such circumstances—might reasonably be held to be.

The first point I should like to make is that, as I have often said before, the incessant piling up of arms on both sides of the Iron Curtain, presumably in order to guard against the possibility of a nuclear first-strike by one side or the other, is a dangerous absurdity. Neither side in practice is capable of indulging with success in such suicidal action at the moment. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the capability to do so will exist in the foreseeable future. The only people to benefit from a contrary assumption are those running the arms industry on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

The one factor that might conceivably drive one or the other super power to contemplate the elimination of all or most of its rival's strategic nuclear weapons could be the prospective installation by the latter of a space based anti-ballistic missile system which, in theory at least, could render any nuclear first strike by it useless or largely inoperable while at the same time exposing it to the possibility of such an attack.

We simply must hope that there will be early agreement not to develop, still less to deploy, such space systems, the renunciation of which intention could, after all, be very easily verifiable. One either knows the system is going out into space or not. It is the easiest thing in the world to verify. The next point concerns the possible first use in war of nuclear weapons. NATO's doctrine of flexible response is of course based on the assumption that first use might well be inevitable. But what is almost certain is that if such action were ever taken, the Russians would reply in kind, in which case not only would Central Europe, at least, be devastated, but the whole world might eventually be wrecked as well. So even if this dire possibility is left open as a threat, we should in practice act on the alternative assumption that if an East-West war unhappily should ever break out, it would, in all probability, be non-nuclear.

The present assumption is in that case that we should inevitably be at the mercy of the Russians, who would then, with comparative ease, invade and occupy Western Europe owing to their immense superiority in conventional arms. This is very doubtful, and indeed a defeatist theory. In the first place, if it is probable the last thing that the Soviet Union wants is any kind of war with America which, even if it were at first successful, would entail the virtual cessation of trade with, and imports of grain from, the outside world and, presumably, the occupation of a ruined, resentful and potentially rebellious sub-continent—to say nothing of the possibility of a war with Japan and perhaps even in alliance with China.

For as long as the United States forces remain in Europe in substantial numbers, war is therefore, in my opinion, quite unlikely. However, to guard against it fully—which we should do if we can quite simply as a precaution—there should be some immediate increase in the conventional means of waging it involving, among other things, the strengthening of all vulnerable points and ports against non-nuclear bombardment and possible attacks by paratroopers; harmonising the production and deployment of all weapons and munitions; increasing the number of the latest anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons at our disposal; and in general creating in West Germany what might be called, in someways, a hedgehog method of defence.

That should not be beyond our financial capabilities. It would certainly not be necessary, as some people suggest, for us to provide another armoured division for the British Army of the Rhine, or even to reinforce our existing air forces in Germany. What is really required is more co-ordination and co-operation between the European members of NATO which, as such, would cost nothing at all. But, assuming that some extra expenditure would be required, there should be room for cutting expenditure on Trident, I would suggest, and certainly on the Force de Frappe. One possible way of doing this was suggested in my last speech to this House on this subject, and I shall not repeat it. But there could well be other methods as well.

My final point concerns the British and French nuclear deterrents themselves. At the last election it was clear—unless I am wrong—that some 65 per cent. of those who voted wanted, pending general nuclear disarmament, to retain at any rate some kind of British nuclear deterrent. Of these, the majority no doubt followed the line of the Government. That, broadly speaking, was that the stronger the United Kingdom deterrent (that is to say, Trident), the better. More especially, since, if by any chance we were left alone—the Americans having gone back to America—we should at least have the capacity by means of the threat of or the use of this tremendous power, to prevent the Soviet Union from exercising what is always described as nuclear blackmail, and in any case dissuading them from ever attacking Western Europe by conventional means. That is the present theory.

However, the minority believe that Trident was in effect—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said—a wasteful over-insurance that in some way should be replaced, if possible, by something less imposing and less expensive. So at this point we approach the rather vital question—in fact the most essential question. For what real purpose is our existing nuclear deterrent actually designed?

I suggest that whatever may be the present policy, in practice our nuclear deterrent can only have second-strike capability; namely, that its essential, and indeed very vital purpose, should be to remove all chance that the Soviet Union could ever use its own forces against us in the event of war. To put the case more bluntly, the first-use in war of nuclear weapons by the Americans—though no doubt unlikely, as I have already suggested—is after all possible in the sense that the threat to do so might conceivably, in view of the immense strength of America, be regarded as credible. I do not think it is likely but it is perhaps possible. However, a similar threat by the Europeans would simply not be taken seriously by the Russians, who would rightly assume that any Prime Minister or French President who was contemplating such action would be instantly repudiated by Parliament and by public opinion.

If Europeans were left alone in Europe, so to speak, we could thus only do our best to defend ourselves by conventional means. The Russians still might not want to invade in such circumstances—they might not even want to do so even then. The most likely danger I think was actually hinted at by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, when he said that the most likely possibility was the emergence, perhaps as a result of a world slump, in Western Europe of governments prepared to do a deal with a possibly reformed or Gorbachevian Russia.

Therefore, my conclusion is quite simple. At all costs the Americans must be persuaded to stay in Europe—even, if necessary, in reduced numbers. If only in order so to persuade them the European members of NATO should now make much greater efforts to co-ordinate and harmonise their own conventional forces.

Finally, it must be recognised that since the United Kingdom and the French nuclear forces have only, in practice, a second strike capacity, ways and means should he found of spending less on them and concentrating more on conventional defence. In a word, if we go ahead on such general lines, we are more likely to assist progress towards a more stable relationship between the super powers than if we contemplate ensuring peace on empty threats of individual nuclear action.

8.8 p.m.

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for raising this subject this evening. I agreed with a great deal of what he said but I cannot possibly match his expertise on the subject. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, on only one matter—I think he will be surprised to hear that—and that is that it is a subject of supreme importance. Otherwise, I am afraid I did not agree with him, and he will therefore just put me down as barmy.

I am very sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, has not been able to speak this evening because I hoped very much that his speech would save me from speaking.

Until Russia gets its paws off Eastern Europe and withdraws its forces from Afghanistan, no sensible person can be expected to believe that it is totally devoid of territorial or ideological ambition—whatever Mr. Gorbachev may say or write in the British press. I am thinking particularly of his article in the Mail on Sunday, which appeared, I believe, a week ago last Sunday.

Many years ago, Lenin said that in the pursuit of revolutionary objectives, We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing the truth". More recently, Mr. Andropov, Mr. Gorbachev's predecessor, said: Marxism-Leninism is the textbook for achieving socialist world revolution, and the building of a new society in every country in the world". If that is the Marxist-Leninist code of conduct and those are their stated aims, how can we believe anything that any Soviet leader says unless his actions match his words? So far, Mr. Gorbachev's actions have not altogether matched his words. And we should not be misled by the fact that to Western eyes Mr. Gorbachev is a presentable and urbane figure who patronises a good tailor and has an attractive and well-dressed wife. It is just naive to be misled by this into thinking that the Russian bear has lost his teeth, his claws and his hug, unless and until there is concrete evidence that he has.

In these circumtances, I am concerned lest the proposed nuclear disarmament treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States will leave Western Europe with an inadequate deterrent against the overwhelming superiority of Russia's conventional forces. As I see it, Russia has nothing to lose and everything to gain by this treaty. I am only amazed that they did not see this before now. President Reagan has little to lose and a lot to gain. He is under pressure to reduce his budget deficit; he does not want to increase taxation; if he cuts social security his party will suffer in the forthcoming presidential election. What better than to be able to reduce his defence spending? In addition to this, he probably has no objection to going out on a cloud of glory as the president who was responsible for the nuclear arms treaty.

The Western powers' nuclear umbrella has kept the peace in Europe for 42 years, which I believe to be the longest period of peace in Western Europe since the dawn of history. I may be wrong, but I think it is. Will our own nuclear umbrella be an adequate deterrent without the United States weapons, which will be reduced if the treaty is signed? And will we retain that umbrella until Russia has withdrawn from Afghanistan, freed Eastern Europe from bondage, reduced her conventional forces to match those of Western Europe and freed her political prisoners?

In The Times this morning there was an article by Mr. Robert Legvold, director of the W. Averell Harriman Institute for the Advanced Study of the Soviet Union, Columbia University, New York. He said: Within the last 12 months the Soviets seem to have started to wrestle with the issue—not merely reducing conventional forces within the existing structure of the military balance but altering their basic pattern of deployment". I should be very interested to know how far Russia has in fact reduced her conventional forces. I should also like to be reassured that we will back Mr. Reagan in retaining his strategic defence initiative as long as Mr. Gorbachev has his; for I understand that he has one.

8.14 p.m.

Lord Kagan

My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me for speaking without entering my name on the list of speakers, but I shall keep you for only a few minutes. Even on the assumption that we can absolutely trust Mr. Gorbachev's intentions, as I do, can we, or indeed he, trust his political future? Is he in a position to commit any potential successors? That is something to keep in mind. What Mr. Gorbachev is trying to do is what Moses did. The right reverend Prelate will be able to corroborate this. Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, after three centuries of slavery. But he stopped in the desert for 40 years. He decided that those generations had to die before the people entered the promised land. Moses promised it to the Children of Israel, not to the people of Israel.

The Soviet people have been in bondage and have lived as slaves for 400-odd years under the Tsars and, almost without an intervening period of respite, went into total bondage and slavery under the Soviet system for 70 years. What Mr. Gorbachev is trying to do is to create free men at a stroke. As I said, Moses had the wisdom to say that that could not be promised. If perestroika is to succeed it will help Mr. Gorbachev in his councils with his opponents inside the party, with his hawks, if he is able to point to a credible deterrent in Europe; that is, Britain and France. It would strengthen his argument against people who would be reckless and think that Europe can be overrun.

We can pray for Mr. Gorbachev. We can trust him as a person, but we cannot trust a situation in which he cannot commit his successors. Russian history has always taken a zig-zag course and we have to be careful that on the zag we do not go down.

8.16 p.m

Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for initiating this important debate and for his well-informed speech. His analysis of the Trident saga was particularly telling and interesting. For several years, there has been talk of the urgent need to reduce the super powers' nuclear armoury; but what we have witnessed, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, reminded us, is a race between the United States and the USSR to increase their stockpiles and to make them more sophisticated. In the past 10 years, the SS.20s have confronted the build-up of cruise and Pershing missiles and this country and other NATO allies are involved in that exercise.

I am not proposing in this debate to castigate one side or the other; there is fear and suspicion on both sides, and some speeches made from time to time by national leaders do nothing to dispel this atmosphere. But, like others, I believe that we are on the threshold of possibly the most historic postwar agreement when President Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev meet in Washington on 7th December to sign the proposed INF agreement. American and Soviet arms negotiators have been meeting in Geneva to try to iron out the final snags.

The chief US and Soviet arms negotiators, Max Kampelman and Yuri Vorontsov today left Geneva without having finalised an agreement on the proposed INF treaty. The main sticking point, as I understand it, appears to have been a US demand that inspectors be allowed to visit sites at which Soviet strategic intercontinental missiles are built. It is understood that officials will continue to talk on the outstanding issues in Geneva, and that there may have to be a further meeting between United States Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze before the December summit. We can only note that United States officials say that the treaty is 98 per cent. complete and urge that no effort be spared to reach agreement on the few remaining points at issue. I hope that that will be the view of Her Majesty's Government, and that they will do their utmost to press for agreement on the remaining points.

I should like to make clear that we on this side of the House warmly support the proposed agreement; we have been advocating something on those lines for many years. The agreement, if it is signed on 7th December, will not resolve all the problems. Massive nuclear forces will still remain. It is however worth noting that Mr. Ronald Lehman, the chief negotiator at the START talks in Geneva, said recently that: there is a very real chance to conclude a super power agreement on 50 per cent. cuts to their strategic arsenals early next year". He also went on to say that the Soviet attitude to SDI might well frustrate this. I will come back to that in a moment. The fact is however that the impending agreement which would do away with the whole category of intermediate range nuclear force missiles based in Europe would be an immense achievement. The fact that it is intended to include verification arrangements with on-site inspections by both sides would make it even more significant. I believe that this agreement would reduce tension between the super powers and increase mutual trust. At last they are proposing to reduce their nuclear capabilities.

It is to the credit of the United States and Soviet leadership that they have come thus far. We certainly should not overlook the fact that while 300 US warheads are to be eliminated, about 1,500 Soviet warheads are to be destroyed.

I agree with the Foreign Secretary when he said: this asymetry is an important precedent for future arms control negotiations". He further said: The Government's verdict on the prospective agreement is …it is a very good agreement". We concur with that verdict and welcome it.

A number of questions arise and some have been dealt with by noble Lords in the course of this debate. As I see it, the two most important considerations will be, first, the effect of the agreement on NATO strategy and philosophy; and, secondly, its influence on further moves towards the kind of significant disarmament to which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has referred.

The NATO countries, apart from the United States, have not been at the negotiating table. Mainly because of our absence we have been reacting, as have our allies, in various ways. Mr. Ian Davidson, the able defence correspondent of the Financial Times said on 10th November: the allies go round sounding as if they had swallowed a battery of fevered frogs". That sounds improbable, but the deal has left a feeling of uncertainty and nervousness. That nervousness was reflected in the speech of the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun of Abernethy. The agreement does herald a huge change. The world has moved on and the simple belief that nuclear weapons are a cheap and easy way to guarantee national security no longer holds good. It is upon this that I would value the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, when he winds up.

What is our strategy to be? Are we now to build up our conventional forces, and if so can we afford to do so given the huge expenditure which Trident will inevitably involve? The Government have made plain that following the agreement (which we hope will be signed on 7th December) they will place greater emphasis on conventional military resources. That seems to us to be a sensible development; but can they afford to do so? The present policy is to buy Trident outright but, as has been said, to return them every seven years or so for servicing. That will also involve replacing some vital parts.

The House knows our attitude on Trident, but I should like the noble Lord to tell us within which category Trident will fall. Is Trident a strategic weapon? I remind the noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, that the Prime Minister said on 11th March last year in the House of Commons: Trident is not an intermediate weapon, but a strategic weapon". The Foreign Secretary has said that Trident would not be put into any US/USSR negotiations. During Question Time in another place yesterday, the Prime Minister repeated that. It is obvious that some years must elapse before Trident is on station in this country. A good deal can happen during the next few years. Britain's position—and indeed that of France—will need to be clarified very soon.

Let me pose the crucial question to the noble Lord. Will not the Government have to review their commitment to Trident after the agreement is signed on 7th December and later on? By later on I mean later on during the START negotiations. If the START negotiations are as successful as Ambassador Ronald Lehman believes they might be, the situation is then completely changed. Indeed if the US Government sign a strategic arms reduction agreement can they then supply Britain with Trident, which is a strategic weapon? Those are the issues to be pondered upon.

I must turn finally to Ambassador Lehman's cautious optimism. The obstacle, as he said, is SDI. That has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, and others. Mr. Davidson (whom I quoted earlier) describes it as "an immensely dangerous dream". At the moment it is on the shelf, partly because of its cost, partly because of its technological uncertainty and lastly because of the Senate's concern on arms control. It should certainly not be allowed to stand in the way of progress on START. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has said correctly, Mr. Carlucci (whom we welcome and wish well) appears intially at least to be adopting a more realistic attitude to SDI. We must hope that that is true.

It has frequently been said when SDI is criticised that the Soviet Union is secretly working on its own strategic defence projects. That has been said by noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite. That in my view is unhelpful because there is an unacceptable vagueness about the argument. No firm evidence has so far been produced. If the noble Lord has any I should be glad to hear it. Has the USSR anything on the drawing board that can be compared in terms of cost to what the United States has spent on SDI? That is the question to which the House will need an answer.

I cannot believe that reasonable men can allow that to stand in the way of progress, and I hope that the noble Lord will agree with that when he winds up. Nor should our limited involvement in research be allowed to colour our own decision, which is of such immense political significance. I have a sense that we have reached a watershed which is crucial to the international community. If the INF treaty goes well, as we all hope it will, then we expect that the US and the USSR will move rapidly to the next stage. Our country will have an increasingly important role to play as that negotiation develops.

We welcome the Government's positive response to the INF treaty, and we trust—indeed, we assume—that they will react constructively in the later stages of disarmament. We cannot afford not to be constructive. The cost of failure is far too high. The awful reality is that there are stockpiles of 50,000 warheads in the world, enough to wipe out humanity several times over. Britain must use what influence and skill she has to ensure that real disarmament takes place and that the momentum is not lost.

8.28 p.m.

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

My Lords, we will all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, for asking this Question. It concerns a subject of fundamental importance and enormous topical interest, which reaches to the core of our own security and that of the Western Alliance as a whole.

Despite the Soviet Union's fancy footwork in trying to claim the credit—including much skilful playing to the arms control gallery—we must remember that it was NATO that set the arms control agenda. We should not lose sight of the fact that the zero-zero option of INF agreement, which we hope to see signed in a matter of weeks, was a NATO proposal. It has of course entirely to do with INF and it has nothing to do with Trident, if I can make that plain to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos.

Some of us may have forgotten the origins of the proposal precisely because it has taken the Russians eight years to come round to it. But much better late than never.

Be that encouraging advance as it may, we must also now seek progress on our other priorities—priorities agreed by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister at her meeting with President Reagan at Camp David in 1986, and since endorsed by NATO ministerial meetings. They seek to make the world an even safer place than the hoped-for INF treaty alone should achieve—to encompass the elimination of disparities in conventional weapons and lead to a more stable balance of forces at lower levels, a global ban on chemical weapons, as well as the subject of this debate, an agreement to reduce the super powers' nuclear arsenals by 50 per cent.

I must reject the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, when he seemed to claim that in some way either my party in general or my noble friends in particular sought to maintain in a curious way—and I shall be interested to read his comments in full tomorrow—some Soviet preponderance or Soviet effort for want of something to vilify. That may be shorthand for what he said. However, that was the burden of his remarks. With respect, that is absolute rubbish. I do not believe that the sort of affection which he seemed to bring forward in those remarks would really be shared, for example, by people such as those who are at the moment suffering at the hands of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? If he reads the advertisement in the Washington Post signed by the people to whom I have referred, he may see what the real burden of my remarks was.

Lord Glenarthur

My Lords, I shall study the noble Lord's remarks. I must confess that I became more and more astonished, as he went on, by his remarks and not those which he claimed were made by my noble friend.

I very much agree with everything which the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, said. Her remarks were followed by those of the noble Lord, Lord Kagan. I think that what they say sets the whole matter very much in context.

Let me take first the strategic arms reduction talks agreement. The advantages of an agreement are clear. It would rid the world of what we all agree is a surfeit of strategic nuclear weapons belonging to the super powers. By most estimates they at present exceed 25,000 strategic warheads. Only 12,000 of those would be maintained, with 6,000 on each side.

An agreement would bring to an end the unlimited strategic nuclear arms race which has bedevilled the world for over 20 years. It would provide for enhanced security and promote stability, with provisions on sub-limits and verification to ensure that heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying over six warheads will be constrained, as will the proportion of warheads permitted on all sorts of ballistic missiles. That will serve to increase confidence and stability. Each side will be obliged to adjust its mix of land, sea and air-based systems within the overall ceiling.

The US authorities are also proposing reductions of the throw-weight—that is, destructive power—of missiles, so that it will not just be the numbers of missiles but also the load they carry that will be constrained. All those provisions will increase the exchange of data between East and West. We also hope that, through verification provisions, they will contribute to confidence building. Verification will of course be critical to the success of a START agreement. If a regime can be agreed which will allow strict verification of residual levels of missiles, covering deployment sites and different types of systems, that surely will represent a major achievement and advance.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, and the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, referred to the SDI linkage. It is widely known that the major obstacle to achieving a START agreement is Soviet insistence on linking progress to constraints on SDI. We consider it unacceptable that progress towards those reductions is being held up because of Soviet opposition to research into defensive technologies. Not only is research undoubtedly permitted by the ABM Treaty, but the Soviet Union has already been undertaking such research for years, as the noble Lady hinted.

The Russians have argued that such US research will nullify their strategic arsenal, and that no cuts can therefore be contemplated. That seems fanciful, to say the least. Fifty per cent. cuts in strategic weapons would be fully consistent with the maintenance of security of each super power. Each would maintain its freedom to mix systems within the overall ceilings. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, well knows, the number of Soviet strategic warheads increased by five times in the 1970s. Besides, the Soviet Union has for years undertaken extensive research into ballistic missile defence.

The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, asked for examples. The Soviet Union is the only country in the world to have a land-based system installed. The one around Moscow is permitted under the ABM Treaty. The Russians also have a sophisticated space technology. They currently undertake over 80 per cent. of the space launches made anywhere in the world. There are indications that they have programmes under way in most of the fields, such as directed energy weapons, which would permit a ballistic missile defence capability, including a system based in space.

The ABM Treaty permits research. Deployment of defensive systems is a different matter, and one for negotiation. The Americans have acknowledged this. Of course a greater predictability about research on strategic defences would be welcome. But START reductions should not be held hostage to arguments about an ABM treaty.

The Question of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, refers to the Government's policy towards cuts in strategic arms by the nuclear powers. We have made it clear that Britain will remain a nuclear power for the foreseeable future. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has said that we shall not give up our nuclear deterrent. That merely confirms our opposition to unilateral disarmament. The United Kingdom deterrent is the minimum we judge necessary to deter an aggressor. It is based on a small number of submarines carrying the minimum number of warheads necessary to penetrate the defences of a potential aggressor.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, referred to alternatives which have been suggested by the Alliance and by others. I should have thought that matter was decided on 11th June.

Trident from the mid-1990s will continue our long-standing policy. The Trident D5 missile will provide, into the next century, a modern and credible deterrent for the UK. The same principles will continue to apply. Trident will do the same job for us in the 1990s that Polaris did in the 1970s, and is doing in the 1980s—no more and no less. It is the system we need, despite the fears of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. We are confident that it will serve us well. The noble Lord will remember (although it seemed to me that he had forgotten) that we manufacture the warhead and the guidance systems. We would be playing into the hands of the Soviets and placing all our fellow countrymen at risk if we adopted a less than credible alternative.

The Government's position on associating the UK deterrent with arms control is well established. Just as important, it is recognised and respected by our partners in NATO and in the Western European Union.

Mr. Gorbachev at Reykjavik in October 1986 also recognised that. Noble Lords will recall that he said: Let the UK and French missiles remain as an independent force; let them increase and be further improved. There can therefore be no question of including Trident in INF as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, suggested. If it is good enough for Mr. Gorbachev that that should be so, I confess to some surprise that it is not good enough for the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, let alone others.

We have said we would consider associating the United Kingdom deterrent with arms control only if there were very substantial reductions in the strategic arsenals of the super powers and no change in the defensive capabilities of the Soviet Union. But I must stress that even after 50 per cent. cuts in the super powers' strategic arsenals—which we would warmly welcome—the United Kingdom deterrent would, even assuming maximum deployment of warheads on Trident missiles, still represent a lower percentage of the Soviet strategic arsenal than Polaris did when first introduced. The noble Lords, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos and Lord Kennet, were concerned that the United States in some way could revoke Trident at a later stage if an INF agreement is signed on 7th December and START makes successful progress.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, raised the prospect that any feelings he may have about the United States attitude would be 30 years away from now. President Reagan reaffirmed to my right honourable friend the Prime Minister at Camp David the United States Administration's commitment to honour the Trident purchase agreement. This was after the Reykjavik Summit at which the 50 per cent. cuts framework agreement was first discussed. Clearly no administration anywhere can commit its successors to anything. However, we have heard no suggestion—indeed, I believe it to be fanciful—that any likely successor adminstration would not honour the Trident agreement.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, spoke of 30 years ahead. The UK -US co-operation has certainly worked well under successive administrations in the past 30 years. I have every reason to believe with the utmost confidence that our historical links will be maintained and built upon as we all wish them to be.

As to the noble Lord's suggestion that the United Kingdom's Trident might fall within the 50 per cent. cuts, the United Kingdom will own a fixed number of Trident missiles. This has been agreed with the United States. The terms of the START agreement are not yet agreed. Nobody can presume, as perhaps the noble Lord did, that some things will be included and others not. We know that only United States-owned strategic weapons will be included in the 50 per cent. reductions. The warhead ceiling will of course allow the United States to keep a significant number of its existing sea-launched ballistic missiles.

As to the noble Lord's concern about the servicing pool at King's Bay, the servicing cycle of Tridents will be every seven or eight years. I do not think that the noble Lord should ignore the important fact that there are savings to the taxpayer of over £700 million. The United Kingdom has purchased and will always have a fixed number of Trident missiles. The servicing is of the missiles only, not of the warheads or guidance systems, which will remain in the United Kingdom where they are manufactured. I do not think that the noble Lord can argue that it is better in all circumstances to retain a missile shell, so to speak, even if its inside does not work. That surely is nonsense. Servicing means exactly that: replacement as necessary. That is what it is surely important to achieve.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, the Minister must not suggest I said that bad servicing is to be preferred to good servicing. I said that British servicing is to be preferred to American servicing because it would keep things under our control at all times.

Lord Glenarthur

My Lords, the noble Lord seems to forget that we still have the number of missiles that we purchased. If they go back and are replaced immediately, we still have the same number of missiles. I think that the noble Lord is tilting at a windmill in this instance.

As to the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, that Trident may become some kind of second strike force I do not think that that is a sensible idea. I am sure your Lordships will agree that we should not describe how we intend to use our weapons. We have said all along that we should never he the first in any circumstances to use nuclear weapons.

Lord Gladwyn

My Lords, do the Government really believe that, if the Americans leave Europe and go back to America and we by any chance find ourselves at war with the Soviet Union, we could induce the Soviet Union to withdraw its troops by threatening to use our Trident bomb on Moscow or other cities in the Soviet Union?

Lord Glenarthur

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a hypothesis about what the United States might do in any circumstances. While the noble Lord is free to speculate, I think that the scenario he paints is more than unrealistic.

We have nuclear weapons to deter anyone from launching any kind of war, conventional or otherwise. We accept that there is overwhelming Warsaw Pact conventional superiority. We judge that the best way for democratic countries which cannot seek to match the conventional force levels of totalitarian states to defend themselves is with the minimum number of nuclear weapons. We cannot, as the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, seemed to suggest, in some way make Europe safe for conventional war by de-nuclearising.

It has been a valuable debate and we have covered a great deal of ground. I am grateful to those who have taken part. We are at an exciting point in an exciting period in terms of progress over arms control. Nobody should lose sight of that. As the noble Lady, Lady Saltoun, said, we cannot afford to be lulled into a false sense of security. We shall still need the reassurance and security that only an effective deterrent can offer. Hence the Government's insistence that not only nuclear arms reductions are necessary or desirable; our security is threatened by imbalances in conventional weapons and chemical weapons. We have a full and worthwhile agenda for arms control covering all these area as well. Like the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, I hope that what is proposed goes well. We and our partners in NATO are determined not to be deflected from the purpose that we seek to achieve.

Lord Kennet

My Lords, can the Minister give some answer to the main question that I put to the Government? Do the Government think that there might be an argument for a fall-back plan in case we simply do not get the Trident missiles, or is such an idea quite unnecessary?

Lord Glenarthur

My Lords, I explained that we have every confidence that what has been agreed with the United States is going to go ahead. The noble Lord may dream up all kinds of ideas as to what could happen in certain circumstances. The Government do not believe that that is a realistic hypothesis.

House adjourned at twelve minutes before nine o'clock.