HL Deb 11 July 1989 vol 510 cc91-2

Lord Orr-Ewing asked Her Majesty's Government:

What is the latest NATO estimate of the rate of production of Soviet nuclear submarines with and without nuclear missiles and how this compares with each of the years since President Gorbachev came to power in 1985.

The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)

My Lords, the Soviet Union completed the construction of five nuclear submarines in 1988, of which three are known to be armed with nuclear missiles. This annual production rate is in line with that for the 1980s as a whole; there has been no reduction in output of nuclear submarines since President Gorbachev came to power in 1985.

Lord Orr-Ewing

My Lords, can my noble friend say whether there is any field of armaments in which the huge preponderance of Soviet strength over NATO strength has been reduced since Gorbachev came to power and started talking words of peace but not putting anything into action in regard to his armament production?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, so far as we can ascertain, the Soviet defence budget has been reduced by not so much as a single rouble since Mr. Gorbachev took power.

Lord Mayhew

My Lords, will the noble Lord point out that all submarines to which he referred were presumably ordered by Mr. Gorbachev's predecessors? It would be interesting to know what has happened to the rate of new orders since Mr. Gorbachev took over.

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, unfortunately, the Soviet Union does not announce its new orders in the way in which we do. Of course, it is true that the submarines to which I have referred were, for the most part, ordered before Mr. Gorbachev came to power, but it would have been open to him to cancel them.

Lord Mayhew

My Lords, would it not have been a little less misleading for that answer to have been made clear to begin with? What is the advantage of making things look worse than they really are?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, surely what matters is the number of submarines that rolled down the slipways during the period in question.

Lord Graham of Edmonton

My Lords, would the Minister care to help the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, by giving the statistics for the production of NATO forces submarines over the same period? Does the Minister not agree with me that it is more important to look towards verified negotiated reductions of forces and to welcome positive moves, both by President Bush at the NATO summit and by President Gorbachev, rather than entering into arguments about the rate at which Soviet submarines and missiles are being built?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, of course I agree that the objective now must be balanced and verifiable measures of arms control in all the areas where we can secure such agreements. It is perhaps worth noting that, as a result of the SALT agreement, for example, the Soviet Union has been required to decommission two strategic missile-carrying submarines. I understand that it has converted those submarines to another equally offensive role.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, can my noble friend explain why the Soviet Union, which is a land mass with very little dependence on sea communications, thinks it requires a navy of this size?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, the Soviet Union has long maintained that all its armed forces are there for defensive purposes only. That is impossible to square with the scale of the forces which it has maintained. However, having said that, Mr. Gorbachev has undoubtedly brought a new era into the Soviet Union. Let us hope that things will be different in the future.

Lord Zuckerman

My Lords, has not the Soviet Union allowed a party of Americans, including scientists in the defence field, to inspect a missile cruiser? Each one of its weapons is apparently able to deal with a carrier group. Is this not a question which we might put to the Soviets?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, we are maintaining our pressure on the Soviets to come to the kind of balanced and verifiable agreements to which I have referred. One has to be fair; there is some sign that, unlike their stance in the past, the Soviets are now more ready than they once were to come to such agreements.

Lord Orr-Ewing

My Lords, can my noble friend say what action Her Majesty's Government are taking to put the true facts about the operational capability of the Soviet forces at present in the field before the electorate, not only of this country but of our NATO allies as well? We are in danger of wishful thinking along very much the same lines as in the 1930s, and that led to World War II.

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, I think perhaps the clearest exposition of the position in this matter is the passage in the Defence White Paper, which I am sure that my noble friend has seen. So far as a wider audience is concerned, we have produced a document called British Defence Policy, which is, if you like, a plain man's guide to the White Paper and which I hope reaches a much wider audience.

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