Mr. Hookyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress is being made with a treaty to ban the production, deployment and use of chemical weapons.
§ Mr. Hurd:The use of chemical weapons is banned by the 1925 Geneva protocol. Some progress was made in the Committee on Disarmament in Geneva this year on the elaboration of a convention to ban the development, production and stockpiling of these weapons. However, substantial problems remain, in particular over verification. The United Kingdom tabled a working paper on these problems and played an active part in later discussions.