§ Mr. Shersbyasked the Secretary of State for Defence on what date the United Kingdom renounced the manufacture, deployment and use of biological and chemical weapons; and what has been the Soviet response to these British initiatives.
§ Mr. StanleyThe United Kingdom abandoned the manufacture and possession of chemical weapons in the late 1950s. The Soviet Union has retained and is adding to its stockpile of chemical weapons, which is already estimated to amount to some 300,000 tonnes. The United Kingdom remains committed to a verifiable and comprehensive ban on chemical weapons through the committee on disarmament in Geneva, and we await a positive Soviet response to a number of Western proposals in this forum. The Soviet Union is, like the United Kingdom, a party to international conventions which ban the development, possession, stockpiling and use of biological weapons.