§ Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Defence when it was first proposed to Her Majesty's Government that Cruise missiles be sited at Greenham Common; and what have been the principal developments in the proposed arrangements since then.
§ Mr. BlakerDiscussions with the United States Government about the United Kingdom sites for Cruise missiles began soon after NATO's decision in December 1979 to modernise the Alliance intermediate range nuclear forces and to pursue parallel arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. The choice of RAF Greenham Common and RAF Molesworth was announced in the House of Commons on 17 June 1980, and construction work subsequently began at Greenham Common in February 1981. Preparations at RAF Greenham Common are on schedule to meet the first deployment of Cruise missiles there by December of this year, in the absence of concrete results in the INF negotiations in Geneva.—[Vol. 193, c. 1342.]