§ Mr. Bestasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government are now in a position to sign the United Nations convention on the law of the sea; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. RifkindAs I said in my statement to the House on 2 December— [Vol. 33, c. 410]—we still need to obtain satisfactory improvements in the deep sea mining regime envisaged in the convention. We have been exploring the prospects with interested states. A United Kingdom delegation is attending the sessions of the preparatory commission and making our views widely known to other delegations.