§ 27. Mr. Meadowcroftasked the Secretary of State for Defence if, following President Reagan's recent statements on East-West relations, he will now seek to include the United Kingdom nuclear strategic deterrent in future strategic arms reduction talks and intermediate theatre nuclear force talks.
§ Mr. HeseltineNo. The British strategic nuclear deterrent does not fall into the category of INF weapons; and it represents only some 3 per cent. of the strategic forces available to the Soviet Union. But we have never said that our deterrent will never be relevant to arms control. As we have repeatedly made clear, if the Soviet and US arsenals were to be very substantially reduced, and if no significant changes had occurred in Soviet defensive 421W capabilities, we would naturally want to review our position and to consider how best we could contribute to arms control in the light of the reduced threat.