§ Mr. Deakinsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the offer made by six neutral states to monitor the verification of a moratorium on underground nuclear tests.
§ Mr. RentonThe offer was not directed to the United Kingdom as it was contained in the letter from the six nations to the United States and the Soviet Union before the Geneva summit. We doubt that, even with the assistance offered, a testing moratorium would be adequately verifiable; but third parties could have a role to play in establishing adequate verification arrangements for a comprehensive test ban and we hope that those of the six nations represented at the Geneva conference on disarmament will pursue their ideas there.
§ Mr. Deakinsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to secure a resumption of negotiations on a complete test ban treaty.
§ Mr. RentonI refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) on 25 November at column418.
§ Mr. Deakinsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if Her Majesty's Government plan to make use of the information service on nuclear testing sponsored by the Swedish Foreign Office.
§ Mr. RentonWe are not aware of such a service.
§ Mr. Deakinsasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proposals have been made by the Soviet Union in respect of verification of a comprehensive test ban treaty.
§ Mr. RentonVerification issues had not been resolved when the trilateral negotiations between the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom on a CTB were suspended in 1980. Since then, the Soviet Union has proposed, in a United Nations general assembly resolution of 1982, basic provisions for a CTB treaty, including verification by national technical means and other, unspecified, international measures.