§ 93. Mr. Sternasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the information available to his Department on current progress in eastern Europe with the development of beam technology.
§ Mr. StanleyThe Soviet Union maintains extensive and vigorous research and development programmes in the high fields of high energy laser, particle beam, and radio frequency beam technologies. Other eastern European work is less advanced and is confined to low energy laser applications. The Soviet Union is advancing only slowly in application of bean technologies to civil industrial processes. My Department believes higher priority has been given to military applications. In particular, I would refer my hon. Friend to my Department's paper "The Soviet Ballistic Missile Defence Programme" which was placed in the Library of the House on 26 November 1985.