Dr. ThomasTo ask the Prime Minister if during her recent visit to Washington and meeting with President Reagan and President-elect Bush, she discussed developments since the December 1984 memorandum of understanding of the strategic defence initiative and the anti-ballistic missile treaty on(a) arms control verification for space weapons, (b) the recent United States-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics joint review of the anti-ballistic missile treaty, (c) future contract possibilities in the United Kingdom for strategic defence initiative research and development and (d) the continued implications for the strategic defence programme of the agreements at the 1986 Reykjavik summit and the treaty of Washington in 1987 on intermediate range nuclear forces and other arms control issues.
§ The Prime MinisterNo.
Dr. ThomasTo ask the Prime Minister if she has any plans in her forthcoming meeting with President Gorbachev to put forward new initiatives to convert the 1963 partial test ban treaty into a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.
§ The Prime MinisterNo. For the foreseeable future United Kingdom security will depend on deterrence based in part on possession of nuclear weapons; this will mean a continuing requirement to test them to ensure that they remain effective and up-to-date. A comprehensive nuclear test ban remains a long term goal but progress will only be made by a step-by-step approach which must take account of technical advances in verification as well as progress elsewhere in arms control and the attitude of other states.
Dr. ThomasTo ask the Prime Minister if in her forthcoming meeting with President Gorbachev she will make it her policy to attempt to secure common agreement on a joint United Kingdom-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics initiative on nuclear arms elimination under article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
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§ The Prime MinisterNo.
Dr. ThomasTo ask the Prime Minister if during her recent visit to Washington DC and meeting with President Reagan and President-elect Bush, she put forward any new arms control and disarmament initiatives in the field of verification measures for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.
§ The Prime MinisterNo.