§ Mr. Brandon-BravoTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the recent announcement of the third review conference concerning the 1925 Geneva protocol to the biological and toxin weapons convention.
§ Mr. Douglas HoggI am pleased to say that on 27 September the ambassador of the United Kingdom delegation to the conference on disarmament in Geneva announced at the third review conference of the biological and toxin weapons convention that Her Majesty's Government had decided to withdraw that part of our reservation to the 1925 Geneva protocol which maintained our right to retaliate in kind if biological weapons were used against us. The protocol prohibits the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of bacteriological methods of warfare.