House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 Jun 1993

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century in the context of international organisations. I was fascinated by some of the ideas proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater. The world will look back on its reaction to the tragic events in the former Yugoslavia with shame. To see the international community paralysed and impotent was a pathetic spectacle. The diplomacy of Lords Carrington and Owen and of Mr. Vance was almost certainly doomed from the start in the absence of military sanctions. History teaches us that the only sanctions that work are military sanctions.

There has been much wringing of hands and much hypocrisy. Is the United Nations ever to be more than an instrument of persuasion or more than a thin blue line? What happened to the much-vaunted Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe and to the Western European Union? Is it not clear that the only organisation with a competent command structure for a regional coalition is NATO? If that is so, and as we have a rapid reaction corps, why are we not willing to use it? Do we lack the resolve or the resources?

Much has been said and little has been done, but I believe that the whole sad episode yet to unfold has the smell of something approaching appeasement. One day we shall all pay the price unless we get the international organight hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Defence recently said that our aim is not to be an international gendarmerie. We must therefore aim for a proper modern army, by which I mean properly manned and trained, retaining existing capabilities and focused on the tasks ahead. If we get it wrong, we shall prejudice our permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council and our leadership of the rapid reaction corps, let alone this country's reputation and its safety. If we get it right, we may yet find the role that Dean Acheson said that we had lost, by giving a lead with our special expertise in international organisations. I wish my right hon. and learned Friend and his colleagues well in their difficult task.

As I have already suggested in previous debates--I do not apologise for raising this again--one of our imperatives, to repeat the description that I used at the start of my speech, needs re-examining urgently, especially in view of the extraordinary and unfortunate lag between the publication of the defence estimates and the events to which they refer--

Dr. Reid : It is called a debate.

Dr. Goodson-Wickes : Indeed, the debate which follows. I am referring to the easy solution to get out of the problems I have outlined, which is to shift the drawdown set out in "Options for Change" from 1995 to 1997. In practical politics, one must bear in mind what is certain in this world. One yardstick is that in 1997 we shall withdraw from Hong Kong, so it makes sense militarily and politically for the Government to take that decision which, above all, is a matter of common sense.

5.52 pm

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) : I should like to put it on the record and make it known that I am a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and proud to be so. I joined CND in 1966 and am a member of its national council, and I am a vice-chair of Labour Action

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for Peace. My constituency is very pleased to have in it the offices of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade. I make my remarks from that standpoint.

Unfortunately, the amendment tabled by some of my colleagues and myself was not called. Apparently, we are not able to debate why it was not called, but it rejected the defence estimates and called instead for a reduction in spending at least to the European average. That was, in fact, official policy as it was carried by a majority of more than two thirds at last year's Labour party conference. Our amendment also called for a halt to

"the production and testing of nuclear missiles and de-commission Polaris and Trident submarines ; and calls for those employed in the arms and related industries to be provided with economically and socially useful work and for overall spending reductions to be used to benefit the social needs of Britain and the overseas aid programme."

Every week, we receive unsolicited bumph about high technology weapons of war. For example, I read Worldwide Weekly Defence News avidly because I am fascinated by the technology involved in the production of weapons of mass destruction. I wish that some--just some--of the scientists and brilliant brains could be put to work solving the world's ecological, health and social problems. The world economy is seriously out of kilter.

Not so long ago, the House went along with the Government's policy on the Gulf war. I remind hon. Members that, only a short time before, the few of us who opposed the arms trade with Iraq prior to the invasion of Kuwait were told to shut up. Indeed, a Minister told me that trade came before anything else in policy considerations. In any case, the Gulf war happened. I ask those who so happily went along with it to consider the outcome of the war : the cost, the bombing of unarmed, retreating soldiers on the road to Basra after the liberation of Kuwait, and the question of human rights, equality and democracy in the liberated Kuwait, which is apparently now one of our staunchest allies. Such issues raise serious questions to which people are entitled to an answer. In addition, the families of the 300,000 mainly Iraqi but also British, American and other soldiers who died in the Gulf war are also entitled to know what the war was all about.

I cannot see what were the great advantages of that awful conflict. There are still enormous denials of human rights and there is still a bloodthirsty regime in power in Iraq, which many of my colleagues opposed-- not from 1990 but from 1980 onwards, when we tried to expose its human rights record.

The post cold war era has not brought peace and stability to much of the former Soviet Union. In fact, it has brought a great deal of social conflict, poverty and unrest. I am not defending everything about the previous system, but the break-up of the Soviet Union has not brought peace to the area. In any case, I do not believe that the former Soviet Union presented a threat, any more than I believe that the remains of the Soviet Union, or Russia, present an external threat now.

What concerns me is the NATO strategy enunciated in paragraphs 106 to 109 of the "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1992". There is talk of extending NATO's activities outside its sphere of influence in order to protect the security of western Europe and its member states. I am not sure what the out-of-area activities are able or likely to achieve.

It is time for an examination of the history of NATO, the way in which the United States forces were brought back to Britain in 1948, the way in which this country's

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defence policy and that of every other member state was taken over by a group of generals sitting in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe headquarters in Brussels, the fantastic expenditure on arms and the arms race promoted by NATO which ended up creating the biggest ever federal deficit in the United States, bankrupting the Soviet Union and leading to its break-up. The arms race also led to a massive proliferation of nuclear arms.

Let us consider the effect of the level of defence spending in NATO member states and the industrial development of non-NATO member states. There are obvious parallels. The standard of living in Britain compared to that in Japan or the Scandinavian countries and many others is different from what it was in 1945 or 1950. One of the problems for British industry has been the high level of defence spending and the way in which so much research and development has been diverted into military needs and requirements rather than peaceful needs or the development of our industrial base. British industry is working with out-of-date equipment because many possible sources of research and development have gone into the arms trade rather than into developing civilian industry. The present problems of the shipbuilding industry have in part been caused by the industry's reliance on defence contracts. The Government should have supported the development of civilian orders and a civilian shipbuilding industry. There are brilliant workers with brilliant skills in the defence industry. I should like those workers to be making bulk carriers, oil tankers and river craft. I do not like their skills being used to develop nuclear weapons or--the current obsession--in the Trident submarine programme.

I wish to mention specifically the issues of Trident and nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have been used twice in war--in 1945, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. People are still dying today in Japan as a result of the fallout from those small nuclear explosions. The airborne nuclear testing that continued for 30 years after those explosions has caused increased radiation throughout the world, which in turn has probably caused a large number of cancers--as many as have been caused by smaller nuclear explosions such as those at Chernobyl and in other nuclear accidents, some of them unreported, around the world.

I cannot go along with the idea that nuclear defence is any kind of defence at all. Bruce Kent made the point once and his audience immediately knew what he was talking about. He said that having a nuclear weapon was like firing a gun in which there were two bullets, the second of which came out of the back of the gun and killed the person who had fired it. There can never be any kind of defence against nuclear weapons. Indeed, the first to fire a nuclear weapon will be the first to suffer as a consequence of nuclear fallout. Yet we are told that, somehow or other, the massive expense on nuclear weapons is a guarantee of peace around the world. It has been no guarantee whatever--28 wars are being fought between nuclear and non-nuclear countries as we speak. They are being fought in many different theatres and scenarios. Nuclear weapons have not sorted out the world's problems, but have resulted in enormous expenditure on research and development capability. The holding and use of nuclear weapons is fundamentally wrong and immoral.

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Hon. Members are asked to approve estimates that include the further development of the Trident nuclear submarine system. Let me cite information that has been given to many hon. Members. The current Polaris nuclear system has four submarines, 16 missiles per submarine and three warheads per missile--a maximum warhead deployment of 192. That makes a total system yield of 38,400 kilotonnes--the equivalent of 3,072 Hiroshima explosions. I remind the House that 60, 000 people were killed immediately at Hiroshima, and probably as many more have died in subsequent years.

We are now expected to support and approve the Trident system. That system will have a total of four vessels, unless someone proposes to build the fifth, sixth or seventh. The total yield per warhead is 100 kilotonnes, and the total system yield is 1,200 kilotonnes--the equivalent of 4,096 Hiroshimas--with a range of 6,000 miles. The Trident submarine system has 512 warheads.

We are entitled to know where those warheads are directed. Who is the enemy apparently threatening this country and requiring us to have 512 warheads that can destroy the world and the people in it several times over? What on earth are those warheads for? Whom are they directed against--Iceland, France, Somalia, Angola, South Africa? Who is the enemy against whom we are expected to defend ourselves with a ludicrous amount of firepower, sufficient to destroy our whole world? The cost of the Trident submarine system is absolutely unbelievable. Every time anyone looks into it, we get nearer to realising what that true cost is. I tend to believe the Greenpeace estimate, which puts the figure at a total of £30 billion, including decommissioning costs.

In my view, we need a policy of arms reduction. We need to end once and for all the holding and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. Anyone who managed to see the "Panorama" programme on the problems of Aldermaston will begin to realise the danger of the manufacture of nuclear warheads to those who manufacture them or live near their place of manufacture--never mind those against whom they might be directed in future. I repeat that we need a programme of arms reduction. We also need a Government-sponsored arms conversion programme. We do not want pressure for increased arms expenditure of the kind that understandably comes from the endless groups of people whose jobs at shipyards, dockyards and factories are threatened because of the changes in defence priorities and who have been offered no alternative work by the Government--from people who themselves know that such an increase is neither necessary nor wanted. We need a Government- sponsored arms conversion agency that can put those people's skills to better use.

I believe that the British Government and others are promoting the arms trade. At the beginning of my speech, I mentioned the arms sold to Iraq, to Indonesia and to bloodthirsty dictatorships all round the world as a result of the British Government's obsession with and heavily subsidised expansion of the arms trade. British industry is falling behind because of the emphasis that has been placed on military rather than peaceful developments. Why cannot the shipyards produce vessels of peace rather than weapons of war?

Let us take a look at what is happening in the world--at the causes and the basic problems. Wealth is being transferred at an unprecedented rate from the poorest to the richest people and countries in the world.

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Environmental destruction is continuing at an unprecedented rate. Are we seriously approving the expenditure of nearly £24 billion on arms this year at a time when a quarter of the world's population is on the brink of starvation and when life expectancy in a third of the world is rather less than two thirds of the life expectancy of 75 or so that we enjoy in this country?

Why on earth cannot we look towards the real causes of conflict in the world--the imbalance of wealth and power, resources and health resources, life expectancy, education and many other things? We should be using the opportunity afforded by changes in the world to support the principles on which the United Nations was founded--to identify the basic causes of conflict and to try to end armed conflict. Nuclear weapons provide no solution to any of those problems.

Let me quote from a briefing that the Quaker peace organisation was kind enough to send me :

"In these changing circumstances we suggest it might be helpful to look at security in a different way and consider how one country is not made more safe by its ability to threaten another because these are threats to our common security. In the future wars may arise from a number of sources, in addition to those noted above, and we must consider how to create common security in the face of these threats : economic problems ( maldistribution of resources globally, between north and south as well as east and west poverty, starvation, debt environmental problems (climate change, deterioration in life systems such as soil and water), global resources scarcity"-- a major factor in the Gulf war--

"political oppression and human rights abuses"--

which receive scant regard from the Ministry of Defence and the arms manufacturers, who are happy to sell arms to Indonesia and similar regimes- -

"terrorism, crime and disease."

We are on completely the wrong track. We should look to develop peace in the world, and to develop and support peaceful institutions, rather than arming ourselves for conflicts in order to maintain the unfair economic relationship between north and south. We should be using this opportunity to rid ourselves once and for all of the scourge of nuclear weapons and the threat that they constitute to the whole of humanity.

6.8 pm

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Wealden) : I hope that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) will acquit me of any charge of discourtesy if I do not follow or try to rebut his argument. I have heard it before. I know that he speaks with great conviction, and I have no doubt that, over the years, he has totally convinced himself that he has the right answers. He has so far failed to convince Conservative Members. No Government in the western world would espouse his view, and an increasing number of those in his party oppose it. I am sorry that I cannot continue further, but I would rather return to the mainstream of the debate, which is not really about nuclear weapons.

I start on a rather sour note. I address my remarks not to the Ministry of Defence but to the way in which we conduct our affairs. It is no good our debating estimates that were published over a year ago when we know that, in a few weeks' time, we shall have another lot. It is like trying to guess what this year's train timetable will be by looking at last year's Bradshaw. That is about the size of it.

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The speeches by Ministers so far have been reasonably comforting. Of course, there is a promise of better things to come, so Opposition Members had better be careful what they say. They know very well that the Government are far better at handling defence than the Labour party is because they have a united group behind them--except in one area where Back Benchers and Opposition Members continually voice the criticism that we are in danger of spoiling the efficiency of our armed forces by too big a downward pressure on our defence expenditure. That has been the theme of most of the Back-Bench speeches on Thursday and so far today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) was concerned about the level of expenditure. He talked about the trooping of the colour and the battalion of the Coldstream Guards walking into the sunset, leaving just one battalion. He also mentioned the overstretching of resources, as did the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor), who was concerned about the enormous strain on families as a result of having to undertake too many emergency tours.

My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) struck a strong chord with many Conservative Members when he said that there was no longer really effective combined training in our armed forces, and that the first three exercises carried out in a base training camp in Canada--with the generosity and help of the Canadian Government--were a fiasco because all were conducted without infantry. Military commanders will echo some of those points.

My right hon. and hon. Friends must realise that on the Back Benches today there is a remarkable number of hon. Members, some quite new to the House, who are extremely well informed about what is happening in our armed forces. Not all of us agree on the question of the overstretch of resources because of one big difference lying behind people's judgments. I am not asking the Government to spend more in such financial circumstances. I do not think that that is possible, and I understand that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Mr. Hamilton) said, it is unrealistic to expect it. We spend on defence about the same as France and Germany spend and there is nothing special about Britain that should lead us to insist that the Government should do more.

The disagreement lies in the extent to which we believe that we face a greater threat than we did before the end of the cold war. One of my hon. Friends said that he did not see any great reduction in the threat from the Warsaw pact countries. I disagree. There is a marked decline in the threat, but I shall not elaborate on that view because I think that it is shared by many hon. Members on both sides of the House. On the other hand, it is no good kidding ourselves ; the criticisms about the strain and overstretch of our armed forces are valid and therefore we must reach some conslusions about how we will be able to meet those strains.

We on the Back Benches must insist that, at the very least and beyond any doubt, the Ministry of Defence will resist and continue to resist any further pressures on the defence budget. We do not believe that our armed forces, and especially the Army, will continue to be able to discharge their current duties at the standard we have come to expect if there is a further downward pressure on our already stretched budget. Of course, we recognise that

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during the interim period, when the strain is especially harsh, the garrisons in Hong Kong and Belize will be withdrawn. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster, the Chairman of the Select Committee, was opposed to that, but as long as we maintain the training, I think that it is fine. I do not see why we must have a premanent occupation of those areas--perhaps the RAF have a different view, judging from the faces of my hon. Friends.

If we understand the realities of finance and that the threat is not as great as it was, it is no good bleating from the Back Benches for the Government to hold on to everything and not withdraw from Cyprus or some other place. That is not fair and it is not common sense. That is one area in which I may differ in emphasis from some of my hon. Friends who have been critical of the stress that is put on the armed forces as a result of the downward pressures on the budget. However, I have no doubt that, unless we stick strongly to the policy that I asserted a moment ago, we shall concede that we can spend less, which will lead to the structure and morale of our armed forces falling apart.

What can we do in the meantime? My hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement has told us that he gets better value for money. There are signs that that is happening through competition. Savings cannot wholly be ascribed to the fact that the percentage of the budget that is spent on equipment has declined. My hon. Friend would argue that his economies have been a result of his being able to get better value for money. However, there are undoubtedly pressures on procurement.

There is one area in which we can take some more imaginative steps, which were signalled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State on Thursday. He referred to the reserves and he said that he expected to come forward later this year with a programme which would make it much more possible for the reserves to be used, by calling out whole units at a time, in a more productive and useful role. I am sure that that is right because it would give the reserves a sense of purpose. As we all know, the first priority of defence is defence of the realm. There is no real threat to the United Kingdom right now.

We have a highly professional Army which, in too many cases, performs duties that do not need to be performed by people with such high skills. It is imperative, therefore, that we should welcome, as I did on Thursday, the first step taken by my right hon. and learned Friend when he said that we should see whether we could have volunteers who would volunteer to serve in a Territorial Army unit on peacekeeping duties overseas. He was not suggesting sending them to Bosnia and getting into that sort of ball game. He was suggesting something less intense and less dangerous than that, which would release highly trained troops.

I rashly jumped to my feet and said that I was sure that such a step would be widely welcomed by both sides. However, when I looked at Opposition Members, I saw that they were very po-faced. The hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) said that he would have to reserve his judgment on that and that he would give us his opinion today. I should welcome his comments.

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Dr. Reid : I know that the hon. Gentleman would expect the courtesy of a reply to that specific point. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Martlew) said that we should, of course, wish to see the small print. We welcome the general principle of integration of the Territorial Army into operational duties, although we share the view expressed by those who warned about having to volunteer twice. It is sufficient that a person volunteers once for the Territorial Army. On the second occasion, he should be called up. He should not be asked to run the risk of losing a job or a home by volunteering a second time.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith : I do not know how the hon. Gentleman can talk about someone having to volunteer for a second time. Either he volunteers or he does not. I do not see anyone volunteering twice. He can volunteer for a company, as suggested by my right hon. and learned Friend, which he knows before he volunteers will discharge overseas duties. That is a very simple proposition.

What I did not like about some of the feelings expressed in reaction to my right hon. and learned Friend's initiative was the idea that we would try to get infantry on the cheap. That is an old argument that has been brought out in every generation by some Regulars. The more enlightened understand what we are about. Some argue, "Oh my golly, that is money that would otherwise go to the Regulars. It is going to the TA." That is why they do not want the TA to take a more prominent role. I doubt whether that view is strongly held today by our enlightened military leadership. However, that was the little murmur that went round our Back Benches on Thursday. I stick to my guns. I believe that if we are to be realistic about defence, we must be more flexible. It is no good our asking the military to be flexible unless we have political flexibility. I welcome my right hon. Friend's suggestion.

I would like to consider briefly a subject that was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King). I will deal with the point rather more quickly than might otherwise have been the case because my right hon. Friend covered the ground extremely well. However, there are certain differences of emphasis. There is no area in which our armed forces have displayed their skills so apparently to the world as they have done in Bosnia. They have also displayed their skills elsewhere in other peacekeeping duties--for example, in Cyprus. Those tasks place enormous strains on our soldiers who face intense provocation. They demand courage and cool judgment when the moment comes for our soldiers to take firm military action.

It is not a criticism of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to say that the UN cannot discharge its functions efficiently. Dr. Boutrous Ghali, the Secretary-General, as good as admitted that in "Agenda for Peace", which was a good document. The Secretary-General is aware that the new international context makes demands on the UN which have become increasingly burdensome. For example, many countries do not pay their bills.

The Secretariat has been called upon to engage in fact-finding, observation, mediation, peacekeeping and peace enforcement. I am sure that we are all familiar with the comments of the first UN commander in Bosnia, the Canadian Major General Mackenzie, who complained

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about the lack of 24-hour, seven-day service from the United Nations. He said something like, "If you phone on Friday, you'll get the answer when the weekend is over."

Brian Urquhart, a countryman of ours who served so successfully as deputy Secretary-General, put his finger on the matter in an article in the New York Times of 29 December. He argued that the time had come for the UN to see how far it would welcome an overhaul of its machinery. The Secretary- General followed that up by asking all countries to consider taking chapter VII more seriously as that would give the Security Council the option of using military force to restore international peace and security. He said that that would require the realisation of article 43

"whereby member states undertake to make armed forces, assistance and facilities available to the Security Council on a permanent basis."

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater suggested that one way of doing that would be for the UN to have a permanent force in which there would be more volunteers from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and goodness knows where else. That would be a kind of Foreign Legion of the UN. I believe that that suggestion should be studied closely. However, I have strong reservations about such a force. I do not know where it would be based, who would train it and to what standard. As some nations do not pay their bills, I am not sure how that force will be financed or equipped.

I do not want to kill stone dead the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater. We know what line my right hon. Friend is taking and I do not think that he will die at the last ditch in respect of his suggestion. However, as a former Secretary of State, he might believe that a more practical way of dealing with the problem would be to set up with the UN a system whereby it could more easily call on regional frameworks that already existed.

Some of those frameworks are better than others and the best is clearly the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. I have worked for the North Atlantic Assembly for 12 years and I have seen a great deal of NATO, so I am very biased. I believe that NATO is ace. It knows what it is on about and its important feature is that the Americans are right there. If the Americans do not want to send troops on peacekeeping ventures because of the bloody nose that they received in Vietnam, I understand that. However, the Americans have a great military characteristic : they have the logistical capacity to take any number of troops, food and the rest to the four corners of the earth. That is what we need. With its superb record and idealism in international affairs, and with its firm commitment to NATO, America would find that to be a very useful role.

If we do not want our soldiers to spend a disproportionate amount of their time on peacekeeping duties or paying a disproportionate burden for the task, the NATO regional framework can best ensure that we pay our fair share and no more and no less.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir D. Smith) is an old friend of mine and chairman of the Defence Committee of the Western European Union. I do not believe that WEU is a rival to NATO. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington is aware, some NATO circles are not always as complimentary about WEU as I would like them to be

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because they fear that WEU is the forerunner of control by the European Commission and a kind of federal European army. They hate the idea of that.

I know that that is not the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington. However, we know that we must not go through this ridiculous business of duplication and fighting and squabbling. Many NATO countries are members of WEU and they must sort out that problem. The Heads of Government in the North Atlantic Assembly, all of which are members of WEU, have agreed that NATO should be called upon to contribute to global stability. However, the European nation members of NATO should, among their other problems, resolve their problems to avoid the awful duplication that took place in respect of Yugoslavia.

Sir Dudley Smith (Warwick and Leamington) : I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend has said. Does he agree that Bosnia happened, rather inconveniently, two or three years too early? Had it happened in two or three years' time, we would have been much better prepared. I agree with my hon. Friet very carefully and many of us have real anxieties about the European Commission taking over the whole of the defence of Europe.

Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith : I understand that the time was out of kilter. However, we now have time to think and to do something about the problem.

I should like my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to consider the fact that there is money to be made out of anything that involves peacekeeping on a regional basis. As my hon. Friend the Minister will be aware, after the Falklands, many NATO ships come in for special survival training and we are said to run a very good training course. We are paid for that training. If there were a peacekeeping training school, the Brits could be very helpful and provide advice to countries which have not had our experience--and I do not say that with any sense of vanity.

We have a great responsibility to take the lead in these matters. One of my colleagues referred earlier to "punching our weight" when he quoted my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. We can punch more than our economic weight by virtue of our diplomatic skills, knowledge, integrity in public affairs and our economic weight in terms of overseas aid and so on. We want to live up to our responsibilities and we have the public behind us. It is right to affirm and strengthen the observance of civilised behaviour in international affairs and to strengthen the values of democracy. I believe that our country is well up to that task.

6.27 pm

Mr. Gordon McMaster (Paisley, South) : We have heard many endorsements and much praise for our service men who are serving in various parts of the world. I am sure that we all associate ourselves with that praise and endorse those comments.

However, a large body of ex-service personnel who heard the endorsements from the Treasury Bench will find those words rather windy, hollow and little more than rhetoric. I refer to the 26,000 personnel who, in the 1950s,

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were sent to witness nuclear test explosions. It is sad that the defence estimates and Ministers have not mentioned those service men.

In my brief contribution, I wish to ask one very simple question. When are those men, the widows--there are now too many widows--and their families going to get justice? In the 1950s, 26,000 service personnel, many of them young men, were called up for national service and were sent to places such as Monte Bello Island in north-west Australia, Maralinga and Emu in South Australia, and Christmas Island and Malden Island in the Pacific, and 14,000 of them directly witnessed nuclear explosions. Eleven men from my own home town went to those tests. Five of them are now dead, and six of them suffer from some form of illness associated with exposure to radiation. One of them, William Rettie, even had it recorded on his death certificate that the cause of his illness was associated with exposure to radiation. Those men and their bereaved families still await justice.

The Government have long said that there was no case for those men to be compensated. Contrary to the official propaganda films that were made at the time and all the subsequent Government statements, for many of those men no protective clothing, either for their bodies or for their eyes, was issued. In the hot sunny weather, many of them wore shorts, vests and sandals.

Back in 1951, the Ministry of Defence stated in a secret memorandum that it needed to test the impact of radiation on human beings. Those tests, as acknowledged by the memorandum, were as much about testing the effects of radiation on human beings as about testing the effects of the nuclear weapons themselves. The Director of Trials Planning at the Admiralty at the time wrote :

"Ill effects may be long delayed. With any claims for compensation I feel that some formula might be accepted by Ministries which would dispose any tribunal in favour of a claimant."

Sir William Penny went on to state that there was a need for "adequate insurance for participating personnel, especially against radioactive hazards, without undue disclosure to insurance companies."

We know also that, on 28 April 1958, in the Grapple Y test, the second test off Christmas Island, the megaton nuclear explosion was at a much lower height than the officially reported 8,000 ft, and that it happened not five miles out but one and a half miles from the island. We know that there was greater exposure to radiation than has been acknowledged.

Successive Governments have refused to pay compensation. There has never been more evidence available than is available now. The British Nuclear Test Veterans Association, to its great credit, has gathered much of that information. Indeed, the association was founded only about 10 years ago by a friend of mine who at the time was not involved in politics--a man by the name of Ken McGinley.

Ken is a constituent of mine. He was disgusted at the official position of the Government. He has been an active member of the Labour party for some time ; he is now a Labour councillor, and has broadened his activities in relation to helping people. However, his main cause remains the winning of justice for veterans of British nuclear tests.

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Let us consider Ken McGinley's experience. The protection that he was offered when he served on Christmas Island was to cover his eyes with his hands. When the bomb went off, Ken saw the skeleton of his hand. Since then, he has suffered many ill effects which he would not wish to be put on the public record, and he has fought consistently for 10 years to win justice for his colleagues.

Those men know what happened on the island--they were at the tests. Many of them feel that all that they did wrong was to serve their country and obey orders.

The case has been taken up over the 10 years by many people, notably the former right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, Mr. Jack Ashley, as he then was ; the former Member for Sunderland, North, Mr. Bob Clay ; and my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz). It has also been taken up by the hon. Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill) and the right hon. Member for Worthing (Sir T. Higgins).

During that period, the Government have hidden behind the 1988 study by the National Radiological Protection Board, which the Government have always claimed gave no credence to the nuclear test veterans' claim. The report states :

"It is concluded from the study that participation has not had a detectable effect on the participants expectation of life nor their total risk of developing cancer"--

then, almost as an afterthought, it adds--

"apart from a possible effect on the risks of developing Multiple Myeloma and Leukaemia."

That is a matter of political presentation. The report could and should have said something along the lines that participation might have caused death from multiple myeloma and leukaemia, although not from other cancers. That is the real conclusion of the 1988 report. Of course, since then, the Government have said, "Hang on : that report was not conclusive, so we will commission another one, and it will be ready at any time." In fact, on 5 June last year, in reply to a parliamentary question, the Prime Minister said :

"A further report from the NRPB on more recent data on mortality and cancer evidence is expected later this year."--[ Official Report, 5 June 1992 ; Vol. 208, c. 655.]

On 5 June, the report was to come later.

On 29 July, in response to a letter which I wrote on behalf of Mrs. Rettie and her two daughters--as I said, her husband had died--we were told that it would be later still. The most recent reply from the Prime Minister was on 14 May, and he told me that it would be produced later in 1993.

The report is desperately awaited by those men who are dying from the effects of radiation. More important, it is desperately awaited by widows and children who have lost a loved one, and who feel that they are not getting justice from the Government.

Let us compare that with the situation in the United States of America. In 1988, the year in which the NRPB study was published in Britain, the American Government considered what they would do for their veterans. Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia, speaking in Congress, said :

"I think it is time to bring an end to the research and to the injustice and to respond with recognition and compassion to what these people went through in the line of duty. We know enough to act."

When new legislation was announced by President Ronald Reagan, hardly a left-wing campaigner, he said :

Column 69

"The nation is grateful for their special service, and enactment of the law makes clear the nation's concern for their continued welfare."

He said :

"The nation is grateful We know enough to act."

Why is it that the United States of America, with all the research that it has done, has said that it knows enough to act while our Government have continued to stonewall? Men are dead, men are dying, wives are becoming widows, and children are losing fathers, while the Government claim that there is no link with the exposure to nuclear radiation in those tests. Frankly, that argument is believed by fewer and fewer people. The Government's case is becoming less and less credible as more and more evidence accumulates.

I return to the simple question that I want answered : when are those men and their families going to get justice? When can we expect the full publication of the NRPB study? Why have the Government waited and not done the same as the United States has done and said, "Enough research, enough investigation--let's pay just and adequate compensation now"? The motto of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association is

"All we seek is justice."

Let the House give justice to those men and their families. 6.38 pm

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