Orders of the Day — Defence Estimates

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 12 Rhagfyr 1973.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Anthony Kershaw Mr Anthony Kershaw , Stroud 12:00, 12 Rhagfyr 1973

We are not condoning oppression and mis-government any more than the hon. Gentleman did when he sat on the Government side of the House. We deplore it. We have very good reasons, for our own purposes and for the purposes of freedom and democracy, to get on with the Government who are in Greece at present.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about the nuclear alert. He made some rather serious charges about lack of consultation by the United States in putting its forces on a national alert during the Middle East crisis. He was dissatisfied with the method of consultation, both in NATO and nationally. My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have already made the position clear on both points. But, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said, the events of the past months do disclose some weaknesses, and NATO will be looking at its consultation procedures—not, I hope, in a spirit of recrimination but in the constructive manner we saw at the recent meetings in Brussels.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth, West asked about the helicopters for South Africa. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also raised the matter. These helicopters are being supplied in accordance with our legal obligations, which were defined by the Law Officers in the White Paper of February 1971 as including. … such number of Westland Wasp helicopters as is necessary to equip the three antisubmarine frigates supplied under the sea routes agreement with their initial complement (together with reserves) of Westland Wasp helicopters. That is the legal obligation which we undertook. We have talked about it before in this House.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman and the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) discussed the mutual balanced force reductions. I was asked whether it was true that the forces of Western European countries, including our own, are to be excluded from the reductions negotiated in the talks on MBFR in the first instance. Although my right hon. Friend said today that it would not be prudent for details of these delicate negotiations to be revealed and discussed today in the debate, I can give the House an assurance that such reductions of our own forces are not excluded, although our view is that, in the first stage, we should look for reductions confined to the forces of the United States and the Soviet Union.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked about the BAOR units in Northern Ireland. It has been necessary to deploy from BAOR, and at present six major units of infantry, two armoured reconnaisance units and an engineering squadron are serving four-month emergency tours in Northern Ireland. These deployments have been made in consultation with our allies, for whose understanding we are grateful.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley), who has had to leave to go back to the WEU meeting in Paris, made a characteristically interesting and well-informed speech.