Of course Fylingdales existed before the treaty, but it is being developed in a way that is incompatible with the treaty. That is precisely the complaint made by the Soviet Government. If the right hon. Gentleman is sensitive about his complicity in the matter, and if he believes, like the Americans, that the Krasnoyarsk radar violates the treaty, let the British Government agree to the Soviet proposal to cease development at Fylingdales, Krasnoyarsk and Thule, which seem to be a perfectly sensible proposal that would not harm Western security and would relieve many people of what I believe to be legitimate anxieties.

If the West is really worried about Soviet research into ballistic missile defence or anti-satellite systems, where in some respects the Soviet Union is further advanced than the United States, it could kill those systems stone dead by accepting a ban on observable tests. None of the Government's excuses for supporting such tests hold the slightest amount of water, since they are fully capable of being monitored.

The strategic defence initiative has become the major obstacle to stopping the arms race. It is widely agreed that it would be possible with existing means to monitor a comprehensive test ban, especially since the Soviet Government have agreed to on-site inspection. But the SDI requires nuclear tests underground of X-ray laser bombs, some of which have already been carried out in Nevada. Mr. Miller, a top scientist at Livermore, has argued in public that even the non-nuclear components of the proposed SDI require testing in a nuclear environment which can be produced only by the explosion of nuclear weapons.

The tragedy is that this opportunity to stop the arms race may be the last unless we can pop this genie back in the bottle now. What must worry many hon. Members is that the major obstacle to a reduction in strategic weapons is the American attachment to the SDI, just as the major obstacle to accepting the Soviet proposal for the zero option on intermediate nuclear forces is the British Government's determination to go ahead with the Trident programme, although there is growing opposition even in the services to continuing that programme, since, as the right hon. Member for Henley will recall, one reason why our forces cannot afford helicopters produced by Westland is that, in a few years' time, 30 per cent. of the new equipment budget will be taken up by Trident.

Her Majesty's Government and the American Government together have erected a massive road block on the way to peace. All this has been compounded during the past few months by the grubby conspiracy of the British Government to encourage British scientists to leave vital British programmes of civilian research, such as the Alvey programme, and work instead on SDI research for the American Government. It is yet another sell-out to American pressure— one of vital importance to the future of British industry.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) will deal at greater length with some problems surrounding the agreement made by the Secretary of State for Defence, which General Abrahamson was pursuing during his recent visit to London. I hope that he will tell us a little more about the agreement, since I understand that he met General Abrahamson yesterday.

The memorandum of understanding that the Government signed with America on this matter is scarcely worth the paper on which it is written, because such memoranda can be overridden at any time by the American Congress, as Congress overrode the wartime agreement to share nuclear technology when it passed the McMahon Act, and as the Americans overrode another agreement when they cancelled the Skybolt project on which an earlier Conservative Government were relying to replace the aging V bombers. As the right hon. Member for Henley may remember, a few years ago, the Americans unilaterally broke the memorandum of understanding to produce an airfield attack weapon, the JP233. Indeed, it may have been before his time. That memorandum was signed by his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym) whom he has joined on the Government Back Benches. They seem to be a depository for former Defence Ministers.

But even if the memorandum of understanding is not overridden by the United States, it is vital that the House should know what its provisions are. We know only one thing about the memorandum: that the former Secretary of State completely failed in his stated objective to guarantee $1,500 million-worth of work for Britain. We must rely entirely on leaks, most of which are coming from the United States. However, some have come from the familiar source—the Department of Trade and Industry —which let it be known during the negotiation of the agreement that it was unhappy about the right hon. Gentleman's failure to obtain satisfactory assurances on intellectual property rights and on technology transfer.

Connoisseurs of British politics will be intrigued by the fact that there was what psychologists call role-reversal on that occasion. The right hon. Member for Henley was trying to sell out to the Americans, and his comrade in adversity, the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, was trying to protect European technology. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that circumstances alter cases, although I found his posing as a great European odd when I considered his record on the memorandum of understanding on the SDI and his position on the purchase of the Trident missile.

We have been told by leaks that the Department of Trade and Industry was immensely unhappy about the provision to enable British scientists to use the knowledge which they acquire in this research and to produce products which can be transferred to other countries in commercial sale.

No information is available to the House about the provisions. There are no military security grounds for denying the House this information, and there is every reason for its having the information. Is it the case, as one of the American leaks has claimed, that intellectual property rights and technology transfer will have to be settled case by case in company-to-company contracts, and therefore the British Government have acquired no guarantees whatever in this field which will protect British interests?

The Government of the Federal Republic of Germany have said in advance— they have not yet signed the memorandum of understanding—that they will not cough up any of their own money. One of the leaks I have read says that Her Majesty's Government have agreed to provide one third of the money for any Government-to-Government contracts from the British Treasury. That is a matter of immense importance to the House. Hon. Members have every reason to be told the truth, yet we are denied it.

We are also told that there are penal cancellation clauses in this agreement in an attempt to bind any future Government to implement its provisions. I am certain that any future House of Commons will demand the same right as the American Congress has often exercised, to override a memorandum of understanding about which it has been given no information whatever.

The central issue on this agreement is a general and simple one. We all know that Britain has a substantial lead over the United States in some of the new technologies, particularly those relating to fifth and sixth generation computers which, it is hoped, will have artificial intelligence and be capable of learning. It is essential—I hope the right hon. Member for Henley agrees, in the light of his recent speeches—that we should use this unique advantage in high technology to build a European base so that Europe can compete on equal terms in these areas with the United States and Japan.

We should not sell out to the United States, and particularly to American defence interests from which there will be only a small commercial spin-off, even if we are allowed under the agreement to make use of the spin-off. I noticed the other day that the assistant head of research at IBM, who can be regarded as a fairly independent authority on these matters, says that the right word is not "spin-off', but "drip-off." The amount of commercial advantage which even the Americans will get out of this diversion of research and development from civilian to military research will be small compared to the colossal resources which it is planned to invest in it.

In an earlier debate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) said that to make these points is not to be anti-American; it is anti-British not to make them. It is time that this Government got off their hind legs and started putting Britain first. The Prime Minister and the Government as a whole have shown a feckless indifference to British interests. That has characterised the whole of their industrial policy, which we have been debating at length in recent weeks, and it threatens the very survival of the manufacturing side of our economy. Feckless indifference to the interests of peace by supporting the SDI is even more dangerous.

I ask the House to vote for the motion. At least it is one means of stopping the sell-out to American pressure which is corrupting every area of our public life, both at home and abroad.