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[MR. MASON.] peace and stability. We shall have in our minds the decision taken by the Labour Governments in 1968 that our forces should be withdrawn from South-East Asia, and we shall have to take stock of that situation.
Because of the developments since 1968 in our Far East commitments, we attach special importance to early con- sultation with the other Governments in the Five Power Defence Arrangements. At this stage I must inform the House that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will be leaving tomorrow for a first round of consultations with all those Governments.
Visits that I plan to make later this month to Bonn, for a first meeting with my German colleague, Herr Leber, and then to Washington for discussions with Mr. Schlesinger, and the round of NATO and Eurogroup meetings in the middle of June, will provide me with an oppor- tunity to listen and form my own judgment of the importance attached by our NATO allies to the contribution which Britain makes within the alliance.
I am confident that I will find my colleagues sympathetic towards the economic and financial problems which many of us share in common, and a willingness to work out together solu- tions which will make the best use of our collective contributions to the alliance. For my part, I shall assure them that we shall consult them fully at the stage when we are examining all the options that emerge from the review and before we take final decisions.
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I am looking forward in particular to discussing with my European colleagues, particularly in the forum of the Euro- group, new ways in which collaborate to achieve the maximum return in military capability from the resources that we can collectively afford to devote to defence. We have already had some notable successes in this field- the Jaguar aircraft and the Gazelle, Lynx and Puma helicopters, produced in collaboration with the French; tracked reconnaissance vehicles produced with the Belgians; and others that are in the research and development phase of development.
My meeting with Mr. Schlesinger will give me an opportunity to reaffirm the importance attached by the Government
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to our links with the Americans. I think this link is essential for our security. It is also vital to the political cohesion of the West; and political consultation as well as military co-operation forms part of the NATO network. During the Middle East war and its aftermath there was much talk of a crisis of confidence in the alliance. In many ways this was over- dramatised at the time, but, clearly, there were strains within the alliance. The only safe lesson to draw from that time is that consultation in advance is the recipe for unity in emergency.
I think NATO really needs to look at the way it uses its crisis management machinery, and an important task for allied consultation will be to spot potential trouble areas in advance and work out agreed policies on a contingency basis.
The defence review is taking place at a time when Britain and her allies are engaged with the Warsaw Pact and other Powers in major security negotiations- multilateral in the case of mutual and balanced force reductions and the Confer- ence on Security and Co-operation in Europe; bilateral in the case of the United States/Soviet strategic arms limi- tation talks. The agreements which we all hope will eventually emerge could set the pattern for European security for many years to come.
Mr. Ian Gilmour: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us in advance that when he goes to Washington he will tell Mr. Schlesinger that there is no question of the Polaris bases being removed from this country; and when he goes to Bonn will he tell Herr Leber that he has every inten- tion of continuing with the MRCA?
Mr. Mason: The latter point will be covered completely in the defence review, as will the question of the examination of the Polaris bases. Every aspect of our defence activity will be covered in the defence review. I have already told the House in answer to questions that the matter of our seeking to negotiate on Polaris and the Holy Loch bases will take some time. A number of international multilateral and bilateral talks are taking place and they will have to progress before we can enter into talks on Polaris.
The aim of the Western negotiators in MBFR is to rectify the disparities between the conventional forces
forces of
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