weapons of mass destruction--the full title is almostan adjournment debate in itself. I also pay tribute tomy hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central(Mr. Lloyd) whose comments were helpful and much in line with my own thinking on Pakistan and India. I have a decent knowledge of that subject because of the nature of my constituency.

I have been a member of CND for 41 years. I pay tribute to that organisation and to the European nuclear disarmament movement, which was led with great distinction by Edward Thompson. He write XProtest and Survive", of which I have a copy and which played an important role in making the people in this country aware of the dangers of nuclear weapons. But for the activities of the UK peace movement and similar groups throughout Europe and the rest of the world, including the United States, the US might have supported its foreign policy--particularly in Vietnam--by using nuclear weapons. The Americans had convinced themselves that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the second world war. What kept them from resolving the Vietnam conflict in the same way? I believe that their strong peace movement, about which we have heard too little, played an important role in convincing the US not to adopt the nuclear option in Vietnam.

To demonstrate that I am not stuck in a time warp of 1960s and 1970s politics, I shall turn to more recent aspects of the US war machine. "Master of Space" is the motto of the US Space Command--a joint air force, army and navy command set up by the Pentagon in 1985. In its "Vision for 2020" report, it makes clear its ambition of

General Joseph Ashy, commander in chief of Space Command, said in 1996:

Last year, Kofi Annan urged the United Nations' annual conference on disarmament to

The first secretary of China's mission to the UN, Wang Xiaoyu--my Chinese is not all that good, so hon. Members will have to forgive me if I have not pronounced that correctly--said later in the year:

The track record of the Chinese on human rights is less than wonderful, and I cannot imagine the cultural developments for which outer space could be used--unless it is as some sort of gigantic IMAX screen. However, the Chinese have a clear view that outer space is not there for an extension of the arms race.

Last November, 138 nations voted in the UN General Assembly to reaffirm the outer space treaty and its provision that space

Only the United States and Israel abstained. Lest we entertained any doubt about the Pentagon's position on the subject, Keith Hall, assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space, gave it to us loud and clear:

The US may be reluctant to pay its massive debts to the UN, but there is no problem with cash for research into weapons in space. The budget for Ronald Reagan's star wars, known under the Clinton Administration as ballistic missile defence, has held steady at about $4 billion a year, supplemented by additional, not-very-well-kept-secret billions: last March, Congress approved an additional $6.6 billion. All my information on America's ambitions for weapons in space comes courtesy of Professor Karl Grossman of the State University of New York, who has carried out a massive amount of meticulous research on the subject. His piece for The Nation, 27 December 1999, which was jointly written with Judith Long, graphically illustrates the additional problem of space weapons being nuclear powered:

That is chilling.

Given the highly macho quotes from Pentagon sources, none of us should have been too surprised when, a few months ago, the Senate refused to ratify the international comprehensive test ban treaty. It was suggested that that was more about getting back at the President, post-Lewinsky, than about disagreeing with the treaty itself. Whatever the reason, it is a sad reflection on the thoughts underpinning the politics of what is now the only world power.

I come now to the subject of India and Pakistan and two very sad aspects of their nuclearisation. Last September, I went to Pakistan with four colleagues on a self-financed trip: we saw the appalling conditions in which the vast majority of people there live and visited hospitals and schools where facilities are appalling. I also have first-hand experience from my advice surgeries, in which I talk to constituents who are some of the poorest people in Keighley, which is not a wealthy area. They are from Mirpur, part of Pakistan. Week after week, they send hard-earned money to their relatives in Pakistan, even though they can ill afford to send it; they do so because they recognise how much poorer their relatives are than themselves.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North said, it is extremely sad that Pakistan followed India's example. Pakistan could have gained the admiration of the rest of the world by not following India's example and putting the welfare of its people before nuclear aggrandisement. I condemn India for starting the nuclear arms race on the sub-continent, but I also condemn Pakistan for following its example. During our visit to Pakistan, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and I spoke to many politicians

and political groups. We made it perfectly clear that we thought it an appalling travesty that one of the poorest countries should spend money on nuclear weapons.

If our country helped to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we would not only achieve a more secure future for generations to come, but contribute to the well-being of the millions who are undernourished, the children who are uneducated and the sick who are untreated. By reducing our reliance on nuclear weapons, we could take a lead in the world and set an example, especially for the underdeveloped countries.

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