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Global Security (Non-Proliferation)

With the leave of the House, I thank the Minister for his detailed response and all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. I thank the Minister for his kind remarks about me. I would not have been able to play the role that I have in the Committee over the past five years without the co-operation and dedication of a number of colleagues, not least the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) and the staff of the Committee, who also need to be praised for their work. I also place on the record my appreciation of those officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with whom the Committee deals. They have been consistently helpful in response to the requests for information that we regularly make and in the correspondence and deadlines that we give them. I have two other points. The first is the problem of the transition between this Parliament and the next. In previous international conferences, from time to time Members or former Members of both Houses have played a role in parliamentary delegations, assisting as part of a UK delegation to disarmament negotiations. It may not be impossible for some former Members of this House or the other place to assist during the transition period, and I hope that that can be borne in mind. Finally, I place on the record my great sadness at the death of Michael Foot. I was in Brussels last Monday and Tuesday with the Foreign Affairs Committee at the UKRep offices, and on Monday evening I went to the Grand Place in Brussels. When I heard of Michael Foot's death yesterday, I looked at a photograph on the wall of my office. It is a picture of Michael Foot and me in the Grand Place in 1982. We had been attending a meeting of the Socialist parties from NATO countries that were campaigning against cruise, Pershing and SS20 missiles. This is an apposite moment to draw attention to that, and to hope that the non-proliferation review conference goes some way further towards the goal that Michael Foot had and his aspiration for a world without nuclear weapons. Question put and agreed to.