asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if it is the policy of the United Kingdom to accede to any United Nations convention outlawing the use of chemical warfare.

The United Kingdom is a party to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which renounces the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous and other gases and of analogous liquids, materials or devices. It is also our policy to seek a convention prohibiting the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons, and on their destruction. We put forward a draft convention for this purpose in 1976. We hope that current bilateral talks between the United States and Soviet Union will lead to the multilateral negotiation of such a convention in 1978.