asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs why Her Majesty's Government did not support the recent proposals at the United Nations for a freeze on the manufacture and deployment of nuclear weapons.

Freezing the production and deployment of nuclear weapons would remove much of the incentive for the Soviet Union to agree to recent United States proposals for cuts in nuclear weapon levels. It would also freeze the current imbalances, including the massive Soviet superiority in intermediate range forces. A separate objection was that the proposals made no adequate provision for verification.