asked Her Majesty's Government:What is the cost of a blood test and of an X-ray for the purpose of age determination, respectively, and whether cost is the only reason for carrying out the one procedure and not the other.

The cost of an X-ray examination for the purpose of age determination is about £4 in Bangladesh and £7 in Pakistan. Conventional blood grouping tests have no place in age determination. Blood grouping tests can however be used in cases of alleged consanguinity to disprove but never to prove blood relationship. The costs of such tests for a child and both parents, assuming they can be tested together, is about £10 in Bangladesh and £5 in Pakistan. The relative costs of the two types of examinations are not relevant factors in deciding whether either type of test might be appropriate in a particular case.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether the United Kingdom has signed the United Nations initiated convention banning the use of weapons which cause excessive damage and which are non-selective and indiscriminative, and whether the convention has been signed by the United States of America and the Soviet Union.

The United Kingdom signed the convention on 10th April, which was the opening date for signature. The Soviet Union also signed. The United States has yet to do so.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether it is true that they are currently providing training for military personnel from both Iraq and Iran, and if so, whether this does not amount to encouraging a war contrary to the real interests of the Middle East, Western Europe and Great Britain.

Some Iraqi and Iranian students are currently under training at service establishments in this country, mainly as the result of arrangements made some considerable time ago. This training is modest in scale and largely takes the form of officer career training. Consequently, it is of no real significance in the context of the war between Iran and Iraq, which we naturally deplore.House adjourned at seventeen minutes before one o'clock.