The British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Television Publications Limited published in September 1985, and the progress made on discussions with the broadcasting organisations arising from the Government press notice dated 11th September 1985.

Official Report, col. 1436) and Lord Glenarthur on 9th July 1985 ( Official Report, col. 182) when they propose to publish the results of their review of shotgun licence fees.

Borstals

• 1980 0
• 1981 1 (0.02%)
• 1982 1 (0.02%)
• 1983 3 (0.02%)

Youth Custody and Detention Centres

Nil in the period 1980–1984.

Figures in brackets represent the number of suicides expressed as a percentage of the average number of inmates in the category for the year.

Figures for 1980–1982 are for all categories of establishment.

Figures for each category for these years are not available.

Figures in brackets represent the number of self-inflicted wounds expressed as a percentage of the average number of inmates in the category for the year.

The above figures include all self inflicted wounds, minor and serious. Figures for serious wounds only are not available.

PROGRAMME

Introduction

1. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, as amended by a 1974 Protocol, allows the United States and the Soviet Union to deploy one static ABM system with up to 100 launchers in defence of either an intercontinental ballistic missile silo field or the national capital. Development, testing or deployment of sea, air, space or mobile land-based ABM systems or components is forbidden although research into such systems is not precluded. If "ABM systems based on other physical principles and including components capable of substituting for ABM interceptor missiles, ABM launchers or ABM radars" are created, there is an obligation under the 'Agreed Interpretations' of the Treaty for the signatories to enter into discussions aimed at limiting those systems.

The Soviet Position

2. The Soviet Union has the only deployed ABM system in the world. It is currently being upgraded and when completed will consist of 100 static launchers sited around Moscow, the maximum permitted under the 1972 ABM Treaty. The system will comprise a mix of the existing GALOSH missiles, which are nuclear tipped and designed to intercept their target outside the atmosphere, and the newer high acceleration vehicles (HAV) which are designed to intercept missiles after they have re-entered the atmosphere. This system will enable discrimination against all but the most elaborate penetration aids and will, when deployment is completed in the late 1980s, provide a limited two-layer ABM defence system around Moscow. The missiles are supported by a chain of early warning radars, and surveillance and target acquisition radars with target tracking and missile control radars in the Moscow area.

3. In addition, the Soviet Union has the world's only deployed anti-satellite (ASAT) system, a space-based orbital interceptor of limited capability. Although operational since the early 1970s, the system has been tested on various occasions, not always successfully, and not since 1982.

Soviet Research Programme

4. An examination of Soviet research programmes indicates that mature research programmes are under way in most of the fields—directed energy weapons, heavy lift space capability, pointing and tracking, surveillance and target detection—which could contribute to a defence capability against ballistic missiles.

The Soviet Response to SDI

5. The Soviet propaganda response to SDI has been outright condemnation, on the grounds that such a system would be destabilising, but it has also accepted that it would have to counter it in some manner. In the most authoritative statement so far, Minister of Defence, Marshal Sokolov, on 4th May 1985, said that the Soviet Union would have no choice but to take "couter-measures" if the US started to undermine the "existing strategic-military equilibrium" by deploying weapons in space. He also acknowledged that the Soviet Union had a military space research programme but said that this was only for perfecting space early warning, reconnaissance, communication and navigation systems.

6. Marshal Akhromeyev, Soviet Chief of the General Staff and General Chervov, a leading arms control spokesman have subsequently elaborated on Sokolov's statements. Akhromeyey said that the "limitation, still less the reduction, of nuclear arms is inconceivable in conditions of the militarisation of space". The Soviet Union would be "forced to build up its own strategic offensive forces, supplementating them by means of defence". Chervov added more detail in a press interview, suggesting that Soviet efforts will not attempt to match the US space-based SDI programme—"we will not ape the US in spending billions on space systems"—but will seek a lower cost solution.

7. An account of the US and Soviet positions on ballistic missile defence in relation to the current Geneva arms control talks can be found in the FCO/MOD Defence and Disarmament leaflets Nos. 16 and 17.

Conclusions

8. Despite its criticism of the US SDI programme the Soviet Union has long-standing research programmes examining new technologies with weapons potential which are generally relevant to ballistic missile defence. The future size and shape of Soviet ballistic missile defence is impossible to predict but current R&D programmes provide capabilities to develop SDI-type systems if required.