I beg to move, That the Chairman do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Biological Weapons Bill ought to be read a second time. The Bill is concerned with the Biological Weapons Convention. Britain signed that convention on 10th July last year. We are what is called a depositary Power of the convention. Article 4 of the convention obliges us to take measures to prohibit and prevent persons from engaging in activities forbidden by the convention. There are no such provisions in United Kingdom law at present. There is a gap, and the purpose of the Bill is to fill that gap.

It may help the Committee if I first describe the history of the Biological Weapons Convention. Under the Labour Government and the present Government, Britain has played a large part in the story. In 1968, Britain tabled a working paper at the 18-Nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva. Our paper called for the early conclusion of a new convention to ban biological methods of warfare, that is, germ warfare and related activities.

Our purpose was to separate biological warfare from the intractable problem of chemical weapons with which it had previously been linked. The 1925 Geneva protocol had already referred to biological weapons. It prohibited the use in war of gas and analogous substances and devices. It also banned the use of bacteriological methods of warfare. Our proposal in 1968 was not intended to supersede the Geneva protocol, but to supplement it by prohibiting not just the use, but the production and possession of biological agents for hostile purposes.