I agree with my hon. Friend. I am particularly worried when a top civil servant, who has been involved in a waste of money, now has a senior auditing position under the Government. He must come forward with results, or some of us will not be very happy.

Let us compare the waste in land and housing with the meanness shown towards war widows. The Ministry of Defence has 16,000 empty houses. Nearly 20 per cent. of its housing stock is empty and a quarter of that has been empty for over a year. Yet Britain has a homelessness crisis. The Ministry of Defence has over £50 billion worth of land. That is at 1982 values and we know what has happened to the value of land since 1982. Prices have rocketed. No one can tell me that some of that land could not be released for homes and hospitals. Yet, far from being satisfied with its existing land holdings, the Ministry of Defence is trying to get more from the National Trust and other owners of beauty spots in Wales and Cumbria.

Another big source of waste is the Falklands, now costing £400 million a year. Some of the money now going down the drain could have been used to resettle those living on the islands. They could have had about £1 million in their pockets and the taxpayers would still have been saved millions of pounds. But the Government have made no attempt to reach an agreement with the democratic Government in the Argentine or to reach a settlement, perhaps one by which those living in the Falklands could have stayed, while we were relieved of that enormous, ridiculous cost.

When hon. Members try to tackle the waste of money they receive an irresponsible response from Ministers. For example, I asked the Government to list all their overspending of £1 million and more. "No way" was the reply, "but we report to the Comptroller and Auditor General when it goes over £250 million." What nonsense, and how irresponsible of the Government not to report to hon. Members when there is overspending on projects. The sum of £1 million is still a sizeable amount.

As I have said, the Ministry of Defence is a pushover for the defence contractors, and it seems to me that it is a pushover for any speculator, to judge from the report about its attempts to move to Millbank. A speculator bought the property just before Christmas for £80 million, and because he could not use it for housing he decided to rent it to the Ministry for £20 million a year. Either there is something corrupt going on in the Ministry of Defence, to help out a speculator who probably helps the Conservatives at general elections, or it is totally incompetent. That money could be put to much better use. That waste must be compared with the appalling meanness to the war widows.

In the short time available to me I want to go on to the question of battlefield nuclear weapons, which very much affects our armed forces. If such weapons were ever used our armed forces in the front line would annihilated. That is why the Germans do not want them; they would be annihilated as well. Even if only one or two of those weapons were used, the rest of us would be irradiated to a much greater extent than happened after Chernobyl. Yet the Government are surreptitiously and stealthily expanding the numbers of battlefield nuclear weapons.

A British American Security Information Council report published this week shows that in the mid-1990s —arising from the Montebello agreement reached four years ago, about which the Government have been extremely disingenuous—there is to be a big expansion, including an increase in the number of battlefield nuclear weapons.

It is worth getting some quotations from the report into Hansard to show how the army, for example, will be affected. Under the heading Short Range Ground Launched Cruise Missile", we read: According to its presentations to Congress in 1986, the US Army is continuing to develop the Joint Tactical Missile System with the US Airforce to be fired from the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MCRS). 'Joint Tactical Missile System (JTACMS) is a deep strike cruise missile being developed jointly with the Air Force. The Army systems 'will be superimposed on the existing MLRS force structure."' The report adds that In 1987 the US Department of Defense sought to lift the Congressional prohibition on a nuclear warhead for the JTACMS, Therefore there will be an increase in the number of those missiles for the Army.

With regard to warheads, the BASIC report refers to the programme called "Follow-on-to-Lance". It says: In 1987 the US Senate lifted its ban on the study of a nuclear warhead for the Army Tactical Missile System … According to Senator Kennedy lifting the prohibition 'allows the Army the possibility of developing a nuclear ATACMS"— army tactical missile system— 'as a potential follow on to the Lance-tactical missile' so as to have more theatre nuclear capability in Europe.

The report also talks about artillery, a matter that directly affects the Army. I wish I could read out to the House the whole of an extensive part dealing with enhanced radiation or neutron weapon capability that could be used in the new artillery warhead that is to be produced. The Americans are pulling the wool over people's eyes, because they define their enhanced-radiation-capable shells and other components as not being enhanced radiation weapons. However, they will have neutron bomb capability in the W82 shell, a 155 mm projectile that the Government are pressing on with.

What we see from such reports is that certainly no reduction in nuclear weaponry is planned, despite the intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement, which gives the impression of achieving reductions. The Government are not interested in reductions. They want to have compensatory measures and much more. They never put before the British electorate that they would have a massive build-up in the guise of modernisation. By the mid-1990s there will be, according to the report, a huge stockpile of about 4,600 new nuclear weapons in Europe, which will enable the Government to get rid of some of the obsolete stock. Those new nuclear weapons will be much more dangerous and deadly in many ways. They will be more devastating and more accurate, but, more worryingly, they will be more usable. That is what the Pentagon report entitled "Discriminate Deterrence" is all about. The International Herald Tribune said of it: Highly accurate nuclear and conventional missiles have reduced the possibility of an all-out Soviet assault in Western Europe but increased the risk of limited nuclear strikes, possibly involving the superpowers in Third World conflicts, according to a Pentagon report.To maintain stability, the report says, the West should concentrate on high-technology weapons capable of delivering surgical nuclear strikes. The Herald Tribune goes on, quoting Mr. Fred C. Ikle,Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy, that: 'Improving U.S. and Soviet ability to knock out military installations with long-range, small-warhead nuclear weapons adds up to the most important military development since World War II…The 30-year revolution in accuracies has more cumulative impact than the initial qualitative leap from conventional explosives to the A-bomb'. The newspaper adds that the Pentagon report says that The West … must turn to those 'politically usable' nuclear weapons". That is the approach the Government are taking alongside NATO and inside NATO, with their change from the more obsolete weapons to the new ones—making them more usable, more likely to be used.

There is another great advantage to such weapons. They are excluded from the arms talks, so the Government can get away with it. If the weapons were ever used it would be appalling for our Army and dangerous to the world, and they are not what the people of the West want in any case. As a first stage we should be going in another direction, guaranteeing no first use of these battlefield nuclear weapons. That would help the mood for a nuclear reduction agreement and stimulate the Soviet Union to make concessions.

Then we should begin negotiations in earnest for battlefield nuclear zero in Europe. We can get an agreement. It would have to be asymmetrical, as the INF agreement was. In the INF agreement the Russians gave more. In this case we would have to give more because we rely more on battlefield nuclear weapons in Europe. We also want them so that we can use them in the Third world. A battlefield nuclear zero agreement could easily go hand in hand with cuts in conventional forces. Again, such an agreement would be asymmetrical, with the Russians giving more. They have offered to give more but, because we are keen on using battlefield weapons, we have not taken those negotiations seriously.

We could get agreement in both spheres with extended joint verification procedures and restrictions on military manoeuvres. Large-scale attacks by either side would be impractical. That would be a major step towards peace. That would be the way to release the vast amount of unproductive resources currently wasted in propping up entrenched military vested interests. Those resources would be released for the worldwide welfare of mankind. That would be far better than the nuclear narcissus approach and the macho military role which the Government so eagerly promote. The Tory nuclearphiliac approach is inappropriate for the real needs of the people.