On 26 September 1955, Francis John Stephens, Higher Executive Officer at the British Ministry of Defence, sends a note to John Wyndham, Private Secretary at the Foreign Office, in order to brief the delegation working on the French proposals for the creation of a European armaments pool. The British consider the French proposal too restrictive, also stating that the remaining Western European Union (WEU) members are unlikely to support a proposal that does not include the United Kingdom, whereas the French had assumed that the United Kingdom would not participate given its reluctance to join a supranational authority. The British Government therefore proposes a more flexible organisation, which leads to a recommendation from the WEU working group to set up a Standing Armaments Committee.