Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference — House of Commons, 2015-03-09
Topic: Defense
Margaret Mary Beckett (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House has considered the forthcoming nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conference I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this debate, which follows the most recent meeting of representatives of the P5—the declared nuclear weapons states—which took place in London a couple of weeks ago. That was the continuation of a process initiated by the recent Labour Government, and this debate in turn is followed by the NPT conference itself for which, sadly, the ministerial segment will, for the second time in recent years, occur after this Parliament has been dissolved Last Thursday marked the 45th anniversary of the entry into force of the NPT. Designed in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, and on the basis of near universality with 189 signatories, the NPT is a global grand bargain, whereby nuclear weapon states commit themselves to disarming, non-nuclear weapon states agree to remain nuclear weapon free, and all have access to civil nuclear power. This grand bargain has served the international community well for the past 45 years by helping to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, holding the nuclear weapons states to account, and promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy, something which has assumed greater importance as the threat of climate change has called into question the continued use of fossil fuels Since the treaty was signed, global stockpiles of nuclear weapons have fallen by more than two thirds and several countries have given up their nuclear weapons programmes. Unfortunately, the review conference held in 2005 failed to agree a final document, raising concerns about the future of the NPT. Perhaps in consequence, and not long after, an initiative was taken in the United States by two Republican and two Democrat elder statesmen, Henry Kissinger and George Schultz with Bill Perry and Sam Nunn, calling for greater progress from the nuclear weapons states on their disarmament commitments, which the NPT itself urges them to pursue. Following their initiative, I, as Foreign Secretary, gave a speech to the Carnegie international non-proliferation conference in 2007, outlining our Government’s disarmament agenda: our decision to further reduce our operationally available warheads to the very minimum we considered viable to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent; and our commitment to a substantial programme of work, to the practical steps which would be needed to underpin moves towards a world free of nuclear weapons, to working on transparency and confidence-building measures between nuclear weapons states, and, indeed, others, and to the technicalities of verification, particularly methods of verifying commitments on warheads The then Defence Secretary Des Browne addressed the conference on disarmament in 2008 and proposed closer co-operation between the five official nuclear weapons states, including not just regular meetings of Government representatives of the P5, but scientific and technical collaboration and co-operation, and meetings among those scientists. Therefore, when President Obama spoke in 2009 of his ambition to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons, there was growing international political momentum for serious discussion about nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and about strengthening the NPT Following all these events, the four American spokesmen contacted me to press us to set up in this country a group like theirs to continue to address these issues. We set up a group called, rather infelicitously perhaps, the Top Level Group, composed of people of all major parties and none, including a number of former Chiefs of the Defence Staff. The present chair is the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who is in his place More recently, however, the momentum we saw in that period has been waning. This year’s review conference could decide whether that momentum once again gathers steam or grinds to a complete halt, as unfortunately many have come to expect. Many argue that the NPT has been tested to breaking point by failure of the process to deliver disarmament by the nuclear weapons states; by North Korea’s withdrawal from the treaty and its nuclear weapons programme; by the threat of a potential Iranian nuclear capability; and by the fact that nuclear armed countries, India and Pakistan, sit outside the treaty regime, along with Israel, which refuses to acknowledge that it possesses nuclear weapons In 2010, with that momentum for change in the political air, the last NPT review conference agreed a 64-point action plan. Unfortunately, progress on the plan has been limited at best. There was, for example, agreement to hold a conference on a WMD-free zone in the middle east to be held in 2012, a zone which has been long sought and is widely agreed to be desirable. Indeed, the Finnish diplomat Jaakko Laajava was appointed to promote and facilitate such a gathering and has made strenuous efforts to do so over these intervening years. Nevertheless, that conference has not taken place and looks unlikely to occur in the near future Several other key initiatives identified in the action plan also remain stalled, including substantive dialogue between the P5 states. The recent London meeting has resulted in a glossary of agreed terms, but this joint P5 process has been limited in terms of further substantive disarmament efforts. In particular, and sadly, there has been no progress on ratifying the comprehensive test ban treaty or the fissile material cut-off treaty In spite of this, there have been some positive developments since 2010. The US and Russia signed and ratified the new START treaty, limiting the numbers of deployed strategic nuclear arsenals of the two largest nuclear powers, and despite current tensions this treaty still remains in force. The UK has further reduced the numbers of warheads deployed on its submarines; three nuclear security summits, instigated by President Obama, have now taken place; and a new initiative on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons use has seen growing interest and participation from states and civil society.