CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY

Lord Stewart Wood of Anfield House of Lords Multilateral Disarmament debate 24 January 2013
My Lords, there was a time when the ambition to make progress in disarmament was considered a sign of naivete in international affairs. Im pleased to say, as this excellent debate has demonstrated, this is no longer true, and that the commitment to multilateral disarmament is shared by those of all parties and no party. This is as true internationally as it is of the debate in Britain. The ambition (quoting Obama) to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons has in the past few years come to enjoy support from American administrations, both Republican and Democrat; Presidents of the Soviet Union and of Russia; and in the Global Zero campaign, in which members of this House play such a prominent role, it has advocates include a rollcall of distinguished political, military and academic figures from dozens of countries. It is worth reminding ourselves of the case for why multilateral disarmament is so vital to the worlds safety and security. First, because the end of the Cold War marked the expiry of Cold War security doctrines that relied so heavily on nuclear weapons, in particular the American-Soviet deterrence doctrines. Deterrence of course remains crucial, but relying excessively on nuclear weapons to do the deterring is not only more hazardous, but less effective in a world where the threats we face are changing in character where states still threaten, but increasingly not only states threaten. Secondly, the international communitys commitment to multilateral disarmament is the corollary of its determination to prevent nuclear proliferation. Maintaining minimally sufficient arsenals, in an international legal framework that has verified constraints on nuclear weapons, is the only way to combine national security needs with minimising the risks of proliferation. Reversing our reliance on

nuclear weapons globally is integral to preventing their proliferation into dangerous hands. But there is a moral pressure point here too. If we demand that states without nuclear weapons commit to never acquiring them, possessor states have a duty (and a self-interest) in taking the necessary steps towards coordinated disarmament. It is the bargain at the heart of the non-proliferation treaty, and as concerns about North Korea, Iran and nuclear terrorism increase, its logic becomes more not less compelling. My Lords, over the past quarter of a century, Im proud to say Britain has been a leader both in its own unilateral actions and internationally. The UK has eliminated two complete weapons systems. Were the only possessor country to have a deterrent based on just one system. We have reduced the number of warheads by 75% since the end of the Cold War, so that we now have less than 1% of the global stockpile. We have led the way on nuclear security through our Global Threat Reduction Programme, which has helped nearly 20 beneficiary countries so far. We are world leaders in innovation in the development of proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel cycles and in proposals such as a generalizable nuclear fuel guarantee. And I want to pay tribute to this government for continuing our leadership on reducing dependence on nuclear weapons with its decision to reduce the number of operational warheads from 160 to no more than 120, and reducing our overall stockpile to 180. This is a strong moral lead, and it puts the UK in a position to be a demandeur with our allies and beyond, to make real and continuing progress in multilateral disarmament. As Malcolm Rifkind said last year at the Munich Security Conference: momentum is everything. 2009-2010 was in many respects a period of optimism: there was the innovation of the biannual nuclear security summit; a new START treaty between the nuclear superpowers with some concrete progress on limiting deployable weapons; the NPT Review Conference in 2010. But that momentum has now stalled. Optimism about further progress in US-Russia disarmament discussions is hard to find; progress on the outcomes of the 2010 NPT Conference has been limited at best. The attention of the possessor states is rightly focused on the dangers posed by Iran and 2

North Korea, but the price has been a further detachment between the twin goals of nonproliferation and multilateral disarmament. Meanwhile, there is the continuing backdrop of China, India and Pakistan focusing more on expanding and modernising their nuclear weapons capacity than seeking to limit it. It is not our responsibility alone to prioritise regaining this momentum, but it is our responsibility. And with the start of the second term of President Obamas administration, we have a chance to try to restore American focus on this issue as well. So what needs to be done? I think the challenges lie in four different areas, and Id like to ask the Ministers view on what the governments plans are in each. Firstly, we need to restore energy to building the architecture of treaties and regimes that breed confidence, and that attempt to bring as many states as possible into the net of international legal obligations surrounding nuclear weapons, nuclear material and nuclear security. Specifically, we have just under two years to show concrete progress on the range of commitments under the NPT Treaty before the 2014 Prepcom meeting. What are the UKs priorities? The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty still awaits the signatories of eight countries who hold nuclear technology. Key to this is the United States. President Obama has said he will pursue ratification with the Senate. Can the Minister reassure us that we are using our relationship with the White House and State Dept to ensure he lives up to this commitment? And can I also ask the Minister about her assessment of prospects for progress with respect to two other initiatives. The postponement of the Helsinki Conference for a Middle East Zone free of nuclear weapons suggest prospects in this area look bleak, but Im hoping she will provide some silver lining; and the elusive Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, prospects for which should have improved since President Obama reversed the Americans long-standing objection on verification methods, is still a priority. Pakistan

is the stumbling block here. Can the Minister tell us what pressure is being brought to bear on the Pakistani government? Secondly, we need to continue momentum in measures to increase nuclear security. This area is crucial to confidence-building, perhaps more than any other, and is key to unlocking progress on both the non-proliferation and the disarmament fronts. The Nuclear Security Summits cycle has been one of the most welcome developments of recent years. They have led to important first steps in areas such as safe disposal of highly enriched uranium, and there is also a real prospect that by next year the new Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Material will be in force. Britain has led the way in this area in research work, international assistance to other states, and in transparency by opening up to review missions from the IAEA. Can the Minister confirm that the UK is on course to meet its own commitments for the next Nuclear Security Summit in Holland in 2014, and outline what its own agenda for that Summit is? And can we also have an assurance that the UK will fight to ensure that these summits and the pressure they bring to bear on the international community will continue after next year? Thirdly, we need to build on the real achievements of the START treaty signed in 2010 by Russia and the USA in significantly reducing the numbers of deployed strategic warheads, missile launchers and in achieving some progress on monitoring and inspections. That treaty looked for a while as though it might be the prelude to further milestones on US-Russian cooperation on disarmament. Sadly that has not materialised. What does the Minister think is a realistic ambition for Phase 2 of the START process, and how can the UK play a supporting role in helping to bring that about? There is one area in particular where I believe there exists widespread support for a major breakthrough and that is the goal of NATO and Russia removing all tactical nuclear weapons from combat bases on the European continent. Attachments to legacies of the Cold War with little or no credible deterrence capability drain valuable resources from an Alliance facing up to new kinds of threats, such as those in North Africa. The Global Zero Commission, which the Noble Lord Lord 4

Ramsbotham along with Malcolm Rifkind, David Miliband and other leading international figures has supported so vigorously, have called for the withdrawal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe to be the next disarmament priority. Does the government share that view? There are also issues around Britains own deterrent which have been widely discussed today. All countries must ensure that disarmament activity is conducted in a manner that is transparent and verifiable. That is why the previous government initiated its work with Norway on verifiable warhead dismantlement, and hosted the first P5 consultations on disarmament in London in September 2009. The dangers of nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and insecurity around nuclear materials should make us more determined than ever to achieve coordinated disarmament, but they also continue to justify our retention of the minimum capacity needed to achieve our deterrence objectives. We in this party have said that we are committed to examining any new evidence since our review of Britains nuclear weapons arsenal in 2006, and we will consider its findings alongside other studies (such as the cross-party BASIC Trident Commission) to see if there are credible alternatives. That examination should have two priorities: capability and cost. With that in mind, we look forward to the publication of the Alternatives Review, which Danny Alexander tantalisingly said this week will set out a clear, credible, compelling, set of arguments for alternatives to Trident, suggesting there would be 7 or 8 alternatives in the mix. You dont have to be a Kremlinologist to notice that the Conservative part of the government, her part, may not be on the same page as the Lib Dems, extraordinary as that may seem. So perhaps the Minister could clarify just how open she and the government are to alternatives arising from this review. Id also be interested to hear if she agrees with Danny Alexander, who said in the same interview that there are "credible and compelling alternatives" to continuous at-sea deterrence, and for her reflections of what the noble lord, Lord Browne, said on that issue earlier. Lastly, there is a group of more conceptual though equally crucial issues around the doctrines that make up our security concepts. As Henry Kissinger and others have argued, reliance on nuclear 5

weapons in the post Cold War era in the absence of doctrines that are suitable for that era increases the dangers we all face in a nuclear world. In the US context this manifests itself in a debate about increasing warning times to reduce the risk of an accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons, for example. I appreciate the limits to what the Minister can say on UK thinking on these issues, but can she say whether the government is alive to making progress on defence concepts that are less dependent on nuclear weapons, and perhaps whether NATO is planning to address this issue in particular questions around doctrines on declaratory policy, and on transparency and verification in the near future. My Lords, John F Kennedy remarked that The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution... Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us. That was over 50 years ago, at a time in history that now seems a world away. But it was a time that was if anything more ordered in terms of nuclear security than we live in now. The nuclear era in the wake of the Cold War is much more hazardous, more economically burdensome and, to use George Shultzs term, psychologically disorienting. The goal of a world free of nuclear weapons may seem a dim prospect at the moment. But just as the difficulty of preventing nuclear proliferation should inspire us to redouble our efforts to contain the spread of nuclear technology, so the difficulty of maintaining momentum on multilateral disarmament should inspire us to be leaders among nuclear weapons states in the future. ENDS