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Foreign Affairs and Defence

My parliamentary neighbour is very kind, but I will have to deny her the pleasure of listening to me for very much longer. I want to conclude with a point that I made during an intervention on the Minister, and that is the issue of the non-proliferation treaty review conference that is going on in New York at present. That was a landmark treaty achieved during the cold war in which we talked clearly about the long-term proposal for the five declared nuclear weapon states to disarm. It has to be welcome; it has to be a good thing. That was its long-term objective. Because of the existence of that treaty, it has been possible to say firmly to other countries that were thinking of developing nuclear weapons that they should not do so. It has had considerable effect. There are some estimates that as many as 25 countries would have developed nuclear weapons by now had it not been for that treaty. But to achieve success requires a clear statement by the Government. I welcome the fact that the Queen’s Speech said nothing about developing a new generation of nuclear weapons. I wish that it had said that there would be no new generation of nuclear weapons, but at least by not saying the opposite it gives that possibility. I have received reports about the NPT conference—I must declare that I am a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and that I have been a member of CND for as long as I have been a member of the Labour party, which is since the age of 16—and I shall quote from the comprehensive overview of the situation released by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed el-Baradei:"““as long as some countries place strategic reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, other countries will emulate them””" and"““we cannot delude ourselves into thinking otherwise””." We would do well to recognise Mohamed el-Baradei’s wise words. I have received a report about the unfortunate news from New York:"““The US has refused to accept the inclusion of any reference to both the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conference. This means reneging on a significant step made at the 2000 Conference when the UK and the four other declared nuclear weapons states gave an ‘unequivocal undertaking to work toward the total elimination of their nuclear weapons’ and the 13-point practical step agreement to achieve that goal””." When the BBC’s ““Newsnight”” programme interviewed the Prime Minister, I was disturbed to hear him say that we must retain our nuclear deterrent and that we have had an independent nuclear deterrent for a long time. I question the use of the word, ““independent””, in respect of the British nuclear deterrent, but we clearly possess nuclear weapons. We should strongly support the NPT process and recognise that Trident must not be replaced by a new generation of nuclear weapons. As Trident ceases to be operational, we should stop living with nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have not brought peace to the world, because they take up a lot of resources and present the danger of proliferation. The Government’s approach to Iran, which involves a troika talking to the Iranian regime, is welcome and helpful, and I hope that it continues. If we transmit positive signals through our participation in the NPT review conference, it will help to bring about the possibility of wider nuclear disarmament, which we all want to achieve. Many tens of thousands died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the only use of nuclear weapons in wartime. Surely we can take a step forward on the 60th anniversary of those events by saying that we will get rid of nuclear weapons worldwide and by setting the example of getting rid of ours. This debate comes at a very important time. We live in a world in which serious wars, which are currently occurring in Iraq, Colombia and the Congo, are a danger. Wars occur because of competition for resources, poverty, nationalism and other reasons. We cannot say that we live in a world of peace, when, as I have said, so many people live in desperate poverty. We live in one of the richest countries in the world, and surely it is up to us to do all that we can to eliminate poverty around the world, to promote peace through disarmament and to recognise the need for justice. We should bequeath those changes to future generations, rather than bringing up a new generation on a diet of weapons of mass destruction, war and conflict.