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Weapons of Mass Destruction (EUC Report)

My Lords, I came late to the sub-committee that drafted the report on the EU’s policy towards countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction for debate today, joining only when the work was well under way. I therefore hope that without failing in modesty I can pay tribute to the quality of that work, the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, who introduced the report and to the skill and experience of Sir Michael Quinlan, our adviser. As I remarked in a recent debate on the EU’s counter-terrorism policy, counter-proliferation is another area where the EU needs to complement and supplement the work of its member states and to underpin and strengthen the work done at a global level by organisations such as the Security Council, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons and the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention—which latter, incidentally, lacks any international organisation to implement and enforce its provisions, but sorely needs one. It thus makes no sense to consider the EU’s work in this field in isolation, and our committee did not do so, rather situating our enquiry in the context of the ongoing efforts being made by the UN Secretary-General and his high-level panel, on which I had the honour to serve, to reinforce the global regimes countering proliferation—regimes that, as several noble Lords have noted, are under considerable stress, especially following the abject failure of the recent Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to reach any agreed conclusions. The European Union’s counter-proliferation policy we found on the whole to be well conceived but Insufficiently prioritised and inadequately resourced—points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness. It is to be hoped that some of the shortcomings that we identified will be remedied during Britain’s EU presidency. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the debate. We were impressed by the effort that had gone into insisting on including non-proliferation clauses in the European Union’s agreements with several third countries, but we felt bound to say—there have been several references to this—that the real value of such clauses will be tested only if and when problems arise over proliferation issues with one of the countries in question. If the EU can then sustain a firm line—if necessary being prepared to modify or withdraw concessions made on the EU side—the clauses could become of real value in making the common foreign and security policy a major asset to effective multilateralism. If, on the other hand, the political will to take a tough line is absent, the clauses will be just words on paper of no real value in securing the EU’s objectives. The proliferation threats that face the international community are probably more serious now than they have ever been since the time, about 40 years ago, when it was confidently predicted that by now there would be between 25 and 30 states with nuclear weapons. In fact, there are nine. The international inspection regimes have proved their value in Iraq and North   Korea. The threats come both from specific countries—North Korea, obviously and very possibly Iran—and from systemic weaknesses. These include: the slowness of countries in accepting the IAEA’s additional protocol that provides for more intrusive inspection regimes; the difficulty in meshing together the activities of the IAEA and the Security Council; and the failure so far to establish an international regime guaranteeing supplies of low-grade enriched uranium and reprocessing services for countries’ civil nuclear programmes, thus obviating the need for further enrichment and reprocessing plants—the high road to getting nuclear weapons capability. They come also from the ability of those such as Dr   A Q Khan, the former head of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, to outwit controls on components and to run a kind of nuclear supermarket on the side. They come also from the slowness in destroying stocks of chemical weapons and recuperating high-enriched uranium from research reactors. Finally, they come from the absence of any verification regime for biological weapons. Responses and solutions for all of those problems are on the table at the United Nations in the high-level panel report and in the Secretary-General’s proposals for the September summit in his paper, In Larger Freedom. Recently most of them received a welcome boost both in the US Congress Mitchell/Gingrich report, which was commissioned by Congress itself, and by the Gleneagles G8 conclusions. It will be good to hear from the Minister on how the Government, in their dual role of EU and G8 presidency, and as a significant member of the United Nations, will bring matters to the point of decision at the September summit. How will the EU’s extensive network of diplomatic posts be harnessed to the task? Has any thought been given to constituting a group of like-minded countries representing different regions of the world, of which the UK should surely be one, which could give a lead in a situation when the current public impression is more of drift than purposeful progress? There are then the hard cases of North Korea and Iran, on which success or failure could well make the   difference between an unravelling or a major strengthening of the whole non-proliferation regime. The committee recognised that there is not a major role for the EU in handling North Korea, where the lead has to remain with the six-nation group of key regional players. It is very welcome that discussions are to be resumed in that forum, although one can be a little sceptical about the prospects for progress. In the case of Iran, the EU is very much in the front line. The least that can be said is that the outcome of the recent presidential election is not likely to have made it any easier to handle. Much patience, perseverance and determination will be necessary. I continue to hold the view that at some stage direct contacts will be needed between the United States and Iran if Iran’s security concerns are to be addressed. That is essential if there is to be a negotiated outcome. All that may be to no avail, and the matter may then have to be brought to the UN Security Council. In that case it will be of the greatest importance that the EU3 and the US speak and act in unison. Any reversion to the divided councils that we saw over Iraq would be disastrous and will guarantee a drift towards a situation that would be bad for all concerned. There is probably no region in the world that has a higher stake in the preservation and strengthening of   counter-proliferation policies than the European Union. None is more vulnerable, if there were to be a major break-out from those regimes, or worse still, a crumbling of them. The latter, in particular, would bring closer the nightmare scenario referred to by various speakers in the debate, whereby weapons of mass destruction fall into the hands of terrorists. After Madrid and London, we need no reminder of our vulnerability to that threat. I should have thought that a major EU effort in the months ahead is justified to push forward this crucial and difficult agenda. I trust that the Minister will say that that is precisely what we are going to do, and that the omission of counter-proliferation from the list of the UK’s priority objectives for the September summit was an oversight rather than a deliberate policy choice.