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Weapons of Mass Destruction (EUC Report)

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, his committee and their expert advisers on what I think everyone agrees is a powerful and well argued report, which should receive close attention, not only in this House but well beyond it. It deals with potentially the greatest threat to our security, and one would hope it would be considered far more widely, especially in the light of last Thursday’s events. Several of your Lordships have referred to the threat   of nuclear terrorism, and the noble Lord, Lord   Giddens, has just expanded on that by saying that the threat of radiological terrorism is even more imminent. If the perpetrators of last week’s bomb attacks in London could have used devices that would have killed more people, they would have done so. Considering how many people were killed and injured, and how seriously the life of a city can be disrupted with a mere 20 kilograms of high explosive, it is clear that our enemies will do their best to acquire even more destructive weapons. This report should be considered in conjunction with that of Sub-Committee F on the European Union’s response to terrorism, and we should be reviewing that response to see whether it adequately deals with the heightened threat we now face. We should understand the ideological motivation of those who commit these appalling crimes. I wonder whether a better understanding of the intellectual universe that they inhabit would be useful in preventing them from laying hands on WMD or radiological weapons. I believe that it would and that the EU should formally pool its expertise on the subject, perhaps at the European Institute, which already does research in some areas of CFSP and JHA. If the ultimate purpose is the protection of peoples against WMD, as the committee says in discussing the need for better co-operation between the EU and NATO in their non-proliferation strategies, there should also be links between those strategies and their opposite numbers on counter-terrorism. The EU already thinks about the particularly worrying combination of WMD proliferation, terrorism and failed states, as Dr Annalisa Giannella, permanent representative of the Secretary-General on WMD—whose appointment we warmly welcome—emphasised in her evidence to the committee. But it is not clear what institutional arrangements there   are for cross-fertilisation between those areas. The counter-terrorism co-ordinator was mentioned by Chatham House witnesses, although he may have his hands already full with the many European agencies dealing with counter-terrorism. But, as he told Sub-Committee F, the European Council had identified the mainstreaming of counter-terrorism in external relations as one of its five counter-terrorism priorities. That makes it even more necessary to relate policies and actions on non-proliferation to those on counter-terrorism. I should like to ask the Government how they consider that can be achieved. Is it a matter to which they would give priority during our presidency? The committee reported in January. As many of your Lordships have pointed out, especially my noble friend Lady Williams, since then the NPT Review Conference wrangled for a month without reaching any substantive agreement. It has been described as a disaster and a calamity. But the UN Secretary-General says that the treaty faces a dual crisis of compliance and confidence. He has issued a strong challenge to the heads of state and government who will be attending the millennium summit in September to consider the recommendations of the high-level panel which has been mentioned. We were pleased to see that the Government, in responding to the committee, gave answers to all the 18   panel recommendations on proliferation. Most of these of course are addressed to states, but some of them could be made the subject of EU common positions, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall. The committee suggests that the Government should specify what programmes the EU can and should carry out. But I should like to ask the Government, for example, whether we could have a common position on the negotiation of a fissile material cut-off treaty, preferably with verification, but without it if that is the best that can be achieved. Similarly, we say that we are in favour of the scheme that has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord   Hannay, to enable the IAEA to guarantee the supply of fissile material to civil nuclear users removing the incentive to non-nuclear states to develop their own enrichment facilities. Could that also be made into an EU common position during our presidency or are there any other recommendations of the high-level panel that the Minister can mention that could be adopted by Europe as a whole? The EU has already declared its support for UNSCR 1540 calling on states to strengthen domestic protection and export control of WMD-related material, and the policy security initiative designed to prevent movement of WMD material to and from states or non-state actors of particular proliferation concern, including the financing of such transfers. Do the Government think that any practical steps can be taken by the European Union in pursuance of those measures, such as an equivalent of President Bush’s executive order issued on 28 June interdicting certain organisations in North Korea, Iran and Syria, which are considered to be agents of proliferation? If not, how do we apply SCR 1540 to transactions between European companies and the organisations named in the executive order? The Government agree with the Select Committee that close contact and co-operation with the US on non-proliferation is important, and this is a practical test of that principle. What other measures do the Government think should be taken at European level in pursuance of either the SCR 1540 or the PSI? Iran is the main focus of concerns that we have heard with regard to nuclear non-proliferation. Here, I agree with the Carnegie study which was published on Tuesday that we should abandon the use of the term ““weapons of mass destruction””, which conflates different kinds of threat varying enormously in their lethality and difficulty of acquisition. It is nuclear proliferation which is the greatest threat to world peace and security, especially when it applies to a state which is hostile to internationally accepted human rights values and has used terrorism in the past against its opponents throughout the world. The Select Committee rightly emphasises the importance of the EU’s backing for the work of the E3/EU in making the Paris Agreement work effectively. There must be close liaison between the E3/EU and the IAEA, which is still trying to establish the answers to two key questions: the origin of contamination by highly enriched uranium at several sites in Iran, and the sources of equipment and components used in the centrifuge programme. On the political front, the litmus test, according to EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, is whether, following the election of President Ahmadinejad, the Iranians are prepared to take part in the next round of the EU-Iran dialogue scheduled for September. Is a firm date set for this meeting? The Government say in their response to the committee that Iran must provide acceptable objective guarantees that its programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes. What form might these guarantees take, considering that Iran now has the capacity to produce highly enriched uranium, which could theoretically be used in nuclear weapons? Dr El Baradei is due to report progress on Iran in September, presumably at the IAEA’s General Conference which takes place from the 26 to 30 of that month. That makes it too late for the UN’s General Assembly Millennium+5 Summit between 14 and 16 of that month. The summit will have to delineate a policy for dealing with states that violate the NPT, whatever the outcome of the EU-Iran and IAEA-Iran dialogues, because North Korea has already announced that it is no longer a party to the treaty. An enforcement strategy is needed to deal not just with the immediate cases but with what Herman Kahn described as the ““nth country problem”” more than 40 years ago. It was disappointing to note that non-proliferation was not one of the seven priorities listed for the UK presidency under the heading ““Europe’s Role in the World”” in the presentation made by the Prime Minister to the European Parliament on 23 June. And at the G8 summit, no new initiatives were announced to add to those that had previously been agreed at Sea Island, Evian and Kananaskis. The subject was not even mentioned in the Prime Minister’s statement on the G8 summit. Leonard Specter of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey says that,"““within the G8 Summit environment, the degree of high level political interest in  . . . proliferation . . .  may be diminishing””." As an example, very little of the £20 billion allocated to the global partnership for securing Russian WMD assets and know-how in 2002 has actually been spent. I very much hope that on further consideration of what has been said today, as well as of the steadily increasing risk to the whole of the human race of doing nothing, the Government will put the question of non-proliferation much higher on their agenda.