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Nuclear Proliferation

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby for obtaining this important debate, but I hope that it is a taster for a more full-length debate in your Lordships’ House. This is a matter of enormous complexity and importance. It would not be right if all our consideration was confined simply to this dinner hour. It is really only possible to deal with a very limited number of issues. I shall focus on a strategic question, which I hope that the Minister will be able to answer. From the beginning 60 years or so ago, there were two approaches to nuclear proliferation. One was associated in the minds of the public, I suppose, particularly with the names of Einstein and Szilard, the two scientists who spoke so much not about just the scientific aspects of the problem but also the political problems. Their view was that the whole community of nations had to come together to address nuclear proliferation. It was perhaps best put politically by President Eisenhower in his 1953 ““Atoms for Peace”” speech at the United Nations. He said:"““But the dread secret, and the fearful engines of atomic might, are not ours alone . . . the knowledge now possessed . . . will eventually be shared by others—possibly all others””." Therefore, the multilateral approach that developed from that, of which the NPT is the most significant element, was an understanding that you cannot stop the knowledge indefinitely: you have to concentrate on co-operation and persuasion, and make available to all countries that wish it the civilian developments of nuclear energy, and encourage that. The positive thing is that while physicists such as the eminent Dick Wilson at Harvard would say now that in 1946 they thought that by now there would be 100 nations with the bomb, of course there is less than one-tenth of that. That shows a success on the part of the NPT. Of course, the lack of success was more in the hands of the ““haves”” than the ““have nots””. It is very worrying that the other strand of opinion about nuclear proliferation and how to deal with it, associated perhaps particularly with the name of General Leslie Groves who headed the Manhattan project, was that the United States had to make sure that no one could get the hold of nuclear technology unless they were an ally of the United States. Civil use could always progress into military use. Although that view took a back seat for a long time, one senses that it never died away completely and in recent years it has begun to come forward again in the American mind and thinking. I say that because one has noted a number of comments of this kind and can see the different approach to Iran and in the way the 2006 US national security strategy worryingly undermines the other element of NPT—not only the side saying that everyone should have nuclear technology for civilian use but also the commitment of the ““haves”” in the form of the nuclear powers, that they would never use nuclear military power to blackmail those who do not have it. But when we have a doctrine of pre-emption—if a terrorist attack was made on the United States using a dirty bomb, the US would feel able to pre-empt and respond to such an attack against any country which it felt might be associated with it. Of course, the people of the Middle East and, with all that has been said about Iran, feel particularly vulnerable. In fact, sometimes I think that the big message of the Iraq war for any country on the other side of the argument from the United States is: get a bomb and there is a fair chance you won’t be attacked. Certainly that is the message I hear from people in the Middle East. If Saddam had really had a bomb, he would not have been attacked. That leads me to the strategic question to put to Her Majesty’s Government: which of these strategic approaches is now being adopted? Is it the multilateral approach which says that everyone should have the option and that those of us who have the military technology will, along with others, negotiate to reduce it while encouraging everyone towards the practical civilian use of nuclear energy at a time of increasing difficulties regarding energy supplies, or do we find ourselves pulled towards what I have described as the Groves doctrine, that it is only our allies we can trust with the technology because it can always be used for military purposes? The reason for concern about this is because when considering Iraq, the argument heard in your Lordships’ House went something like this: ““Well, they have WMD””. Later it became, ““Well, they have WMD programmes””. The next argument was, ““Well, they have the technology to develop WMD—covert programmes””. Finally the argument became, ““Well, they have the people who know how to do this””. I fear that we see the same kind of argument beginning to develop over Iran and nuclear technology. ““They have got it””. ““No, they haven’t got it but they do have programmes to develop it, which is urgent””. Of course, Mr Negroponte recently remarked that it may not happen for 10 years, but they have the people who could do it if they really wanted to. That is a very dangerous argument. Indeed, I was particularly concerned when the Foreign Secretary, the right honourable Margaret Beckett, commented that there are ““two paths ahead”” and that:"““We urge Iran to take the positive path and consider seriously our substantive proposals””." That, I presume, is the multilateral approach of talks. But the Foreign Secretary referred to two paths. The suggestion that Her Majesty’s Government are beginning to tinker with what I have described as the Groves understanding which now informs some senior people in the US Administration is worrying. I therefore seek the noble Baroness’s reassurance that that is not a strategic shift on the part of Her Majesty’s Government and that we will have a serious debate and discussion within our scientific and political communities and in the community at large over how to address this seriously deteriorating situation.