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Nuclear Disarmament

My Lords, I join in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on initiating this most important debate. I do not think it is a great secret that he, I and other senior parliamentarians are members of a top-level group committed to promoting multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. His initiative today is a most important step in giving the Government confidence that, as they pursue these most important matters, they have the widest possible support across the political spectrum, and from those of all parties and none, for making progress in this area. Looking at the recent controversy that has broken out in the Ministry of Defence as regards the different armed services, I was very struck by its comment that there is a marked reluctance to recognise that the Cold War ended in 1989. If that is true as regards choice of weapons, it is certainly true in the nuclear field. It is sobering to think that, as we sit here today, between the United States and Russia there 2,000 nuclear weapons on high alert. Nothing seems less relevant to the world situation than that there should be such a nuclear capability on high alert at this time. Members of the group to which I referred have picked up a baton handed on by the initiative in the United States of George Shultz, Henry Kissinger and Bill Perry. I was very struck by the opening sentences of an article they wrote two days ago in the Wall Street Journal. It states, ""The four of us have come together, now joined by many others, to support a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their spread into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately to end them as a threat to the world. We do so in recognition of a clear and threatening development.""The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how, and nuclear material has brought us to a tipping point. We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands"." Is it an exaggeration to say we are at such a tipping point? I do not believe that it is. I was Secretary of State for Defence at the end of the Cold War. I remember almost immediately one development that occurred. I was sitting in No. 10 with John Major, the Prime Minister, and President Yeltsin discussing how we were going to handle the issue of nuclear weapons in parts of the former Soviet Union which were no longer under what had then become Russian control. We offered them assistance in secure transport for conveying these weapons back within the security of Russia. I think Kazakhstan was one of the countries that had nuclear weapons at that time. It was an immediate warning that the end of the Cold War introduced new, more dangerous situations. As I look at the world now, I am under no illusions that this is a much more dangerous time. We have already had the very real risk of a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan and there is concern about the security of weapons in Pakistan. I saw a comment in the newspapers—I have no idea if it is true—that the Americans are already preparing plans for special forces that might need to go in to secure the safety of those weapons if the situation deteriorates in Pakistan. It is a pretty obvious point about the danger and instability of that country at this time. There are also issues that we never previously had to face; for example, the threat of suicide bombers—fundamentalist jihad who do not care about the casualties that they might cause. The bigger the outrage the more success they might attribute to their cause. As well as those situations and the risks of accidental or deliberate use of nuclear weapons, or a miscalculation, there is the possibility of cyber threat and the use of cyber techniques. The noble Lord, Lord Owen, in a most impressive speech, referred to the Israeli situation and that it might deal with the Iranian nuclear threat by cyber attack. New developments pose enormous dangers of one sort or another. They also coincide most awkwardly with the time when many people in the world want to see much greater use of nuclear power. That is a difficult combination to handle. It is against that background that I strongly support the efforts suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay—the importance of the review conference of the NPT and the initiatives that should be taken by the nuclear weapons states at this time for major reductions. There should be strong support for President Obama in the initiatives that the Pentagon is trying to frustrate. I hope he is successful in getting movement in that field. This is a case where the House of Lords has taken an initiative through that of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and I hope that it will be reflected in another place. I hope that the message will then be heard that Britain is prepared to play its part in a most important challenge that the world faces at this time.