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Global Security (Non-Proliferation)

I am not sure whether another negotiating forum would help us; I would need to be convinced of that. We said in our report that there are loads—too many—disarmament forums around the world. In their response, the Government did not agree, but setting up another talking shop is not what we need. We need concrete action to ensure that existing conventions and treaties are complied with. Most importantly, under article 6 of the non-proliferation treaty, the declared nuclear weapons states agree to act in good faith to secure real measures of nuclear disarmament with an aspiration for total global nuclear disarmament. That should be upheld, and in that context I was encouraged by President Obama's speech in Prague last year. I was also encouraged by the report in the International Herald Tribune on 2 March, two days ago, about Obama's commitment to move towards significant reductions in the US nuclear arsenal. There were earlier reports in February of tentative moves towards a possible agreement between the Americans and the Russians on strategic arms reduction. According to my information, there are still large arsenals of such weapons, and both the Americans and the Russians could make very deep cuts in their strategic arsenals without moving away from a nuclear deterrent policy. Russia could retire some old and dangerous systems that are probably unusable. We therefore have the prospect of deep reductions, which would go a considerable way towards strengthening the argument against those who believe that this is an unequal treaty and that the nuclear weapons states have failed to comply with their aspirations. However, there are complications to the US-Russia relationship. First, the Russians have adopted a new posture that defines NATO as the main enemy. Members of the Committee were in Brussels last Monday and Tuesday, and we heard about that in some detail during discussions. Russia says that its main enemy is not terrorism, Islamist fundamentalism or climate change—although one would not expect that from the Russians—but NATO. That sits oddly in the context of the new opening up of dialogue and potential agreement with the Americans. Secondly, there is the question of missile defence. At what point does missile defence become an obstacle to further nuclear weapons reduction? President Obama and Vice-President Biden have changed the American position from that of the Bush Administration and taken a new approach. Instead of having anti-ballistic missiles in Poland to shoot down nuclear missiles, and radar in the Czech Republic, that completely different approach will now focus on southern Europe—Bulgaria and Romania—and on putting missiles in the Arab Gulf states to defend against a potential Iranian nuclear weapons programme. At one level that is worrying because it almost implicitly states that the route of disarmament and sanctions will not necessarily stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. It also means, however, that it cannot be argued that such measures are in any way directed against the Russian strategic nuclear arsenal. Russia's nuclear arsenal is not based anywhere near the Caspian sea, and it is likely that the Russians will take a different approach to such matters. If the ballistic missile defence model grows during the next phase—rounds two, three and four—it could potentially become global. In those circumstances, the American offer to the Russians of a co-operative relationship with NATO on such matters is vital. The last thing we want is an anti-missile arms race alongside a nuclear arms race, or for measures that stop further nuclear arms reduction to come about through the ongoing negotiations. I will conclude with two or three other points. The Committee made a number of recommendations, many of which the Government agreed to. However, some recommendations were not agreed to, and I want to touch on a few of those points and press the Minister on them. It is important that we get the opportunity to reply to the Government response to the Committee's report. I have already mentioned the first point, which is the sheer number of organisations and initiatives and the need to simplify, rather than complicate, the disarmament process and non-proliferation architecture. Secondly, the Committee was critical of the India-US civil nuclear co-operation deal because we thought that it could undermine the non-proliferation regime by implicitly accepting India as a nuclear weapons state outside the treaty. The Government did not agree with that, but I am not convinced by their response. Thirdly, we concluded that there should be changes and reductions to the operational readiness of nuclear weapons, in order to enhance international security. We also raised questions about the Trident programme, the possible delay in moving towards the initial gate decision and the contribution that holding back on the renewal of Trident might make to the prospects of a move towards negotiation on multilateral disarmament involving Britain's existing nuclear weapons. I would be interested to hear the ministerial thinking on that as we approach the non-proliferation review conference, and in the light of budgetary pressures within the Ministry of Defence. What time scale is envisaged for the renewal of Trident and what will be the implications of that on the number of warheads that we have in the UK? "The Road to 2010" document touches on that issue, and the written response to our recommendations referred to the Prime Minister's statement about a potential move towards having three submarines rather than four, or to having submarines with fewer missiles. The current Trident submarine has 16 missiles, and that number could be reduced to 12. Although I accept that we have made moves over the past decade, I would be grateful if the Minister told us whether the Government have any thoughts about what additional moves Britain could make to further progress towards international nuclear disarmament.