A Foreign Affairs Committee

On nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, Committee Chairman Mike Gapes MP said: “The critical threats to international peace and stability posed by the recent actions of North Korea and Iran’s continuing nuclear ambitions are some of the vital issues which must be addressed at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference next year. Although we think that the UK has the best record among them, my Committee concludes that the five recognised nuclear powers are often perceived as a group by the non-nuclear weapons states, and that, as such, the group is seen collectively to have failed to live up to its nuclear disarmament commitments. We further conclude that this undermines prospects for containing nuclear proliferation. We therefore believe that the renewed talks on nuclear disarmament which have been launched recently by Presidents Obama and Medvedev could greatly aid progress at the 2010 conference and hope that they come to speedy fruition. We call on all five of the recognised nuclear weapons states to commit to further progress on nuclear disarmament. We commend the steps that the Government has taken to scale down and deescalate the UK’s nuclear arsenal. We welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement that the new Trident submarines are to carry fewer missiles than the current boats, and we recommend that the Government should do more to highlight this and other nuclear disarmament steps which it has taken.