National Counter-proliferation Strategy

Thursday 24th March 2016 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is today publishing a public version of the national counter-proliferation strategy to 2020.

Following the publication of the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security review 2015 the 2012-2015 national counter-proliferation strategy has been updated to guide the UK’s counter-proliferation activity until 2020.

The overall aim of the national counter proliferation strategy to 2020 is to prevent the spread or further development of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear capability or advanced military technology which could threaten UK interests or regional stability. The revised strategy broadly follows the same lines of action as over the previous five years, but has been restructured and updated to take account of new developments. It focuses UK action around three strands:

influencing the intent of others, as the most effective way of controlling capabilities;

controlling access globally to the materials and knowledge that would allow a hostile state or terrorist group to act on that intent; and

identifying and disrupting illicit attempts to circumvent these controls.

The UK will work closely with allies, deploying our diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement and scientific expertise to tackle these challenges.

The delivery of the counter-proliferation strategy is a cross-Government effort led by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and overseen by the National Security Council.

The strategy will be published on the www.gov.uk website.

[HCWS654]