Nuclear Weapons (International Relations Committee Report)

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, like my fellow committee member, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, I start by mentioning that the NPT is almost 50 years old, so we are looking at an anniversary. The committee’s report made clear that we felt that in many ways the NPT has been successful. The report even said that we laud it for the three pillars and the success it has achieved on stopping proliferation, on peaceful use and on disarmament.

This report originated when the committee was looking for future business. We initially thought of doing a short report ahead of the PrepCom and then the RevCon of 2020. We did not necessarily intend to say, “Let’s look at the 50 years of proliferation and non-proliferation”; it was initially to be a short report. However, it quickly became a much longer report—one that has a great deal in it and on which there is, surprisingly, a great deal of agreement, not only among members of the committee but across the Chamber this evening.

Who would have expected the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, to sing from the same hymn sheet? Yet at one point, they did. That is very much in line with the committee’s point about the importance of the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. That has not diminished. That was our starting point and seems something on which we can all agree. Beyond that, there are of course areas of profound disagreement and areas where, if we were looking at a wider range of nuclear issues, there would be less agreement.

As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, pointed out, this has been a sombre debate. Although we might feel that the NPT has been successful in many ways, there are now so many dangers, and the world since 2014-15 has so fundamentally changed, that it begins to feel, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, more like the Cold War than the post-Cold War period. For many years, we began to assume that Russia was, if not an ally, at least a country we could do business with. Since Salisbury and Crimea, that no longer seems the case. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, made very clear, Russia is a serious issue.

One area where the Government’s timely response to the report perhaps does not go far enough is in explaining their view about working and talking with Russia on nuclear issues. The inference from the Government’s response so far appears to be that the only way that the United Kingdom is willing to talk to Russia is through the NATO-Russia Council. Are Her Majesty’s Government willing to think about further talks with Russia on nuclear issues, because they clearly affect us all?

In many ways, Russia is the obvious country to look at and say that we no longer have a great deal of confidence in it, and perhaps no longer trust it, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned, we are in a period where we may be moving from good will to ill will and from trust to distrust more generally. It is no longer just Russia about which we may have concerns, but also our closest ally, the United States.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, in particular, discussed, the situation with Iran is not solely of Iran’s making. The move away from the JCPOA was led by the United States. If the international rules-based order is to have any validity, signatory states have to believe that what they have signed up to will be adhered to. They have to believe that fellow signatories will abide by what they have signed up to. If the United States walks away from the JCPOA, is it any surprise that a country such as North Korea says, “What’s the point in signing any sort of treaty? Do we trust the signatories?” We have to be able to trust our fellow signatories. What are Her Majesty’s Government doing to persuade the Government of the United States, in particular the President, of the need to come back to the table? It is extremely encouraging that the Foreign Secretary is working with the other E3 countries to carry on negotiating with Iran, but we need the US back at the table as well.

That is not the only area. The US and Russia have walked away from other treaties. In Europe, just as during the Cold War, the danger is that the United Kingdom, like other European states, is caught between nuclear powers. If the intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty is no longer relevant, where does that leave us? How much more vulnerable will we become? Where do we think we need to go in terms of our own deterrent and ensuring that we remain protected? After all, a nuclear deterrent was intended precisely to ensure that it would never be used, at least not by being fired. This is an area where perhaps some of those who call for unilateral disarmament say, “But we don’t use nuclear weapons and we never must”. However, their very existence and their deterrent effect are of course vital.

This is one area where perhaps some of us would disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, because during the Cold War mutually assured destruction was something that mattered. Yes, firing a nuclear weapon might be totally abhorrent, but its existence and its potential to create a deterrent effect worked incredibly well. Arguably, it works for India and Pakistan in the current period. What it cannot do, however, as our report makes clear, is deal with some of the new areas of risk and proliferation. This is one of the greatest changes in the post-Cold War era. We face the risk of terrorists potentially getting nuclear capability but, from our evidence, that risk appears relatively minor. What are much more serious, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, are the dangers of hybridity and cyber, and the vulnerability of our own nuclear deterrent.

The Government’s response begins to suggest that there may be a danger from cyber. Can the Minister go a little further in saying whether the Government are willing, as the US Government are, to acknowledge issues about cyber and the deterrent? We are in a dangerous situation, where the demise of the rules-based international order is a real threat. The NPT has been a success so far, but for it to continue to be successful full engagement by all state parties is required, in particular the P5 states, which in many ways have the greatest responsibility.

Perhaps the one advantage of the early general election in 2017 is that for the first time in many years we can assume that the 2020 RevCon will not coincide with one. Perhaps the Fixed-term Parliaments Act means that, unlike those of 2005, 2010 and 2015, the 2020 RevCon will not coincide with a British general election. We hope that means that Her Majesty’s Government will be able to give the meeting their full attention. I hope that the Minister might confirm that whoever becomes Prime Minister next week will give the matter his full attention and ensure that whoever is the new Foreign Secretary—if indeed that position changes—will also be fully committed to the NPT and to the UK’s responsibility in that regard.