Nuclear Weapons

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Miller on asking this very important question.

I speak in a personal capacity about the greatest threat to mankind and the planet: nuclear war. I believe that there are no safe hands for these weapons of mass destruction—not even ours. Global warming is a very major threat, but the threat of any detonation of nuclear weapons is even greater. Yet, despite the lead the UK has shown on the issue of global warming, we are not showing the same leadership on getting rid of nuclear weapons. Of all weapons of mass destruction, only nuclear weapons will kill not just one generation, but kill and maim future generations, resulting in the starvation of 2 billion people, even when used on a small, regional basis, as my noble friend said. It has also been made clear by the Red Cross and the Red Crescent that no medical response to a nuclear detonation would be anywhere near adequate.

It should hardly be necessary to restate that it is illegal to possess such weapons, let alone use them, but that is what the new UN ban treaty seeks to do. In my contribution, therefore, I urge the UK Government to demonstrate by their actions their commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons, which they frequently express to Parliament and at the United Nations. Although the UK is a signatory to the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty, very little progress has been made for five decades on the incremental reduction of nuclear weapons to which the treaty commits us. It is time we did something about that. Indeed, it seems that weapons are proliferating rather than reducing. It saddens me, therefore, that the UK Government refused to sign the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—negotiated by the UN last July—and still seem not to have made up their mind as to whether they will attend the UN high-level conference on nuclear disarmament in May. If not this way, which way?

The new ban treaty lays out a process leading to multilateral disarmament. The conference to discuss urgent next steps will be held in a climate of increasing possibility of a nuclear exchange between North Korea and the United States, or India and Pakistan, or Russia and NATO. There is no better time for world leaders to come together to take nuclear war off the table. The principal aim of the conference is to make progress on effective measures for nuclear risk reduction and disarmament. Membership of the NPT already commits us to that, so we really must take part. If we do not, we will increasingly be seen as out of step with the international community and rejecting the opportunity for global leadership that it presents.

The UK should not wait for other states to take action: surely we should make our own decisions about something as important as this. The non-nuclear countries have shown the way by agreeing the resolution last summer, and many have now signed and ratified it. But without the participation of the nine nuclear countries, the threat—not just of intentional detonation, but of accidental detonation too—remains acute. The presence of nuclear convoys on our roads brings the latter very close to home.

The treaty calls for progress to be made on a global agreement, which would include the nuclear-armed states and provide a phased and verified process for prohibiting and eliminating nuclear weapons. Verification is an area where the UK has considerable expertise to offer, so we should take part in discussions about how this can be done. Such processes have been very successful in reducing the use of chemical and biological weapons, and it is essential that the global community learns from that success in relation to nuclear weapons too. Chemical and biological weapons were banned first and then eliminated, so making them illegal was the essential first step.

Parliamentarians and civil society organisations have called on world leaders to commit to attending the conference at the highest possible level. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly, which includes the Parliaments of France, Russia, the UK, the USA and 52 other members, adopted declarations in 2016 and 2017 calling on member Governments to reduce nuclear threats, adopt no-first-use policies and support UN negotiations, including on the nuclear ban treaty and at the 2018 UN high-level conference. Even though we might be leaving the European Union, we are being told that we will still be in Europe, so there is no reason why we cannot continue to play an active role in this organisation and to support its demands.

Jonathan Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute and UN representative for the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, said recently:

“Nine nations continue to hold the world at risk of nuclear annihilation. Although 120 non-nuclear weapons states have negotiated a treaty to ban the weapons, the states with the weapons remain deadlocked in inertia. It is time for leaders to come together … to discuss measures to reduce nuclear threats”.


So will our Prime Minister attend? Frankly, I would not trust the Foreign Secretary to make a positive contribution, but the Prime Minister might. If not now, when?

While millions starve, over $100 billion per year is spent globally on nuclear weapons, including many millions of pounds by the UK. Personally, I believe that this is a terrible waste because I do not believe that the deterrence principle makes us any safer. On the contrary, possession of these weapons makes us a potential target, as it clearly does for the United States. Certainly the people of Scotland think so, which is why they are overwhelmingly against the location of these weapons on their soil. The money could be better spent to create jobs, support renewable energy, protect the climate and clean air, maintain our conventional defence forces and implement the sustainable development goals.

The ban treaty also has something important to say about the ongoing humanitarian legacy of past nuclear weapons use and testing, and obliges states to provide medical rehabilitation and socioeconomic assistance to those affected by nuclear weapons and to make affected environments clean and safe again. The UK has nuclear test veterans, so I ask the Minister: what are the UK Government doing for them and what contribution are they making to assist victims in other parts of the world? Taking the first steps to engage with the ban treaty by attending the conference is not only compatible with our membership of NATO, the NPT and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, it is a vital step towards fulfilling our legal obligations in relation to nuclear disarmament.

Given the aggressive stance of the current holder of the office of US President, it is time for us, one of the United States’s oldest friends, to show that jaw-jaw is better than war-war by participating in the high-level conference, even as an observer. Even if the other nuclear states refuse to take part, the presence of the UK would prove what the Government have recently been claiming—that even after Brexit, the UK will remain an outward-facing country, engaged with the rest of the world and taking a leading role in efforts for peace. I challenge the Government to prove their claim by attending the conference.