Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

1. Whether the UK will be officially represented at the conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons to be held in Vienna in December 2014.

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

The Government have received an invitation to the conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons to be held in Vienna in December. We are considering whether to attend.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I urge the Government to attend the conference and to join the family of nations around the world that supported the previous conferences. One hundred and twenty-eight nations attended the 2013 conference in Norway, 145 went to Mexico earlier this year and the New Zealand Government, on behalf of 155 nations, have urged universal attendance at this conference. They have drawn attention to the first ever resolution that was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1946, which drew attention to the devastating effects of nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare on humanity as a whole. Britain should be there and should not boycott it, as it will apparently do along with the other five permanent members of the Security Council.

[Mr Ellwood]

The House will be aware of the hon. Gentleman’s consistent views on this subject. The goals of the conference are unclear and, consequently, none of the P5 nuclear weapon states has attended the conferences in the past, as he said. We do not believe that a ban on nuclear weapons is negotiable, nor that it would even be observed by many nuclear powers. Even if it could be achieved in theory, in practice the confidence and verification measures that would be necessary to make it effective are not in place.