Foreign Affairs and Defence

Debate between Mike Gapes and Lord Haselhurst

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mike Gapes]

This is not for this debate, but we need to consider mechanisms under which the overseas territories can be involved in the process, whether in this House or the other place. We need to find ways to do that.

In the time left to me, I shall move on to some of the issues that featured in the new Foreign Secretary’s speech. Clearly, we have this week a very important conclusion—or, perhaps, not a conclusion—to the non-proliferation treaty review conference. It has become clear already that the processes to get an agreement are proving difficult. The conference on disarmament, which is chaired by the Zimbabwean UN ambassador, could not reach agreement, and its proposals have now been pushed into the general discussions about the sections dealing with non-proliferation in the plenary. The main reason is that the developing world, in particular, wishes to have a timetable under which the declared nuclear weapons states who are signatories to the treaty will begin the process of taking real measures towards nuclear disarmament. There was no agreement on that timetable proposal, because the United States and France, in particular, did not wish to go down that route, and nor did Russia.

I urge the new Government, in the days that remain, to consider sympathetically how we can assist getting an agreement. It will be a disaster if the 2010 NPT review conference goes the same way as the 2005 review conference. I hope that we can find a solution through Britain, France and the other nuclear weapons states making concrete offers on how they can contribute to the achievement of article VI, under which the nuclear weapons states are to agree to act in good faith to secure real measures of nuclear disarmament. The previous Labour Government did a lot in that way. They did more than any other of the nuclear weapons states, and now we have this new Russia-United States agreement on deep cuts in strategic nuclear warheads. That is very important.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement about the maximum number—225, he said—of warheads for this country. However, I had understood, having read various of these documents over recent years, that it was thought that the UK had nowhere near 225 deployed warheads. We therefore need some clarification. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) said that there might be a case for co-operation between the United Kingdom and France on future nuclear weapons activities. That might be a way forward, leading to an overall reduction in the nuclear arsenals of European signatories to the non-proliferation treaty, which might help in reaching an agreement at either the current conference or a future review conference.

Proliferation generally poses big threats to the world. We have seen what has been happening in Korea this week, and I am not as relaxed as some seem to be that we might not get into a hot conflict between North and South Korea. This is potentially an extremely dangerous situation. Through the efforts of China in particular, I hope that we can find ways to get the six-party talks or some other mechanism to defuse the conflict and show to the North Koreans that this is not the way to behave. Ultimately, however, the South Korean Government are absolutely right to take the matter to the United Nations. They need solidarity and support from the whole of the rest of the world. China is clearly playing a big role in the Korean peninsula. It also plays a big role in the debate on Iran—I do not have time to go into that now—as well as having played a pretty bad role with regard to what has happened in Sri Lanka in the past few years.

This century, and the next decade in particular, will pose big challenges for those of us in Europe, as we adjust to the shift of economic, political and military power from our part of the world towards Asia. We need to handle that shift carefully. In that context, I note that the Foreign Secretary did not choose to repeat the words of the Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, when he sought to justify the retention of British nuclear weapons on the basis of a potential nuclear threat from China. I hope that that is not Government policy. I hope that it was just a slip of the tongue and that we will work in a measured way to have good relations, but also express our view with regard to human rights abuses in China—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)]

Order. Hon. Members must not overrun.