Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI Yearbook 2022: Armaments, Disarmaments and International Security, published on 12 June; in particular, the finding that the global number of nuclear weapons is increasing.

The Integrated Review and its Refresh acknowledge that the security environment has grown more contested and that some states are now significantly increasing and diversifying their nuclear arsenals, contributing to the increase in global stockpiles of nuclear weapons and posing a threat to strategic stability. The UK has achieved substantial reductions in its nuclear weapon stockpile from its cold war peak. HMG believes the best way to achieve a world without nuclear weapons is through gradual multilateral disarmament under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.