§ Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton)I am pleased to have this Adjournment debate on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The treaty was signed in 1968 and we ratified it in 1970. Now, 155 member states are signatories to it. It is reviewed every five years and there is a major re-examination after 25 years.
That major re-examination is due in 1995. There are preparatory meetings going on ahead of that re-examination conference and the first one takes place on 10 to 14 May in New York this year. That is one of the reasons why I have called for a debate on this subject. We must start work for significant progress not only at the preparatory meeting but at the 1995 conference. The 1990 review conference failed because it did not reach a consensus on the final document. The main area of contention was nuclear testing. I shall say more about that later. However, we cannot afford another failure in the treaty as we approached 1995.
The use of nuclear weapons is the ultimate amorality. The examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the mass slaughter there should never be forgotten. Nuclear proliferation greatly increases the risk of nuclear war, but it is not just those states on the verge of getting nuclear weapons but the nuclear weapon states themselves that are the cause of worry. In the late 1980s, there were about 60,000 nuclear weapons in the world.
There were some achievements, some arms agreements, which we all welcomed. We welcome the intermediate nuclear force and strategic arms reduction agreements between the then Soviet Union and the United States. However, those agreements are quite small when set against the number of nuclear weapons to which I have referred. START is not due to be completed until 1998, but the nuclear warheads covered by that agreement do not have to be destroyed—merely withdrawn or stored. There is evidence that some of them are simply being recycled.
Some of the threshold states are already over the threshold for nuclear weapons. Israel is seemingly an undeclared nuclear weapon state, but I have seen reports that it has 200 to 300 nuclear weapons. In a recent statement, President De Klerk said that South Africa had made six nuclear weapons. The odds are that South Africa has made many more than that. India, Pakistan, Brazil and Argentina have probably made nuclear weapons and we know that Iran and Iraq have been trying to make them. The threshold states have probably increased their capacity to make such weapons because of the biggest event in recent years—the disintegration of the Soviet Union. That has created a series of new nuclear weapon states and has resulted in the selling of expertise and materials to states such as Iran and Iraq.
Events in North Korea have also prompted me to seek this debate. On 11 March, North Korea announced that it was leaving the non-proliferation treaty. That is an appalling precedent and we should urge action to stop Korea doing so. It signed the NPT in 1985, but it has been treated as an outcast, put out in the cold. As a result, North Korea does not respond to diplomatic and other pressures. It was silly to stop all aid and diplomatic recognition, because it has meant that we cannot use them to apply pressure. We should consider restoration of 761 assistance or at least welcome North Korea back to the international fold. However, we should certainly not do that as a response to North Korea leaving the treaty.
North Korea has said that it does not believe the statement by the United States that it withdrew all its nuclear weapons from South Korea in 1991. There should be a detailed inspection to make sure that those weapons were withdrawn and North Korea should be invited to take part. We must exert maximum diplomatic pressure to persuade North Korea not to withdraw from the NPT. A stick and carrot approach should be used; there has been so much stick that we now need a little bit of carrot.
The non-proliferation treaty was very much a bargain between the nuclear weapons states and the non-nuclear weapon states. That was well described by Lord Plant of Highfield, when he said:
the NPT involved a bargain under which they"—that is, the non-nuclear weapon states—would forfeit their rights to acquire nuclear weapons in return for the nuclear weapon states engaging in a process of nuclear disarmament."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 March 1993; Vol. 544, c. 383.]That was part of the bargain, but there are four other aspects.Arms control negotiations to reduce the world's stock of arms and to end nuclear testing were expected of the nuclear weapon states. Security assurances for the protection of the non-nuclear weapon states against attack by nuclear weapons have been given. Free access to nuclear power for peaceful purposes was also expected. The non-nuclear weapon states thought that they were receiving those benefits under the terms of the non-proliferation treaty. There is a clear perception that the nuclear weapon states have reneged on those agreements, are reluctant to give up their nuclear weapons and have not done enough to disarm.
I mentioned the INF and START agreements, but there has been little control of nuclear weapons. Proliferation must be viewed in two ways. There is horizontal proliferation, the spread of weapons to new states, and vertical proliferation, which is a qualitative and quantitative increase in the possesion, manufacture or deployment by an individual state. In terms of vertical proliferation, Britain comes off badly: Trident is a blatant example. Trident has 512 targets, whereas Polaris had 64. That is an eightfold increase. It is capable of 4,000 Hiroshimas, whereas Polaris was capable of 400. That is an appalling example of proliferation.
§ Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley)Is it still Labour policy to continue with the Trident submarines but not to arm them?
§ Mr. CohenLabour's policy is well known. My view is that there is an overwhelming case for getting rid of Trident.
Another example of vertical proliferation in Britain is the thermal oxide reprocessing plant programme for a huge increase in the production of plutonium.
When does the United Kingdom propose to become involved in arms control and disarmament negotiations? The non-nuclear weapon states have a right to ask that, because there has been no such involvement over the 14 762 years of this Government. That is a scandal. Britain is a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, of which article VI is a key component. It states:
Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.That is what Britain signed up for, and if we cannot go all the way towards eliminating nuclear weapons, we should at least enter negotiations leading towards that goal. By any standards, we are clearly in breach of article VI and it seems that the United Kingdom has reneged.I shall now deal with nuclear testing. In the other place on 11 March, the Minister's dad, Lord Hailsham, said that he tried to achieve a test ban in 1963. I congratulate him on that excellent example that he set for his son. The last treaty meeting in 1990 foundered on the issue of nuclear testing, but a comprehensive test ban treaty could be a vital cap on the nuclear arms race.
The preamble to the NPT about a comprehensive test ban states:
Recalling the determination expressed by the Parties to the 1963 Treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater in its preamble to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and to continue negotiations to this end.That was the aim of the treaty.Britain has not participated since 1980 in the negotiations referred to in this preamble. At the United Nations, Britain blocked resolutions on a partial test ban treaty as recently as 1991. That is. a far cry from the Government's attitude in 1980, when the defence estimates stated:
We believe that the proliferation of nuclear weapons would increase tensions, putting at risk international security and stability. The Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in August will be an important event in the continuing search to combine non-proliferation objectives with the widespread desire of nations to enjoy the benefits of nuclear power. Non-proliferation would also be served by a comprehensive ban on testing nuclear weapons, on which we have been negotiating with the United States and the Soviet Union.Clearly, in 1980 the Government favoured a comprehensive test ban treaty. Since then, they have retreated from that position in a mealy-mouthed fashion, talking of a step-by-step approach. What is the first step; what is the last step; what are the steps in between?The United States has passed new laws restricting the number of tests. They do not amount to a complete test ban, but the United States seeks such a ban after 30 September 1996 unless a foreign state conducts such tests thereafter. President Clinton is on record as supporting moves toward a ban.
The Russians have put a moratorium on testing nuclear weapons and have since extended it. France's moratorium is coming up for review. So the conditions are favourable for the British Government to support a comprehensive test ban treaty and I urge them to do so.
An excellent paper on security assurances for non-nuclear weapons powers has been produced by the International Security Information Service, ISIS. The paper states:
Britain undertakes not to use nuclear weapons against such states except in the case of an attack on the United 763 Kingdom, its dependent territories, its armed forces or its allies by such a State in association or alliance with a nuclear weapons state.This shows that Britain's position is not even as good as the former Soviet Union's:Our country declares that the Soviet Union will never use nuclear weapons against those States which renounce the production and acquisition of such weapons and do not have them on their territories.The Soviet Union also added an obligation not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.Even China's position was better than our own:
All the nuclear countries, particularly the super Powers that possess nuclear weapons in large quantities, should immediately undertake not to resort to the threat or use of nuclear weapons against the non-nuclear countries in nuclear-free zones. China is not only ready to undertake this commitment but wishes to reiterate that at no time and in no circumstances will it be the first to use nuclear weapons.So we must improve our security assurances. We cannot give open-ended commitments—they would be dangerous—but we can still improve our assurances to the non-nuclear states.As for free access to nuclear power for peaceful purposes, the perception of the non-nuclear states is that the nuclear states are reneging on their agreement. I have some sympathy with the non-nuclear weapon states on this point, because there is a link between civil and military use and a real fear that this use could spread. If that is the Government's position, they should be open about it and renegotiate this part of the bargain.
There is a great deal to which the Government could commit themselves. First, they should reform and strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency. That authority's current role is to monitor the use of nuclear materials, not the construction of nuclear weapons by other states. As a result, it monitors Germany and Japan for 60 per cent. of its time and Canada for another 10 per cent., the rest of it being divided between eastern and western Europe. That leaves little or no time for the third-world threshold states to which I have referred. That imbalance should be corrected.
The IAEA should have an increased budget, too. I know that the United Kingdom contributes £3.5 million already, but it is well worth giving the authority more resources to help it prevent proliferation. Its policing arm should be strengthened: comprehensive verification arrangements—satellite surveillance, open skies agreements, a seismological network to detect tests, a register of trade in arms and nuclear materials—must be put in place. The authority should have the power of effective inspection.
Hans Blix, director general of the IAEA, said on 21 September last year:
In the past year I have received with appreciation commitments by several States to open any site and any installation to Agency visits, regardless of whether these sites and installations are covered by safeguards. In some instances the agency has made use of such commitments. For confidence building they are of high value—provided that they are fully accepted in practice.This means allowing the IAEA's operations to extend to military as well as civil production, and the Government have been reluctant to do that.I hope that the United Kingdom will make the sort of commitment for which Hans Blix has asked. There should be perferably one body for controlling nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the spread of ballistic missiles, not a patchwork of organisations. It should have 764 powers to promote sanctions against states that are in breach of the rules. It should improve the safeguards for the non-nuclear weapon states and it should impose a global prohibition on nuclear testing.
We also need new agreements on fissile materials production cut-offs—at present the subject of a voluntary United Kingdom/IAEA Euratom safeguards agreement, which unfortunately allows the withdrawal of nuclear material for national security reasons. That loophole must be closed. In the 18 months to December 1987, the United Kingdom made five withdrawals on security grounds. In the 30 months to January 1990, there were 41 such withdrawals—an alarming increase.
We also need a plutonium cut-off agreement. There is no escaping the fact that the United Kingdom needs to make deep cuts and to involve itself in international negotiations for cuts in nuclear weapon numbers—but that should not be used as an excuse for procrastination.
Trident and the tactical air-to-surface missile should be cancelled if we are to achieve a good international agreement on non-proliferation. The United Kingdom seems stuck in the cold war posture still. The Secretary of State for Defence has made statements to that effect. Even Les Aspin, United States Defence Secretary, has said:
Some leaders are undeterred by the threat of retaliation, like Saddam Hussein.Robert McNamara, the distinguished former Defence Secretary under Kennedy and Johnson, has said:Others still believe that the threat to use nuclear weapons prevents conventional war … Accepting this argument means accepting the risk that, if deterrence fails, a nuclear exchange, which would destroy nations, may follow.He has blown up, so speak, the argument that deterrence can still work and that it is enough to rely solely on deterrence.Robert McNamara went on to argue for coercive action against states that do not agree with the nuclear non-proliferation arrangements. I do not agree. Iraq shows that, even if people are killed, dictators can remain in place. The Government have taken the coercive action option without considering what route they should take. The consensus route would be better and at least it should be tried.
I conclude by reading the report of Dr. Boutros Ghali, the United Nations Secretary-General, from 22 October last year. He said:
Now that reductions are occurring, a number of questions assume greater importance".They are relevant to our Government.How could envisioned cuts lead to even further reductions? When will the negotiating process be enlarged to include other nuclear-weapon States"—Britain—and will the parties, having already sharply curtailed their qualitative improvement programmes, finally agree to halt nuclear testing completely? The International community can aim for no less a goal than the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Achieving this goal may take some time. Nuclear technology cannot be disinvented; and there are a host of difficult questions—including issues of stability and verification—which must be weighed carefully. It is my belief, nevertheless, that the full array of hazards posed to humanity by these weapons cannot be adequately dealt with until we have crossed the threshold of the post-nuclear-weapon age. In this context, a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing would be a significant step leading to the goal of the elimination of all nuclear weapons.The Government should set forth down that road.
§ Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on securing this debate and on getting extra time for it. This is an important subject, which he has spent much time and energy pursuing since becoming a Member. His work and unswerving commitment to the cause of nuclear disarmament should be put on the record.
I approach the subject from the point of view of an unrepentant unilateral disarmer. I do not plan to change my view—any more than my hon. Friend plans to change his—which I have held since I was old enough to become a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and I am now a member of its national council. I say that because principle and consistency in politics are important.
We still have the capacity to destroy the world many times over. I have been reading about the horrors of the atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many of the politicians who took that decision did not comprehend what a nuclear explosion was or the horror that would be meted out to the Japanese people. The bombs that were dropped on those two cities were mere fireworks compared with what is available now., They were tiny explosions compared with the current nuclear capability.
The arms race that developed at the start of the cold war in 1947 or 1948 and the development of the hydrogen bomb and subsequently of nuclear missiles by the Soviet Union, France, China and, we now know, a number of other countries has had a devastating effect on the entire world. That was predicated on the view that the Soviet Union was attempting to invade western Europe, and the United States' view that its duty was to contain the spread of communism anywhere around the world.
The United States adopted a policy of global encirclement of the Soviet Union from the Eisenhower period onwards. The United States still spends 5 to 6 per cent. of its gross national product on arms expenditure. The Soviet Union spent a similar, if not larger, proportion on arms expenditure. As a result, the United States has the biggest ever budget deficit in its history, which has had a knock-on effect on US policies on interest rates and has been largely paid for by low commodity prices in the third world. The third world has, in effect, paid for a large amount of the US arms budget.
The effect of the arms race on the Soviet economy and people was equally devastating. The Soviet system was never capable of meeting the basic needs of its population because of its expenditure on the arms trade. That was the major contributory factor to the break up of the Soviet Union. In a sense, both sides have spent themselves to a standstill on weapons of mass destruction. Although Britain has played a lesser role, it has been a significant and important one.
Technologies that are brilliant in their conception and operation were developed for an entirely negative purpose. Britain was involved in the original nuclear decisions and, to their shame, the 1949 Labour Government took part in the development of a British independent nuclear deterrent. In 1979, another Labour Government commissioned the Chevaline project. Both decisions were taken in secret and I suspect that neither of those Cabinets was informed. God knows what other schemes are being dreamed up by other Cabinets around the world as we speak.
766 We must ask ourselves a few important and serious questions. I have tried briefly to explain the results of the arms race, but was it ever necessary? What on earth are these nuclear weapons for and why are the Government so obsessed with the continued holding of nuclear weapons? We had the so-called independent British nuclear deterrent of the 1950s. We then had proliferation into the Polaris system from 1963 onwards—ironically, at the same time as a test ban treaty was being signed—which was followed by the Chevaline project, cruise and now the Trident missle system.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton correctly pointed out, when completed, the four-boat Trident submarine fleet will have nuclear warheads capable of hitting 512 targets around the world at the same time. I ask the Minister, although I do not suppose that he will give a detailed answer, if any answer at all, where those weapons are targeted. Are they targeted on British investments in Russia, Prague, Germany or Hungary, or on Cuba, the United States, France, Africa or Latin America? With a four-boat Trident submarine capability located in the right place, we have the ability to hit targets on any continent in the world. What are these weapons for, and whom are they targeted against?
I return to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton made earlier: a nuclear war is an unwinnable scenario. The Chernobyl explosion, small as it was in the litany of nuclear explosions, succeeded in devastating several hundred square miles of the Ukraine, creating a nuclear pollution cloud all over northern Europe and causing serious pollution and ultimately cancers throughout northern Europe. That was a minor explosion. Think of the consequences of any nuclear exchange. A nuclear exchange is likely to kill as many people from the side that launched it as the side that received it. With a sense of humour, the NATO generals labelled the whole thing as MAD—mutually assured destruction.
We must approach the issue from the point of view that nuclear weapons are immoral. I believe that it is unjust to hold them; it is unjust to consider their use in any way, and we should work for their total elimination. I would approach their total elimination from the standpoint of renouncing entirely the use of nuclear weapons, decommissioning the weapons we have and cancelling the Trident programme. I realise that the last would be difficult. However, by cancelling the Trident programme, we would ultimately free many skilled scientists in British industry to work on more socially useful projects. That would also redirect at least £10 billion of expenditure yet to be spent on the construction of the fleet and, ultimately, an additional £10 billion at least which would be involved in the refitting programmes of those vessels during their expected lifetimes. However, we must also consider the nuclear proliferation treaty and the worldwide proliferation of nuclear weapons.
§ Mr. Nigel EvansWhile other countries possess nuclear weapons, surely this country would be absolutely insane to give away our nuclear defences unilaterally. Does the hon. Member accept that, as nuclear weapons have not been used since the second world war, that shows the deterrent factor of such weapons and that they have proved their worth?
§ Mr. CorbynNuclear weapons were very nearly used in Korea. Only the intervention of President Eisenhower 767 stopped those weapons being used in Korea. His generals were very happy to use them. They would have been used by an allied force, including British, Australian, New Zealand and United States forces, who would have been fried alive because they would have been used against targets fairly close to Korea, as I understand it from Eisenhower's memoirs and from other books written about that period.
The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) asked a simple question. He asked whether it would be unwise of Britain to give up the potential use of nuclear weapons while other countries have nuclear arms. Roughly 180 independent states are members of the United Nations, 90 per cent. of which do not have nuclear weapons or access to them. They are not covered by any nuclear defence arrangements. They manage to survive quite happily and they have not been threatened, precisely because they do not have nuclear weapons.
If we are to begin disarming, we must consider why we have nuclear weapons; what they are going to be used for; whom they are going to be used against; the effect on us of possessing them; and their potential use. From that point, we must consider the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
To make a nuclear bomb and create a nuclear explosion is not particularly difficult. A country with the ability to construct a nuclear power station can also construct a nuclear bomb. Unfortunately, that is not particularly difficult if a country has that, technology. A delivery system is slightly more difficult to produce. However, as we saw with the Iraqi use of Scud missiles during the Iran-Iraq war, it is possible to use fairly conventional rocketry to deliver nuclear weapons. Indeed, the Enola Gay, which dropped the initial bomb on Japan, was an ordinary, conventional bomber aircraft.
We must start from the point of view that it is too easy to make nuclear weapons. However, it is also important to try to stop their proliferation. Proliferation is possible through the use of nuclear power. It is important that we adhere to the United Nations treaty.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton referred to the number of occasions when Governments, including the British Government, have refused access to the nuclear inspectorate. Presumably, the British Government refused access to examine British nuclear facilities because they consider them to be part of the nuclear missile programme, and they, therefore, do not want those things closely examined. I also believe that the expansion of our nuclear fleet to four Trident submarines, with the potential of 512 warheads, is a massive proliferation of nuclear weaponry and very much contrary to the spirit and letter of the non-proliferation treaty.
We know that many states now hold nuclear weapons, partly as a result of the break-up of the Soviet Union, partly because of the recent admission by South Africa that it has a nuclear capability, and because of the virtually confirmed view that Israel, India and Pakistan also have the capability to manufacture nuclear weapons even if they have not yet done so—although we await confirmation of that. North Korea has also, unfortunately, withdrawn from the non-proliferation process.
I hope that every effort will be made to get North Korea back into the non-proliferation process and that the British and United States Governments will adhere seriously to the NPT. If that does not happen, with regional instability in many places, the tactical use of 768 battlefield nuclear weapons will be countenanced. It will then be felt that there is a defence through the wider use of nuclear weapons. I do not believe that.
I believe that the NPT holds out some hope for the world. I want to see a world that is completely free of nuclear weapons. I want to see the removal of all nuclear weapons from this country. I also want the resources transferred to create a more peaceful world in which there is less instability. If we think about it, the basic causes of instability are arguments over resources and over the sharing of wealth, water and food.
We should dedicate ourselves not to a world in which we can kill ourselves many times over, but to a world in which we can feed ourselves. That is why the attitude of the British Government towards the NPT is at best to look at it rather askance and, in respect of the Trident programme, to go completely contrary to it. I hope that the Government will put what pressure they can on the North Korean Government to return to the NPT. I also hope that the British Government accept that they are in breach of the NPT through their development of nuclear weapons.
We need a world that is free of nuclear weapons and of the threat of nuclear weapons. The brilliance and science devoted to creating such weapons and their development should be put to some more useful purpose. When Einstien had completed his work, he realised what could happen to the process that he had discovered. He was horrified and wished that he had not discovered it. However, he discovered that process, and it exists, but there is no future in a world in which we are committed only to the ability to destroy ourselves many times over.
§ 12.6 pm
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg)With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker—
§ Mr. CorbynYes, of course.
§ Mr. HoggI am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) for his kind consent. I am also grateful to him and to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) for participating in a debate of considerable importance.
I hope that the hon. Member for Leyton will accept that the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear weapons is crucial for the maintenance of international security. The attention of the international community is, accordingly, being increasingly drawn to that requirement.
Non-proliferation is not a new objective. However, it has achieved a new prominence with the ending of the east-west confrontation. This is a useful occasion on which to set out some of the Government's thinking towards non-proliferation.
The cornerstone of our non-proliferation policy is the non-proliferation treaty, which provides the regime which is the basis for international consensus against proliferation. Under the treaty, the nuclear weapon states—ourselves, the United States, Russia, China and France—have committed themselves not to transfer nuclear weapons to other states and to work towards nuclear disarmament.
The other parties to the NPT, the non-nuclear weapons states, have undertaken not to acquire nuclear weapons 769 and to sign safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency so that their civil nuclear programmes may be monitored by agency inspectors.
Three major challenges lie ahead. The most immediate challenge is clearly to keep North Korea in the treaty and to persuade it to meet its legal obligations under the treaty. Both the hon. Member for Leyton and the hon. Member for Islington, North addressed that point, and I will refer to it later.
The second challenge is to achieve the indefinite extension of the NPT at the 1995 extension and review conference. That point was also addressed, most particularly by the hon. Member for Leyton. The third challenge, which is no less important, is to strengthen the verification of compliance with the NPT. That is the responsibility of the IAEA.
The treaty came into force in 1970 for a period of 25 years. The 1995 conference will decide by how long and not whether it should be extended. As a co-depositary of the NPT with the United States and Russia, we are already working for an indefinite extension of the treaty in 1995. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Member for Leyton. Many states have already pledged themselves to support that goal, and we will do our utmost to ensure that there is general support for that policy objective.
With 155 states parties to it, the NPT is approaching universality of membership, but there are still 34 states, some of them nuclear threshold states, that are not party to the treaty. A further objective of the policy must therefore be to work to increase the number of states that are parties to the treaty. Good progress is being made in that respect, with, for example, the accession to the treaty of two of the remaining nuclear states, China and France.
Another aspect is verification of compliance with the treaty. The House will know that Iraq graphically demonstrated the problem. It is now clear that, despite being a party to the NPT and despite being subject to a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, Iraq made considerable progress in developing a covert military nuclear programme. We must therefore work to strengthen the safeguards regime administered by the IAEA.
The regime has recently been strengthened by a reaffirmation of the right of the IAEA to conduct special inspections of undeclared but suspect sites. It is necessary that that right is upheld in the case of North Korea. That point brings me to the case of North Korea, which has been highlighted by the hon. Members for Leyton and for Islington, North.
North Korea has been a party to the NPT since 1985. Early in 1992, it signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and inspectors of the agency have conducted six inspections since then. The agency has requested access to two undeclared sites which, on good evidence, it believes to be used for nuclear purposes. The Government of North Korea have refused to grant access to those sites. As the House will know, that led to a resolution of the agency's board of governors on 25 February which called on the Government of North Korea to grant access by 25 March at the latest. The Government of North Korea have refused to do so.
At a further meeting which concluded yesterday, the board passed a resolution referring North Korea's 770 non-compliance with its safeguards agreements to the Security Council of the United Nations, as it was obliged to do under article XII(c) of the agency's statute, and in accordance with article 19 of the safeguards agreement signed by North Korea. We voted for that resolution and we fully support it. We shall now work with fellow Security Council members and others to find a solution to the problem.
Since the non-compliance with the safeguard agreements, there has been another serious development of which the House is aware. On 12 March, the Government of North Korea informed the president of the Security Council of their intention to withdraw from the treaty. It is true that, under article 10 of the treaty, a state has the right to withdraw, but it is required to give the Security Council and others three months' notice of that intention and to state the extraordinary events relating to the subject matter of the treaty which it regards as having jeopardised its supreme interest. We do not believe that that proviso has been satisfied.
The action of the North Korean Government is, I am glad to say, unprecedented. It requires a firm but measured response by all the states concerned to uphold the non-proliferation regime. The objective of the international community is to find a way to persuade North Korea to change its mind, although not at the expense of weakening the NPT or the agency safeguards. In any event—I accept that this is small consolation—North Korea remains bound by its safeguard agreements with the agency for at least three months.
In a joint statement yesterday, 1 April, we and the other co-depositories of the treaty expressed regret and concern about the announcement by the North Korean Government. We have urged them to retract it and to comply with their safeguard obligations, which remain in force for the time being. We have expressed strong support for the efforts of the IAEA to implement its safeguard agreements with the Government of North Korea.
Before I go into the detail of the argument about testing, I intend to make a point that is not always kept in mind by hon. Members who speak about a comprehensive test ban treaty. In many substantive respects, a comprehensive test ban treaty would add little to non-proliferation policy. The NPT prohibits the acquisition and development of nuclear weaponry. By definition, one can test a weapon only if one has acquired it. In respect of non-nuclear weapon states, there would already have been a breach of the NPT if there were testing.
One can judge the strength of that proposition by considering what we know about South Africa or what we judge to be the case of Iraq. The South African Government have said that they did not carry out a test, although they developed nuclear weapons. We have no evidence to dispute the truth of that statement. In the case of Iraq, I am not aware of any evidence of testing. My point is that, in one sense, a comprehensive test ban treaty would not be a substantial and additional safeguard to the regime put in place by the NPT.
I am arguing not that such a treaty would be irrelevant, but that one should recognise that the NPT provides a more substantial barrier to proliferation than a test ban treaty could.
§ Mr. HoggI am glad to see that the hon. Gentleman is fair about this, and that he is signifying agreement. The point is that one can test only if one has a weapon or a developing weapon. Unless one is a nuclear state, one is almost certainly going to be in breach of the NPT before one is in breach of a comprehensive test ban treaty.
§ Mr. CorbynDoes the Minister agree that a great deal of the fallout and pollution in the atmosphere which have developed over the past 30 years has been the result of atmospheric testing? Although there is a different problem with underground testing, there is still a pollution problem. Although I understand and fundamentally agree with the point that there is a difference between non-proliferation and testing, I believe that testing should be stopped anyway because it can encourage proliferation and because it causes pollution.
§ Mr. HoggIt is obviously true that atmospheric testing is polluting and it is good that such testing has been prohibited by international agreement. I do not think that the level of pollution from western tests underground has been such as to cause substantial concern. However, that is not an aspect of the matter on which I have come to speak this morning. Before giving a considered answer to that question, I should need to consider the material a little more clearly.
There have been two previous attempts to negotiate a comprehensive test ban. The first culminated in the partial test ban treaty of 1963, which limited signatories to testing underground—that was the treaty to which the hon. Member for Leyton referred and which my right hon. and noble Friend the former Lord Chancellor had a role in negotiating.
§ Mr. HoggYes, he is colloquially referred to as my dad. I was preserving the customary civilities of this place.
The Geneva negotiations between 1977 and 1980 were the second attempt. Those earlier efforts to achieve a comprehensive test ban were conducted under the shadow of the cold war.
As we all know and welcome, the present situation is very different. The arms race has gone into reverse. The strategic arms reduction talks and agreements between the United States and Russia have resulted in a reduction of deployed strategic weapons to around one third of the 1978 total. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Leyton that the reductions have been insignificant; they are substantial.
772 There have also been wholesale withdrawals of tactical nuclear weapons—a process in which the United Kingdom has played a significant part. Again, I do not agree with the hon. Member for Leyton, who suggested that the United Kingdom Government had not made a significant contribution to disarmament. The facts do not support that argument. As he will know, we have made substantial reductions in our sub-strategic capacity. For example, we have ended the deployment of Lance missiles and of nuclear artillery in Europe, we have eliminated our maritime tactical nuclear capacity and we have reduced by 50 per cent. the number of free-fall nuclear bombs, which is a substantial contribution.
Also, we will keep the number of our strategic weapons under review. However, it is also important to bear in mind the fact that, notwithstanding the reductions under START, the number of nuclear weapons possessed by the United Kingdom is but a fraction of those possessed by other states. While the proportion becomes larger with the implementation of START, it is but a small proportion of the whole.
The Government's view is that we need to retain nuclear weapons, albeit in reduced numbers, and we need to ensure that they are safe. We must therefore review the case for testing against that requirement. It is also true that a comprehensive test ban treaty has remained the British Government's long-term objective. In concert with other nuclear countries, we are reflecting whether it might be possible to bring forward that long-term objective or to abbreviate the timetable in some other way.
I can make no statement to the House other than to say that there has been a change in the international climate. Our long-term objective has been to subscribe to a comprehensive test ban treaty and we must now consider whether we can move more rapidly to the attainment of that policy.
We have considered an important issue of policy and I hope that what I have been able to tell the House has gone some way to reassure Opposition Members, although I appreciate that the hon. Member for Islington, North starts from propositions which he knows that I cannot accept—as does his hon. Friend the Member for Leyton. While I may be able to reassure both of them about specific questions that they raised, I recognise that our interpretation of the need to retain nuclear weapons is quite different.
§ Mr. CorbynYou will come round to it.