HC Deb 27 February 2002 vol 380 c1312W
Llew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proposals the Government are planning to put forward to the preparatory meeting of the non-proliferation treaty review in April, in respect of the management of(a) surplus stockpiled fissile material and (b) fissile material obtained from decommissioned nuclear warheads. [36468]

Mr. Bradshaw

The UK continues to support the statement in the final document of the 2000 nonproliferation treaty review conference that one of the practical steps for a systematic and progressive effort to implement Article VI of the treaty is … arrangements by all the nuclear weapons states to place, as soon as practicable, fissile material designated by each of them as no longer required for military purposes under IAEA and or other relevant international verification and arrangements for the disposition of such material for peaceful purposes, to ensure that such material remains permanently outside military programmes.

The UK has already placed the vast majority of the fissile material it declared under the Strategic Defence Review as no longer required for defence purposes under Euratom and IAEA safeguards. The UK has also indicated its readiness to contribute £70 million over 10 years to support the US/Russian plutonium disposition agreement, under which each side will dispose of 34 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium.

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