Lord Garden: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby for arranging this important debate. As other noble Lords have said, the timing is perfect given the launch of the Hans Blix commission report on weapons of mass destruction over the past week. The report analyses the threats from what the commission assesses are 27,000 nuclear weapons still around on the globe, as well as the potential threat from those who wish to acquire such weapons. In a debate of one hour, we can scarcely do justice to the 60 different recommendations made in the report. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government are going to study the Blix report carefully. Perhaps, for once, they might come up with a reply to the report showing how we will take forward those 60 recommendations.
Our minds are focused on the impending crisis over Iran's nuclear enrichment programme and the potential proliferation implications. No doubt we will come back to that in other debates but, as my noble friend Lord Alderdice has highlighted, nuclear proliferation by states has been a relatively slow business. Over the past 60 years, nine states have become nuclear—the big five, India, Pakistan, Israel and probably North Korea. A number—and it is more than just South Africa and the three previous Soviet republics—have abandoned their developments along the way to nuclear weapons over the years. We need to remember that the web of arms control measures, although they have not been 100 per cent effective, has played a significant role in constraining proliferation by states.
There is much more that we should do to put new life into the arms control process but it is clear that some of the major players currently lack commitment. This is evident not only in the extraordinary increase in nuclear weapons spending by the United States; I was in Paris last week listening to the French proposals for new systems and a new doctrine which run counter to the aims of the non-proliferation regime.
However, the dangers from nuclear proliferation are now as much about the possibility of both fissile material and expertise being transferred illegally for either financial or ideological reasons. Despite the benefits that the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, saw with nuclear power, it does of course release yet more fissile material to be used illegally. This raises the small but finite possibility of non-state actors gaining access to nuclear weapons. Few experts believe that it is likely for the foreseeable future that it will possible for such groups to manufacture a fission bomb from scratch. The problem arises from access to ready-made weapons—or to highly enriched uranium—that have already been produced by states.
The source of these risks is very clear. Since 1995, the IAEA has maintained an illicit trafficking database, which records 662 confirmed incidents of theft, 18 of which involved highly enriched uranium or plutonium, including a few cases involving kilogram quantities. Both the United States and Russia still have a large number of nuclear weapons, as we have heard, and an even larger stockpile of material that they need to safeguard. Russia has a particular problem in safeguarding old tactical weapons which may not have the permissive action links that would lock the weapons. There is also a particular worry, which we have not heard so far in the debate today, about Pakistan's weapons. We are aware that some of the extremist terror organisations operate illegally from within Pakistan and that the country has suffered instability in the past.
But no nuclear weapon state can be complacent. Are we certain that United Kingdom weapons and materials are properly defended? I do not expect the details to be released into the public domain, but Ministers need to keep a regular check that standards are being maintained as we go down the route of more contractorisation and outsourcing of the public sector. Have we taken into account the lessons we learnt from Libya—now well documented—in terms of how the AQ Khan network operated, and have we put the appropriate countermeasures in place?
The WMD commission report rightly states that we require,
In my view, the UK has got a good story to tell in terms of observing its NPT and other arms control obligations. I look to the Minister to tell us what proposals the Government have to take forward the arms control agenda from this position. In particular, what will the Government do to get movement on bringing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force and to negotiate a fissile materials cut-off treaty? Will the Government push for a global treaty to assure non-nuclear weapon states against threats of attacks by nuclear weapons? These negative security assurances can reduce the incentive for proliferation. Finally, will the Government back the commission's call for a world summit at the UN on disarmament, non-proliferation and terrorist use of WMD?