I welcome the opportunity to have this debate and hope that at the end of it the Government will give some good news on their future strategy towards non-proliferation. I congratulate the Minister on her appointment and welcome her to the debate.

On 14 March, the House voted on the Trident issue after a long debate. An unprecedented number of Labour Members voted against a renewal of the Trident nuclear submarine system. That reflected public opinion and the views of the large number of people who contacted MPs about the issue. Nuclear arms and proliferation is not a dead issue; it is very much a live one. I want to tease out the Government’s view on the non-proliferation treaty system and what their strategy is leading up to the next five-yearly review in 2010.

It is worth setting out some of the background to the non-proliferation treaty. It was envisaged in 1968 and was promoted by Ireland, among a number of other non-aligned countries, many of which had completely neutral foreign policies. I shall quote from the original documentation. The five declared nuclear weapon states, which were the United States, the Soviet Union, France, China and the United Kingdom, all eventually signed the treaty and agreed that nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices could

“not in any way assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to…acquire nuclear weapons”.

They agreed not to receive, manufacture or acquire nuclear weapons or to seek to receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Some important statements were made and considering the treaty was signed in 1968 at the height of the cold war, it was a seminal document that countries had courage to sign up to.

The second pillar of the non-proliferation treaty was disarmament. The five declared nuclear weapon states were committed to a process of long-term disarmament. That is the heart of the issue: the five declared nuclear weapon states agreed that they would not provide the technology to enable the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the other countries who signed and who were not nuclear powers agreed not to adopt nuclear weapons in any way.

The third pillar of the treaty was the peaceful use of nuclear energy. I am completely opposed to nuclear power because it is dangerous and dangerously polluting, but it is not illegal under the terms of the NPT for a country to develop its own nuclear power industry. That is one of the issues that is at the heart of the current debate concerning relations with Iran.

My hon. Friend and I have slightly different views on nuclear power, but not on nuclear weapons. It has effectively been proposed that there should be multilateral control of Iran’s ability to reprocess material for use in its nuclear industry. If that can apply to Iran, why cannot it apply to every other country, so that we develop the ability of individual countries to use materials, which could be used against the betterment of man, more positively?

Indeed. Negotiations with Iran are based on Iran’s wish to develop its own nuclear power industry and on whether that is a precursor to developing nuclear weapons. Clearly, nuclear power and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked; it is impossible to have nuclear weapons without nuclear reactors and a nuclear power industry, but it does not follow that by having a nuclear power industry and nuclear power reactors we get nuclear weapons. I disagree with my hon. Friend on very few things, but we do disagree on that particular subject. However, I am sure that we completely agree on the issue of nuclear weapons, which is important.

I shall set out what has happened since the NPT was signed. It grew from quite small beginnings, but there is now an impressive list of countries who have signed the non-proliferation treaty. It almost reads—I stress almost—like a list of members of the UN. The list is formidable in every conceivable way and we should be proud and supportive of that. Over the years since the original NPT was signed, countries that have tried to develop nuclear weapons have subsequently renounced the use of nuclear weapons completely. I am thinking, for example, of South Africa, which under the apartheid regime and possibly with the assistance of Israel, tried to develop a nuclear weapons system. There are uncorroborated reports that South Africa may have tried to test such weapons and it was certainly attempting to develop a weapons system. It is to the eternal credit of the African National Congress Government and former President Nelson Mandela that South Africa completely renounced the development, use and consideration of nuclear weapons in any way. We should remember that as one of Nelson Mandela’s great contributions during his time as President. Argentina and Brazil also decided that they would not pursue any nuclear weapons options and a number of the former Soviet republics, particularly Ukraine, have done likewise. That has encouraged the development of nuclear-free zones around the world, particularly in Latin America. There is also an African nuclear-free zone and a developing central Asian nuclear-free zone.

Some countries have developed nuclear weapons and they are either not signatories to the NPT, have renounced the NPT, or never sought to sign the NPT in the first place. One such country is Israel, which it is reported has around 200 nuclear warheads. The reason that we know about Israel’s nuclear weapons programme is that Mordechai Vanunu bravely told the world about it, after which he was spirited out of Britain into Italy. After the revelations that he made to The Sunday Times, he was taken from Italy to Israel where he was tried at a military court. He then spent 18 years in prison as a result, 13 of which were in solitary confinement. When he was finally released from prison, he was put under restrictive powers by the Israeli courts and has now been sentenced to a further period of imprisonment for talking to foreign nationals while living utterly peacefully in Jerusalem. Indeed, I am one of the people whom he has met since he came out of prison. I hope that the Minister will indicate whether the Government continue to think that Mordechai Vanunu should be given complete freedom to travel and to lead a normal life.

Order. We may have to suspend the sitting because there is a problem with the sound. I am now informed that the sound is back on.

It would indeed be a shocking business if there were an attempt to silence a debate on nuclear weapons.

It’s not MI5 is it?

My hon. Friend tempts me down the road of conspiracy theories.

Tragically, India and Pakistan have both developed nuclear weapons. Both have a delivery system and a testing capability and the nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan in 2002 was one of the most serious threats to world peace since nuclear weapons were developed. I hope that India and Pakistan will eventually sign the non-proliferation treaty and undertake mutual nuclear disarmament because their weapons are designed as much to attack each other as anyone else. Obviously, I hope that that happens, but I must say that the existence of nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan is encouraged in part by the rewarding of nuclear technology to India by the United States, after President Bush’s recent visit. If we are serious about the non-proliferation treaty, countries that develop nuclear weapons should not be rewarded for doing so, but should be put under the utmost pressure to undertake nuclear disarmament.

Allegedly, North Korea has also developed nuclear weapons, around which there has been a great deal of publicity. Nuclear weapons were an aim of the North Korean regime, which has carried out a nuclear test, although there are doubts about whether it was a fully-fledged nuclear weapon. Clearly, however, North Korea had an aim and a wish to develop nuclear weapons, which is quite bizarre for a country racked by such poverty, economic difficulties and isolation. It must also be said, however, that the talks with North Korea undertaken very patiently by the six-party group have had a very interesting effect. Only last week, we saw the first delivery of fuel oil shipments to North Korea, in return for which it deactivated part of its nuclear development programme. North Korea is to be congratulated on that, and the rest of the world should use this opportunity to develop engagement rather than hostilities with North Korea, in order to encourage it down the path of disarmament. Surely, that would be a good way forward.

Lastly, I want to mention Iran, which, I suspect, will dominate much of the debate. Obviously, Iran is an oil-rich country and, at the moment, wishes to develop a nuclear power industry so that it has energy supplies for the future. That is its stated aim. I do not agree with nuclear power, but Iran is legally entitled to develop it. It is a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty and is now judged to be in breach of a supplementary protocol, which allows instant inspections of its facilities. As a result, sanctions have been applied and Iran is becoming increasingly isolated throughout the world. The rather bellicose language used particularly by the United States towards Iran is unfortunate and dangerous for the region as a whole.

I share my hon. Friend’s abhorrence of nuclear weaponry and have no time for nuclear power, which, as he said, Iran is in the process of developing. Is it not incongruous that, under the aegis of the United States, the International Atomic Energy Agency has withdrawn from Iran technical co-operation on 55 fronts, which means that it has to turn to other countries for high-class technology and expertise, which might not be up to the standards that we are used to in the west? For example, if those involved in Chernobyl were to advise Iran, would we not have fears about their knowledge not being quite up to the mark? Someone once said of the control room at Chernobyl that it looked like someone had thrown dials into a bag and tossed it against a wall.

My hon. Friend is far more of an expert on this subject than I am, and there is a great deal of merit in what he says. If a country develops nuclear power, but there is an accident or disaster, we all suffer. Nuclear fallout does not respect national boundaries. I can think back to debates in this House after the Chernobyl disaster, when a lot of people happily sat back and said, “Well, it is all the fault of Soviet technology”. The reality was that thousands of people were terminally affected by the fallout—not only those around the plant, but in Scandinavia and, indeed, this country, despite the fact that we are a very great distance from Chernobyl. That is the reality of a nuclear power system failure.

Therefore, if Iran is denied high-quality nuclear technology, and resorts to that which has far less certainty and safety, we are all at risk, not least the Iranian people and those in neighbouring countries. I urge the Minister, in her response, to tell us that the attitude taken—

Order. We have had a request from the sound person: the position where the hon. Gentleman is standing is creating a problem, so will he move to the next microphone? That should solve the problem.

To the left or the right?

I leave that entirely up to the hon. Gentleman.

I can assure the audience that this is a tactical move to the right only.

When the Minister replies, I hope that she will help us on the question of relations with Iran. During the hostage crisis earlier this year, I was quite relieved that the bellicose language used against Iran up until that point was toned down a great deal. In the end, diplomacy triumphed and there was no military stand-off. Surely, that must be the way forward, and I hope that she will tell us that the Government intend to engage with Iran, rather than continually attack and criticise it. I accept that there is much to criticise in Iran concerning human rights and political rights and developments, and it is correct that those criticisms be made, but to start a quasi-military or, ultimately, military conflict would be disastrous for the whole region, particularly given the horrors in neighbouring Iraq.

The hon. Gentleman has secured a very important debate at a key time in our history. Actually, it is a historic debate on a very important question. Does he think that the question of Iran, and of the middle east generally, shows that the British Government and the Americans do not understand the political dynamics in those areas? Is he aware of comments made by the Iranian envoy to the IAEA, Mr. Ali Asghar Soltanieh? He said:

“Britain does not have the right to question others when they’re not complying with their obligations”—

under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Does that not pose an important question?

Indeed. I shall return to the NPT system in a few moments, but yes, that is an important point: we should abide by the NPT, if we expect others to do the same. The other point that the hon. Gentleman made concerning internal politics in Iran is an important one as well. We hear some incredibly simplistic reports of what goes on in Iran, and everything that the President says and the language that he uses is taken as the gospel according to the whole country. It simply is not like that. There are different power centres in Iran; the political President is one, but there are many others. We should try and understand a little bit more about the country. I commend to anyone interested in Iran Rageh Omaar’s films on the BBC about life and attitudes in Iran. It is a huge, proud and important country resting on the Persian tradition, and the simplistic remarks about and attacks made on it do no good at all; in fact, they do a great deal of harm. We should have some respect for the history and position of that country.

The purpose of this debate is to tease out the Government’s position on the development of a peaceful nuclear process. The Government are quite keen, apparently, on developing nuclear power stations. I am not! But in a sense that is a separate debate from the one surrounding nuclear weapons. However, the assertion that we have an independent nuclear deterrent has been questioned by many of us for many years, both in this House and in the wider peace movement in this country. I do not believe that we have an independent nuclear deterrent, but that it relies entirely on technology and information from the United States to be fired or used. In reality, we are a subdivision of the US when it comes to nuclear weapons. However, that does not stop us spending vast amounts of money on our existing nuclear weapons, the development of the Aldermaston facilities and the putative replacement of the Trident system, which could cost as much as £70 billion. That was one of the big issues—it was not the only one—in the debate on 14 March.

I hope that the Government will recognise that if we are serious about our signing of the NPT all those years ago, committing us to long-term nuclear disarmament, as well as committing all those declared non-nuclear-weapon states to not developing such weapons, it is up to us to use this historic opportunity to say that we will go no further with the Trident project and that instead we will accept the terms of the NPT.

I had the good fortune, because I am one of the national vice-chairs of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, to attend the NPT PrepCom—the preparatory committee meeting—in Vienna in April and early May this year, and I did so with great interest. I spoke at length with my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) at a seminar that was conducted in parallel to the conference and I listened very carefully to the statements made by the Russian delegation, the United States delegation, many other delegations, the European Union and the British representative who spoke at the same session.

Let me quote from the statement made by Ambassador John Duncan, the head of the UK delegation to the first preparatory committee. He said:

“Mr. Chairman, you will be aware that at the end of last year we published a White Paper explaining the reasoning behind the UK government’s decision to maintain a nuclear deterrent.”

He went on to explain that the UK Parliament voted to support that decision. He said:

“Firstly, I should make clear what we have decided. The UK has decided to begin the concept and design work required to make possible a replacement for our current ballistic missile submarine fleet; and to maintain the option of using the D5 missile beyond its current life expectancy.

This does not mean that we have taken an irreversible decision that commits us irrevocably to possessing nuclear weapons in 40 or 50 years’ time. Indeed, our White Paper is clear that the UK remains committed to the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons.”

The next part was, to me, the most interesting. Ambassador Duncan said:

“Mr Chairman, some suggest that it is hypocritical for the UK to maintain its nuclear weapons while calling on others to desist from their development. Let me make clear that the UK does not belong to an opposite camp that insists on ‘non-proliferation first.’ The UK fully accepts the proposition that progress must be made on the disarmament and non-proliferation tracks in parallel. The UK White Paper on the nuclear deterrent makes clear our continuing commitment to meet our disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT.”

The interesting thing was that nobody, at that stage, had accused Britain or anybody else of being hypocritical; it was the ambassador who brought up the question of hypocrisy, which was somewhat surprising to us. He then fairly pointed out that Britain had reduced its number of nuclear warheads considerably.

I was interested in Ambassador Duncan’s statement and I was obviously pleased that he was at the committee and able to make the statement, but if he or, indeed, the delegation recognises that we are likely to be charged with hypocrisy, let us lance the boil and not go there. Let us say that we fully support all the principles of the NPT, which includes us not developing nuclear weapons or continuing with the replacement of Trident.

As I understand it, the 14 March vote was a vote in principle; it did not commit us to expenditure. I would be grateful if the Minister, when she replies to the debate, could explain exactly how much money has been spent on the development of a possible replacement for Trident and what is being invested now at Aldermaston in the development of further nuclear bomb-making facilities.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend was lucky enough to hear the speech by the previous Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett), at the Carnegie foundation in Washington, in which, again, it was pointed out that nothing was for ever in terms of British foreign policy, warheads and so on, and that we are now moving to a state in which, independently, there is consideration of how far we can go and the fact that the deterrent effect may be different in different countries. So there was a chink of light from the previous Foreign Secretary, too. I just have this wonderful feeling that something is opening up and I am sorry that she lost her job.

I have always known my hon. Friend to be a brilliant man, but he has read my mind on this occasion.

Or even the script.

Not the script because there is no script—I cannot do scripts. I was indeed about to refer to the speech by the former Foreign Secretary to the Carnegie international non-proliferation conference on 25 June. In my view, it is a very interesting, very seminal speech and extremely well put. I shall quote a couple of extracts from it, because I think it important that the House understands what she said.

My right hon. Friend talked about the possibilities of long-term nuclear disarmament and quoted Kofi Annan. She went on to say that

“there are some very specific triggers for action—key impending decisions—that we are fast approaching.”

She drew attention to the fact that START—the strategic arms reduction treaty—expires in 2009; there is not long to go. She said:

“We will need to start thinking about how we move from a bilateral disarmament framework built by the US and Russia to one more suited to our multi-polar world”.

That was an interesting use of language. She went on to say:

“And then in 2010 we will have the NPT Review Conference. By the time that is held, we need the international community to be foursquare and united behind the global non-proliferation regime. We can’t afford for that conference to be a fractured or fractious one: rather we must strengthen the NPT in all its aspects.”

Towards the end of the speech, my right hon. Friend said:

“What we need is both vision—a scenario for a world free of nuclear weapons. And action—progressive steps to reduce warhead numbers and to limit the role of nuclear weapons in security policy. These two strands are separate but they are mutually reinforcing. Both are necessary, both at the moment too weak.”

In the historical context, my right hon. Friend drew a parallel with people who have stood against impossible odds and achieved something. She cited the example of those who campaigned for the end of the slave trade and quoted William Wilberforce. She cited those who sought the millennium development goals to make poverty history in our society and in our world. Her words at that conference were prescient and important.

Nuclear weapons were used once in anger—in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They were mere fireworks compared with the weapons that are now available in the world. Every year on 6 August, Hiroshima day, we have commemorations around the world—I always attend the one in Tavistock square in London—and every year we have aged Japanese guests who come along, who are dying of cancers, as others are dying of cancers, as a result of weapons used more than 60 years ago that are mere fireworks compared with what is now available. Those people are living the legacy of the only use of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have dedicated themselves as cities of peace. We should pay tribute to Mayor Ito of Nagasaki, who was tragically murdered earlier this year. He campaigned for peace on behalf of his city.

We came very near to nuclear war in 1962 in the Cuban missile crisis. We came very near to nuclear war between India and Pakistan in 2002. Is it really conscionable that in the 21st century, with all the problems of poverty, hunger, malnutrition, the AIDS pandemic and the lack of sanitation around the world, we should be thinking of spending billions of pounds on developing weapons of mass destruction? Why do we not accept in its totality the NPT that came into force in 1970, the reasons that we signed it and what it commits us to? Why do we not say that our intention, our purpose, is to bring about long-term nuclear disarmament and start by setting an example by saying that this country will not proceed any further with the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons? We could use that to encourage others.

The six-party talks have shown, in the case of North Korea, that it is possible to make progress. There are many people in this Room who would recognise that it is quite possible and, indeed, probable that progress will be made with Iran. If, however, we decide to go ahead with the new generation of nuclear weapons and the US, Russia, France and China do the same, who on earth are we to go to the NPT review conference in 2010 and proceed to lecture people in the rest of the world about why they should not develop nuclear weapons?

This, essentially, is a moral quest with a moral purpose. Millions out there would like to see a better world, as do many in here, and we do not believe that nuclear weapons bring about peace, justice or security. Instead, they bring about danger, the possibility of proliferation and, by their very manufacture and existence, the danger of pollution. The NPT was a seminal treaty, which was promoted by countries that did not have nuclear weapons, did not want them and did not want anybody else to have them. Although the PrepCom meeting in Vienna eventually concluded with a degree of harmony and good purpose, there is no guarantee that the review conference in 2010 will achieve the same, unless the UK, as one of the five declared nuclear weapon states, does all that it can to develop the process of nuclear disarmament. That is why I called for this debate, and I look forward to the contributions of others and to the Minister’s reply. This is an issue for our time; it is one that will allow us to make a real contribution and bring about a more peaceful world.

In politics, timing is everything, so why on earth would Britain broadcast the message this year that it is time to ramp up the nuclear weapons race? The Government have shown to our cost that, as I said earlier, they simply do not understand the dynamics of politics in the middle east and North Korea or the evolving terrorist threats. The awesome destructive power of nuclear weapons makes any decision that the Government take a historic one for this country and the world. We have the opportunity to set an example—good or bad—but I am afraid that Parliament has not truly debated or consulted on that decision in the wide manner that its importance demands.

Britain had a unique opportunity, as the bishops’ conference put it, to jump start

“an approach to security and legitimate self-defence without the unconscionable threat of nuclear destruction”

and

“give a new impetus to the wider process towards total nuclear disarmament.”

The question is whether we should trust the Prime Minister or have a proper, full debate on such a historic decision, rather than just pushing it through, with the Whips driving MPs through the voting Lobbies. All MPs worth their vote want eventual nuclear disarmament, which is our legal responsibility under the NPT. We signed up to that and we should follow through or explain why we will not. The answer to the question whether we should have a proper debate is, of course, a no-brainer, but MPs on both sides of the House were railroaded when the issue was discussed this spring.

Of course, the Government have a grave duty to maintain security, but the burning question is whether their, and indeed the Opposition’s, strident push for even more destructive nuclear weapons platforms and capabilities would provide that security or facilitate less stable countries—some with desperate and dangerous leaders—in taking up the nuclear option. Do such weapons defend us against the evolving, asymmetric threats of terrorism? Mutually assured destruction—MAD—simply does not work as a deterrent against terrorist threats; we can ask any suicide bomber that and we will get a very clear answer.

We have seen a litany of disastrous weapons and major systems procurement decisions in the past decade, and overstretch in the conventional forces is certainly no illusion. Some MPs could therefore be forgiven for thinking that spending money on proven conventional forces would be a lot more effective way of creating a safer world and a safer Britain. The point, however, is that society needs to have a comprehensive debate, and it has not yet had one. Tony Blair said that the cost was about £20 billion over the relevant period, so pundits watching the issue would not be surprised if the cost escalated to £40 billion, given what we all know about cost estimates for major weapons, platforms and systems.

As I said, we could spend some of that money on conventional arms. We could also spend it on tackling climate change to help save the planet from certain and serious damage. Equally, we could spend it on international development to remove some of the inequalities around the world, which drive terrorism in the first place. Trident also raises key domestic questions, and there are serious domestic calls on the money involved—the health service, education and tackling law and order spring readily to mind.

MPs really can make a difference; we all know that, which is why we come here. However, we need the courage to put our country first, to put people before politics and occasionally to ignore the party Whips and do what we think is right so that we can force the Government to make good decisions, particularly when the matter is so historically important. I made a mistake believing and following the Government on Iraq, but I will not make that mistake so easily again.

Let me make it clear, however, that I am not advocating nuclear disarmament now, unlike the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn), who made an excellent speech. I am not a disarmer by nature and I believe in strong defences. I am arguing that now is not the right time to make a decision; in fact, it is totally the wrong time. A decision is not necessary technically and the systems can be extended beyond 2020, when, if we want to look at a nuclear option for the future, there will be new, cheaper and more effective technologies that can be better targeted. There are also better ways to spend the money right now. We as MPs can send a historic message to the rest of the world and really make a difference if we have the courage to do what is right.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) not only on his speech but on the campaign that he has supported for many years to keep Trident and nuclear weapons on the political agenda.

My constituency boasts Michael Foot and Llew Smith as my predecessors, and they were unilateralists, who campaigned for unilateral nuclear disarmament for many years. I was a multilateralist until relatively recently, but what changed my mind primarily—other than the campaigns by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament—was the reduction of nuclear weapons across the world, including in Britain, Russia and America, as well as the existence of parts of the world without nuclear weapons. Now seems to be the time to take the next step.

The issue of a free vote has been mentioned. As an independent MP, I believe that the most important point is that all hon. Members must go out into their constituencies and listen to their constituents. Then, I would urge the Government to bring the issue back to Parliament and to give Parliament a free vote.

Many things have been said about Trident, nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the past months, including during election campaigns for deputy party leaders. Many Ministers have indicated that there should perhaps be a rethink, and they should be listened to. The most important thing is that we lead as a country to show that there is another way. We must use the disarming of Trident as a negotiating point with countries such as Iran to persuade them that disarmament is the right thing to do.

The Government held a debate that took a matter of hours, but this issue needs debating over a long time. CND has said that the move to renew does not have to be taken for six, seven, 10 and maybe 15 years, so let us have a debate. Let us not fail to talk about this issue for the sake of a matter of months.

The safeguard that nuclear weapons give is a false one. I have written many questions to Ministers asking under what conditions this country would use nuclear weapons, and only two answers have come back. The first is, “It is only a deterrent,” but if that is the case, what is the point? The second is, “We’d only use it as a retaliatory measure.” I am sorry, but it gives my constituents no pleasure to think that if 300,000 people were killed by a nuclear strike in this country we would feel better if we killed another 300,000 in another country. That, to me, is no reason for using nuclear weapons.

A point has been made about cost. Estimates from £20 billion to £100 billion have been made—unimaginable, unreachable sums of money. We talk about postcode lotteries for health service care, including cancer treatments. Flood defences, which are in the news at the moment, are among the things that the money could be much better spent on. I urge the Minister and the Government, and all hon. Members, to push for the Trident debate to come back to Parliament at the earliest opportunity, and to make sure that there is a free vote so that our consciences can lead the way.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) on bringing the issue back to the House for debate, and particularly on the questions that he has posed for the Minister to answer. I hope that the Minister, whom I congratulate on her new post, will take up and answer some of the questions that have been put. We appreciate that perhaps subtle but important changes have occurred in the Government in the past few weeks; perhaps we shall receive answers to some of the questions that were not answered in the previous debate in the House.

A question that Members of Parliament are often asked is why they got involved in politics. Two issues in particular provoked me as a young child. One was the famine of 1962 or 1963 in India, and the second was the Cuban missiles crisis. In one case I could not understand how we in the west could be so rich and not help; in the second I could not understand how we in the west could be so mad that our system of defence was, as mentioned earlier, based on the principle of mutually assured destruction. I began to question at an early age the purpose of and need for nuclear weapons. It struck me that there was no moral argument for them. They were just a reaction—a fearful reaction—to the other side.

The politics that brought about the nuclear arsenals that were built up in the 1950s and 1960s has changed. However, the thinking of some of today’s politicians does not appear to have moved on. I think in particular of one Conservative defence spokesman whose argument for maintaining the nuclear deterrent seemed to be that in the early 1980s it was good for hitting the left with, and was popular with voters; it was a policy that should be continued because he was convinced of its popularity with voters. That is virtually verbatim what he said—but I hasten to add that it was not the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), who will probably give us a slightly modified view. It struck me as a rather bizarre argument. Part of the difficulty is that many of the arguments for maintaining nuclear weapons are bizarre.

In relation to the current debate, Gorbachev said:

“A responsible course of action for the Government would be to postpone the decision on the future of the UK nuclear arsenal at least until the next review conference of the NPT in 2010”.

That is an argument that we agree with. If hon. Members do not agree with or want to believe that source, they can always listen to Kofi Annan, who said:

“No state should imagine that, by pushing ahead with a nuclear weapon programme, it can pose as a defender of the NPT; still less that it will persuade others to disarm”.

That is the argument that the Liberal Democrats have put, and the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) put a similar one. There is no need at this point for the House to have taken its decision to replace our nuclear deterrent.

The Liberal Democrats accept, in the current environment, that there is still the need for a minimum nuclear deterrent, but they also recognise what was particularly highlighted by the hon. Member for Islington, North—that we have legal obligations under the nuclear proliferation treaty to move forward to nuclear disarmament. Even the Government’s own documents have cited the need for nuclear disarmament, although that seems to be contradicted by their actions and other statements.

I want to return to previous debates and some questions that were put to the former Prime Minister. In December he said that under article VI of the NPT

“we can maintain our independent nuclear deterrent. We are under an obligation, which we are fulfilling, to pursue multilateral negotiations, but there is no obligation on us to disarm unilaterally.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 26.]

He also stated:

“The evidence is that the non-proliferation treaty works best in circumstances in which there is a multilateral mood for disarmament. That is the reason why we believe it is better to pursue such a course under the terms of that treaty.”—[Official Report, 4 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 35.]

He indicated that the deterrent is best achieved by co-operation with other states. Perhaps the Minister could explain how, in advance of 2010, the Government intend to promote effective and committed co-operation with their NPT partners.

In December the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), who is the Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, asked the then Prime Minister to

“confirm that the Government remain committed to the goal of global nuclear disarmament and will make renewed efforts to secure international negotiations as called for under article VI of the non-proliferation treaty”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 32.]

The Prime Minister refused to confirm that. He talked of unilateral disarmament, but not of the need to make renewed efforts on the international stage. Will the Minister advise us of the efforts that the present Government intend to make to promote the NPT, and what negotiations they will enter into with other countries, to bring that about?

We accept that there are difficulties over international peace; there are concerns about Iran’s intentions and about North Korea and its intentions. However, we must ask what is the best way forward. Is it to say that we will go ahead willy-nilly with the replacement of the Trident system? Is it not better to be more thoughtful and send out a message that we believe that we still have the right to a minimum nuclear deterrent, but that we recognise that we have obligations under the NPT which require us to try to move forward with multilateral disarmament, and which we will honour by making a commitment to reduce our nuclear defence capacity by 50 per cent., with a view to obtaining further negotiations with the other relevant countries and creating a situation in which Iran can be engaged in a non-proliferation treaty and North Korea can feel assured that there is movement towards that? We could then move on to consider other countries that have developed nuclear weapons, and what can be done to reduce the absolute risk of a nuclear conflict.

We should not doubt that such a conflict is a possibility. In the conflict between Pakistan and India a year or so ago, both those countries came perilously close to a nuclear exchange. That would have been a disaster.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing the debate. He has long had an utterly consistent approach to these matters, and it will not surprise him that he and I disagree on one or two significant points. He has kept his CND badge polished and on public display even in recent years when it has become somewhat unfashionable among leading members of his party to advertise one’s previous membership of that organisation. He is right to point out the importance of this topic.

The non-proliferation treaty represented a bargain in which the non-nuclear states agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons, and to put their civil nuclear programmes under international safeguards. The nuclear states agreed to take action to prevent proliferation, to pursue disarmament negotiations, under article VI, and to allow the easy dissemination of civil nuclear technology. Any assessment of the NPT has to take all sides of that bargain into account.

I do not agree with the hon. Member for Islington, North that the UK should give up its nuclear deterrent. Neither do I agree that there is a comfortable way out of taking the difficult decision whether to renew Trident by postponing it. The Minister will have chapter and verse, but my clear memory of our debate earlier this Session on the renewal of Trident is that all the expert advice from defence chiefs and others was that the lead-in time for the development of a renewed Trident system meant that the decision had to be taken this Parliament if we were to be in a position to renew the deterrent when the current Trident system is likely to become obsolete. For those reasons, I differ from both the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross), and my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink).

It is a pity that earlier speakers did not mention that the UK has reduced its nuclear arsenal by 70 per cent. since the end of the cold war, or that we are the only one of the original five nuclear powers to have limited ourselves to a single delivery system. The US, Russia, China and France have maintained more than one such system.

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that we have not become less secure as a result of reducing our nuclear weaponry and launch systems? Does he not, therefore, see any illogicality in his argument? The Opposition have a debate in the main Chamber this afternoon on reducing global poverty; does he not think that some of the £20 billion that we are to spend on ramping up our nuclear systems would be better spent on reducing global poverty, as it is global poverty and inequality that are driving terrorist growth?

The growth of terrorism derives from several factors. My hon. Friend might be right to attribute it, in part, to global poverty, and I do not seek to deny the importance of taking national and international action to address that. He knows that our right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is in Africa this week, highlighting the importance of international development and our party’s commitment to acting to improve the lot of people in the poorest countries. However, any responsible Government, and any party aspiring to government in this country, have to keep at the forefront of their mind their prime duty of looking after the security of the UK population, both nationally and internationally. I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the remarks of the Bishop of Rochester a few months ago, when he acknowledged that the

“cost of replacing or renewing Trident is often cited as a reason for not doing so.”

He also acknowledged that that money could be spent on

“international development or environmental projects”,

but concluded that

“the cost of Trident is very small compared to the UK’s GDP and is a small price to pay for the security on which many other social goods depend.”

I hesitate to disagree with a bishop, but something has to be said here. Is not the argument that he has put, which the hon. Gentleman is also putting, one for every country in the world to develop nuclear weapons? Are we made more secure by having nuclear weapons? Is Sweden made more secure by not having them? Surely that is the question that has to be answered.

The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s case is that he sidesteps the fact that the NPT acknowledged that some states were in possession of nuclear weapons, and sought to create a framework under which those states could combat proliferation and work, over time—no deadline was specified in article VI—to reduce their nuclear arsenals and the threat of nuclear war. The treaty also acknowledged that other states did not possess nuclear weapons. All signatories undertook duties to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, but the treaty accepted the reality that they were possessed by existing nuclear states and sought to stabilise that position. I have heard no persuasive argument that the UK’s unilateral disarmament would discourage nuclear proliferation by others. The NPT system has worked pretty well on the whole. In fairness, the hon. Member for Islington, North made some of these points in his speech. South Africa voluntarily gave up its potential nuclear capability, and the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus gave up stocks of nuclear weapons that they had in their territories.

The Government need to mount vigorous diplomatic action regarding the weaknesses in the current non-proliferation regime. In today’s world, we face new, and probably growing, dangers from nuclear proliferation, partly because access to nuclear technology is a lot easier now and partly because it has been around for about half a century and is more familiar to people and organisations than was the case even before the internet made it possible for complex, advanced technology to be transmitted from continent to continent at the click of a mouse. We have also seen the growth of a vigorous black market in nuclear technology in recent years. The Minister will know that A. Q. Khan’s group in Pakistan is believed to have sold nuclear know-how to Iraq, North Korea and Libya. We have also seen, through the examples of Iran and Libya, that countries have been able to conceal nuclear programmes successfully not just for months or years, but for decades.

The Government should press for international action to strengthen the safeguards in the treaty against nuclear proliferation. For a start, countries will be less likely to conceal what they are doing if their programmes are likely to be detected, so we must beef up the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectorate.

There are only about 650 inspectors, whose job it is to police 900 or so nuclear facilities worldwide. By way of analogy, I should point out that Disney World employs more than 1,000 people on security duties for one site. The Government need to consider some serious questions. Is the number of inspectors large enough? Is the IAEA budget of $120 million a year adequate in the face of the growing threat of proliferation? If it is not, what action do they intend to take to bring together their international partners to strengthen the arm of the inspectors?

Secondly, as the hon. Member for Islington, North said, we need to have regard to the importance of the additional supplementary protocols to the NPT. I gather that, so far, only 69 countries have both signed up to such additional protocols and, crucially, brought them into force. The protocols give additional rights of inspection to the IAEA, and there is now a strong case for international agreement to try to make additional protocols the norm for all signatories to the NPT.

We do not have time today to go into the Iranian political and diplomatic situation in detail. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is clear that Iran is no longer implementing the supplementary protocol that it had agreed. The additional protocols do not give the inspectorate the authority to explore some serious matters such as high-explosives testing or the design of missile warheads. In cases such as that of Iran, we need to have a system of additional obligations approved by the Security Council that can be imposed on countries that renege on the supplementary protocols that they have previously agreed to implement.

The North Korean case exposed another possible loophole in the NPT. North Korea was able to build up its civil nuclear programme, give the required three months’ notice of withdrawal from the NPT and then move rapidly towards a weapons programme because it had acquired the knowledge of all the sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. If we are to address that problem in the current treaty framework, we also need to address the clear obligation in the treaty for the developed countries, in particular the nuclear weapons states, to facilitate the transfer of peaceful, civil nuclear technology to other countries that have agreed not to go down the path of developing nuclear weapons programmes of their own.

I fully understand the wish of many countries in the developing world to develop their own civil nuclear programmes. There is a duty on the existing nuclear weapons powers to live up to the expectation of the treaty that everything possible would be done to facilitate the transfer of civil nuclear technology. That could be achieved in various ways: there could be some kind of international partnership whereby a small number of states produce nuclear fuel that could then be made available to others; or there could be a network of fuel banks managed and policed on an international basis. That might enable us both to meet the developing countries’ need for nuclear energy and to prevent countries such as North Korea from getting access to the sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle that might make possible the rapid development of a weapons programme in the future.

Finally, I hope that the Minister will say something about the Government’s approach to the black market in nuclear technology and nuclear weapons. United Nations resolution 1540 calls on every member state to criminalise proliferation action of that type. There is a need for even better intelligence co-operation against proliferation than is in place and for tighter controls on existing stockpiles.

Will the hon. Gentleman be able to say anything about his party’s position on the expiry of the strategic arms reduction treaty in 2009 and the danger that between then and the NPT conference there could be the development of a new arms race between Russia and the United States?

I hope that the British Government will do everything possible to try to prevent the development of such an arms race. A new arms race between Russia and the US is in the interests of neither of those countries, nor is it in the interests of world peace. I hope that the recent contacts between the US and the Russian Government about the controversial issue of the anti-missile system lead to an agreement that will defuse the risk of such an arms race.

The NPT and its associated system of controls has, on the whole, served the world well. I hope that the Government will be prepared to acknowledge that in the new situation, given the growing risk of proliferation that we now face, further action is needed to strengthen the existing safeguards. That represents a way forward that is in the interests of the security of the United Kingdom and of international peace.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) on securing this debate. I thank him and other hon. Members for their kind words of welcome. Many thoughtful and considered contributions were made and we heard many sincerely held views. I shall do my best to respond to all of the many points that have been made. I ask hon. Members to bear with me and wait until I have got well into my speech before attempting to intervene if they fear that I am not going to respond to a particular point. I shall happily take interventions at that stage.

From the Government’s perspective the timing of the debate could not be better, because, as has been mentioned by several hon. Members, just a month ago the then Foreign Secretary spoke to the Carnegie international non-proliferation conference in Washington to call for a renewed commitment to a world free from nuclear weapons. She received a standing ovation for her speech—my aspirations this morning are somewhat lower, none the less I shall refer to the plan that she set out. The Carnegie speech set out how we as a Government want to reinvigorate the international approach to nuclear disarmament, with the explicit goal of reinforcing the NPT process in the run-up to the review conference in 2010, to which several hon. Members have referred.

I believe that the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) said that the UK has an exceptional record in meeting our NPT disarmament commitments, and we should be clear about that. What are those commitments? Article VI imposes an obligation on all states to pursue in good faith negotiations on effective measures for cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, on nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament. The NPT review conference in 2000 agreed by consensus 13 practical steps towards implementation of article VI. The UK remains committed to those steps and is making progress on them.

We are disarming. The House heard in March of our decision to reduce the UK’s stockpile of operationally available warheads by a further 20 per cent. to less than 160. Significant as that is, it is just the latest in a series of dramatic reductions in the UK’s nuclear weapons. Since the end of the cold war, the explosive power of UK nuclear weapons will have been reduced by 75 per cent. UK nuclear weapons account for less than 1 per cent. of the global inventory.

We have withdrawn and dismantled our tactical marine and airborne nuclear capabilities and, consequently, have reduced our reliance on nuclear weapons to one system: submarine-based Trident. As hon. Members have said, we are the only nuclear-weapons state to have done that. We have also reduced the readiness of the remaining nuclear force. We now have only one boat on patrol at any one time and it carries no more than 48 warheads. We have not conducted a nuclear test explosion since 1991, and we have signed and ratified the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. We have ceased production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. We have also increased transparency of our fissile material holdings, and we have produced historical records of our defence holdings of both plutonium and highly enriched uranium.

Our decision to renew the Trident system did not reverse or undermine any of those positive disarmament steps. The UK is not upgrading the capabilities of the system, and there is no move to produce more useable weapons and no change in our nuclear posture or doctrine. The UK's nuclear weapons are not designed for military use during conflicts. They are a strategic deterrent that we would contemplate using only in extreme circumstances of self-defence. Over the past 50 years, the deterrent has been used only to deter acts of aggression against our vital interests, never to coerce others. I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink), because we are not ramping up our weapons.

Hon. Members referred to timing and whether we needed to make a decision now. The issue was debated at length during the Trident debate, so I do not intend to go into it in great detail today. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Margaret Beckett) the then Foreign Secretary, said specifically that it would mean a decision to begin a process to design, build and commission submarines to replace the existing Vanguard class boats. That will take some 17 years, so the decision was necessary. It was discussed at great length, and it was appropriate to make it. I shall speak about the cost in a moment.

If replacing Trident will not increase our capability, why are we doing it?

Because we are maintaining the existing situation while reducing the number of warheads. Renewal is simply about maintaining the minimum nuclear capability necessary for our security, while we continue to pursue in good faith the conditions for a world free from nuclear weapons. The simple truth is that the UK is implementing its obligations under the NPT, while those states that are developing illicit nuclear weapons programmes are not.

A number of hon. Members referred to cost. The average annual procurement cost represents less than 0.1 per cent. of gross domestic product, and we believe that that price is worth paying to maintain our capability. Since coming to power, the Government have increased investment in many of our public services and elsewhere, so this is not something that should be offset against this matter. Our annual expenditure on capital and running costs of the Trident nuclear deterrent, including the cost of the Atomic Weapons Establishment, from its entry into service in 1994-95 to 2004-05 is in the range of 3 to 4 per cent. of the defence budget.

The UK is not the only nuclear weapons state to have been disarming. We have welcomed the series of bilateral agreements since the end of the cold war that have greatly reduced the major nuclear arsenals. By the end of this year, the US will have fewer than half the number of silo-based nuclear missiles that it had in 1990. By 2012, US operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads will be reduced to about one third of 2001 levels. Under the terms of the strategic offensive reductions treaty, Russia is making parallel cuts. The French have withdrawn four complete weapons systems.

Last year, Kofi Annan said that the world risks becoming mired in a sterile stand-off between those who care most about disarmament, and those who care most about proliferation. He was right. The dangers of such mutually assured paralysis are dangers for us all. Any solution must be a dual one, with movement on both proliferation and disarmament—a revitalisation of the grand bargain that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North set out so well at the beginning of his speech, and which was struck in 1968, when the non-proliferation treaty was established.

Today the non-proliferation regime is under pressure, as a number of hon. Members said. We have seen the emergence of a mixture of further declared and undeclared nuclear powers, and two more countries—Iran and North Korea, which are both signatories to the NPT—present further challenges to the international community. Their actions have profound and direct implications for global security, and raise the serious prospect of proliferation across their region.

The Government welcome Iran’s discussions with the International Atomic Energy Association about resolving outstanding safeguarding issues, and we hope for rapid progress. Iran’s suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities required by UN Security Council resolution remains crucial to restoring international confidence in Iran’s nuclear intentions. It is not complying with that requirement and that is why we are discussing a possible sanctions resolution with our E3 plus three partners. As the UN Security Council has repeatedly made clear, if Iran meets the requirements for a suspension, that will open the way to negotiation with the E3 plus three about a mutually acceptable long-term arrangement. We are working hard to ensure that the matter is taken seriously.

We are not party to the six-party talks process, but we welcome the recent progress and sincerely hope that there will be further progress.

The Minister is talking about NPT signatories, but will she say what strategy the Government intend to pursue to try to persuade India and Pakistan to become signatories to the treaty, and explain the situation in Israel, which I understand now has more than 200 warheads, rather more than there are in this country? That is clearly a factor, but not the only one, in the middle east region.

As my hon. Friend is probably aware, the Government want universalisation of the NPT, and we want everyone to sign up to it. I shall refer to our general approach in trying to reinvigorate the process later in my speech.

Our efforts on non-proliferation will be dangerously undermined if others believe, however unfairly, that the terms of the grand bargain have changed, so we must do more than just have an exemplary record on disarmament to date. As my right hon. Friend the former Foreign Secretary made clear in her speech in Washington, we need a renewed commitment to a world free from nuclear weapons, and a convincing plan. The point is not to convince the Iranians or the North Koreans and I do not believe for a second that further reductions in our nuclear weapons would have a material effect on their nuclear ambitions. The reason for doing more is that the moderate majority of states—our natural and vital allies on non-proliferation—want us to do more, and if we do not do so, we risk helping Iran and North Korea in their efforts to muddy the water and to turn the blame for their own nuclear intransigence back on us.

I shall deal with the point that the hon. Member for Castle Point made about terrorism. International terrorism is a serious and sustained threat, and we must do everything we can to develop a comprehensive strategy to deal with it. However, it is not a matter of choice; we do not have to—nor should we—choose between addressing terrorist threats and nuclear threats, and we cannot choose between dealing either with those threats or with the challenges of climate change. We have to deal with all of them, and we will continue to do so.

The Government are committed to an effective IAEA. We do not accept that it has insufficient resources to carry out its responsibility, and we will continue to make significant voluntary contributions to it to ensure that we provide it with appropriate support. This year’s settlement provided a real increase to the budget of 1.4 per cent.

The Minister mentioned making progress with the NPT, and that we have only one system—Trident. The Government document on the issue said:

“We are the only nuclear power that has so far been prepared to take such an important step”—

having just one weapons-based system—

“on the route to nuclear disarmament.”

If the Minister says that she is in favour of progressing the NPT, and the Government document says that they are in favour of further nuclear disarmament, are any of the weapons systems that we want to replace up for negotiation?

We have set out our replacement for the Trident system and design. That is what we are discussing. Our position is that disarmament should be multilateral, and I shall come on both to address what we consider to be the important next steps and to respond to the hon. Gentleman’s questions about our plans moving towards 2010.

Let me just outline the key components. First, we will continue to call for significant further reductions in the major Russian and US nuclear arsenals. We hope that the existing bilateral treaties will be succeeded by further clear commitments to significantly lower warhead numbers, including tactical as well as strategic nuclear weapons. We are clear that when it becomes useful to include in any negotiations the 1 per cent. of the world’s nuclear weapons that belong to the UK, we will willingly do so.

Secondly, we must press on with the comprehensive test ban treaty and with the fissile material cut-off treaty. Both treaties limit in real and practical ways the ability of states that are party to them to develop new weapons and expand their nuclear capabilities. The treaties play a very powerful symbolic role, too, signalling to the rest of the world that the race for more and bigger weapons is over, and that the direction from now on will be down not up. In other words, they are exactly the sort of

“effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race”

that article 6 requires us to negotiate. That is why we are so keen for those countries that have not yet done so to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty, and why we continue to work hard for the start of negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty in Geneva.

Thirdly, we should begin now to build deeper relationships on disarmament between nuclear weapon states. For the UK’s part, we have made it clear that we are ready and willing to engage with other members of the P5 on transparency and confidence-building measures.

Finally, we have also announced a series of unilateral activities that the UK will undertake as a “disarmament laboratory”. We will participate in a new project by the International Institute for Strategic Studies on the practical steps required for the elimination of nuclear weapons, and we will undertake further detailed work at the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment on the nuts and bolts of nuclear disarmament. That work will examine three discrete issues related to the verification of disarmament, the authentication of warheads, chain of custody problems in sensitive nuclear weapons facilities, and monitored storage of dismantled nuclear weapons.

I shall now deal with the other points that Members have raised. We are committed to all the NPT’s three pillars: disarmament, non-proliferation and peaceful use of nuclear power. The former Foreign Secretary set out that commitment very clearly in her speech in Washington, and if Members have not read it, I commend it to them. The UK is showing leadership. We are taking forward the practical work that I have just outlined, and we are working with EU partners on proposals to make withdrawal from the NPT more difficult. It is crucial for international security that states cannot just walk away and develop nuclear weapons. We are also working with Germany and the Netherlands on a uranium bond proposal that would offer countries wishing to develop their own civil nuclear industries guaranteed supplies of nuclear fuel in return for agreed safeguards.

My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North raised the issue of Mordechai Vanunu. My hon. Friend will appreciate that we are talking about an Israeli citizen in Israel. However, I can assure him that during Mr. Vanunu’s detention and subsequent to his release, we have raised the issue of the restrictions on him with the Israeli authorities.

In article six, there are two key words: “good faith”. The UK’s record is one of good-faith disarmament. That is why we are recognised as the most forward-leaning nuclear weapons state. I have described today our determination to reinvigorate the global approach to nuclear disarmament, and the practical steps that we are taking to help achieve a world free from nuclear weapons. It should be clear that this Government are acting, and will continue to act, in the utmost good faith in fulfilling our disarmament obligations under the non-proliferation treaty.