Oral and written answers and statements from the Ministry of Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office have been added to the Top Level Group website. These focused on issues such as Iran, the upcoming EU Foreign Affairs Council and General Affairs Council meetings and the Arms Trade Treaty negotiations.
To read the answers in full, please click the following links:
Ministry of Defence
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
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Written answers and statements from the Ministry of Defence as well as House of Lords Foreign Office written answers and statements were published yesterday. These focused on issues such as Iran, Israel and nuclear submarines and have been added to the Top Level Group website.
To read the answers in full, please click the following links:
Ministry of Defence
House of Lords
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Last week, TLG Convenor, Lord Browne of Ladyton and Dr. Ian Kearns jointly published an article in “Strategic Europe”, a Carnegie Europe Series publication, entitled “Europe Needs to Shoulder More Responsibility for Addressing Nuclear Dangers”.
To read the article please click here.
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Written answers and statements, House of Lords: Nuclear Weapons, 26 October 2011
Viscount Waverley (Crossbench)
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the contents of the Declaration on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World moved at the Astana Conference on 12 October 2011.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Whip, House of Lords; Liberal Democrat)
The Government share with Kazakhstan the ultimate objective of a world without nuclear weapons. Our ambassador to Kazakhstan attended the Astana conference on 12 October to show our support for this goal. The Declaration on a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World rightly highlights some of the major achievements over the past 18 months, including the successful 2010 non-proliferation treaty (NPT) review conference. We agree with the declaration’s assessment of some of the challenges ahead, not least the need to break the deadlock in the conference on disarmament in order to start negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty. The UK looks forward to working with Kazakhstan and our other international partners on the urgent tasks of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and making further progress on disarmament.
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Written answers and statements, Defence: Military Bases: Radioactive Waste, 24 October 2011
Michael Weir (Angus, Scottish National Party)
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence:
(1) when his Department first received reports of radioactive pollution at Dalgety Bay in Fife;
(2) what surveys his Department has undertaken of Dalgety Bay in Fife;
(3) how many radioactive particles have been recorded at Dalgety Bay in Fife since his Department first received reports of pollution at that location.
Written answers and statements, Defence: Ministry of Defence Police and Guarding Agency, 18 October 2011
Julian Lewis (New Forest East, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what specialist roles in relation to the UK nuclear deterrent are carried out by the Ministry of Defence Police; and what plans he has for their future.
Written ministerial statement, Defence: UK-Norway Initiative Workshop, 15 September 2011
Nick Harvey (Minister of State (Armed Forces), Defence; North Devon, Liberal Democrat)
The UK has long been committed to the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. As part of the coalition agreement the Government agreed that we would maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent and press for continued progress on multilateral disarmament. The Prime Minister announced a number of disarmament measures as a part of the strategic defence and security review (SDSR) on 19 October 2010. On 29 June 2011 [Hansard, columns 50-51WS] the Secretary of State for Defence announced the early commencement of the programme for implementing the SDSR warhead reductions: at least one of the Vanguard class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) now carries a maximum of 40 nuclear warheads.
As part of our efforts to make progress on multilateral disarmament, we undertook to build trust and confidence between nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states, and committed to take tangible steps towards a safer and more stable world where countries with nuclear weapons feel able to relinquish them. Over a decade ago the Ministry of Defence, together with the atomic weapons establishment, established a disarmament and arms control verification research programme. This work is ongoing and since 2007 we have also been working with Norway to develop some of the techniques that may be required to ensure compliance with any future nuclear disarmament process. This is the first time a nuclear weapon state and a non-nuclear weapon state have worked together in this way. Our work with Norway has demonstrated that nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states alike are able to make an active contribution to disarmament through verification research, while still complying with their non-proliferation obligations. Furthermore, the co-operation of non-nuclear weapon states in nuclear disarmament verification research is necessary in order to achieve effective and mutually trusted verification solutions.
As announced at the P5 conference (30 June-1 July 2011), the UK will host a confidential expert-level meeting of the P5 in early 2012 to discuss lessons learned from the UK’s work with Norway on the verification of nuclear warhead dismantlement. I wish to inform the House that we now intend to share these important lessons with additional non-nuclear weapon states. To this end, the Ministry of Defence, in partnership with Norway, will host a workshop in London in early December 2011. This will enable us to share our progress with technical experts from non-nuclear weapon states that have expressed an interest in the research conducted so far.
This verification research advances progress towards our long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and further demonstrates the Government’s commitment to fulfilling the UK’s disarmament obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The Government remain committed to maintaining the minimum credible deterrent necessary to achieve our deterrence objectives of guaranteeing national security.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Written Answers to Questions — Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Iran: Nuclear Power, 17 October 2011
Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South, Labour)
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent assessment his Department has made of the Bushehr nuclear power project in Iran; and if he will make a statement.
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Watch the latest interview of the TalkWorks series with Rt Hon The Lord King of Bridgwater . In the interview Tom King speaks about the danger of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era.
The TalkWorks interviews are part of the independent film project TalkWorks Films, where Top Level Group members discuss issues within multilateral nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and prospects for the future. You can watch further interviews here.
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The Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, in partnership with the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), hosted a special screening of the documentary film, Nuclear Tipping Point, in the UK Parliament on 19 May 2011.
Former US Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former US Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and former US Senator Sam Nunn joined the Top Level Group members and shared their views on galvanizing global action to reduce urgent nuclear dangers, building support for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.
Together with Henry A. Kissinger, former US Secretary of State, the US statesmen had co-authored a series of op-eds linking the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons with urgent steps that can be taken to reduce nuclear dangers.
This video is part of a series by TalkWorks Films June 2011. You can watch individual sections of the panel discussion here.
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Both, the House of Commons and the House of Lords have discussed the future of the nuclear deterrent on 18 May.
You can now read both debates in full length on toplevelgroup.org.
House of Lords debates: Nuclear Deterrent — Statement – 18 May 2011
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On the 2 March 2011, members of the Top Level Group met with Dr Richard Garwin during his visit to London.
At the meeting they discussed US and UK nuclear weapons programmes, including the implications of US studies on UK warhead programmes and the future of the UK deterrent.
Dr Garwin, a US scientist and member of the independent scientific JASON Defence Advisory Group, regularly consults the US Government on defence technology matters.
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