Nuclear Non-Proliferation

EDM number 396 in 1993-94, proposed by Frank Cook on 20/01/1994.

That this House commends most highly the 11 American organisations which make up the United States Campaign for the Non-Proliferation Treaty on corresponding directly with the chairmen of 10 Japanese electrical power companies, urging them to suspend plans for the recovery of 100 tonnes of plutonium from spent fuel in reprocessing plants for subsequent use in nuclear reactors; supports fully the Campaign's expressed view 'that Japan's use of separated plutonium for energy will provide justification for other nations to follow suit, increasing the risk that this highly toxic, weapons-usable material will ultimately fall into the hands of nations or groups that would use it for destructive ends'; recommends strongly the Campaign's declared aims of an indefinite extension of the NPT when it comes up for renewal in 1995, a halt in further production of weapons-usable fissile materials for military and civilian applications, a ban on nuclear testing, full implementation of arms reduction agreements and a universal commitment to no-first-use of nuclear weapons; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to recognise that the decision to give the green light to THORP has an international significance, not recognised in the decision document of 15th December, which is demonstrated amply in the continuing and energetic objections from Ireland, the Netherlands, Japan, the Nordic nations and the United States of America, and therefore think again about the proliferation consequences of THORP.

This motion has been signed by a total of 48 MPs, 3 of these signatures have been withdrawn.