UK Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Obligations

EDM number 811 in 2003-04, proposed by Angus Robertson on 11/03/2004.

That this House notes that the fourth and last Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting for the 2005 UN Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will take place in New York from 26th April to 7th May; is aware that at the Conference the UK will be expected to account for its record on nuclear disarmament; recalls the 24th April 2000 NPT statement by the UK when the then Foreign Office Minister the Rt Hon Peter Hain told the delegates 'the United Kingdom is practising what we preach. We are unequivocally committed to the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. We are convinced that the NPT remains fundamental to achieving this goal'; further recalls that at the end of the same conference, the UK and the four other declared nuclear-weapons-states gave an 'unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals'; regrets the reported plans by the UK to upgrade nuclear weapons design and production facilities at Aldermaston, which contradicts that commitment; further regrets the UK's participation in a pre-emptive war ostensibly to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, which it transpires did not exist; believes that real and lasting peace for all can only be achieved through diplomatic negotiations leading to a global nuclear disarmament; and therefore calls on Her Majesty's Government to abandon pre-emptive wars as an alternative policy for selective disarmament, and actively to work towards an early implementation of its 2000 NPT commitments.

This motion has been signed by a total of 40 MPs.