Analysis

Evidence submitted by ICAN-UK

SEPTEMBER 2011

If the majority of the 184 non-nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT, who want a legally-binding timeframe for disarmament, do not see sufficient progress towards this goal, the current window of opportunity for nuclear abolition may not only close, but a new era of nuclear proliferation and terror may be opened.

Evidence submitted by George Robertson

SEPTEMBER 2011

… When as this country’s Defence Secretary, in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, I made the biggest ever unilateral reductions in our deterrent strength, so that our country now has the smallest stockpile of nuclear warheads and is the only nuclear weapons state with a single system, there was absolutely no reciprocation and today the Chinese are substantially increasing its nuclear forces and Russia is upgrading its strategic nuclear capability.

Evidence received by Dr Julian Lewis MP

JULY 2011

In his evidence Dr Julian Lewis MP maintains that there are political and military arguments in favour of the renewal of Trident. As future military threats and conflicts are difficult to predict, and no-oneknows which enemies we might confront over the next 30–50 years, it is safer for the UK to retain its strategic nuclear deterrent.