President Trump: Nuclear Weapons Statement

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord West of Spithead]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of President Trump’s statement on 30 October regarding the testing of nuclear weapons.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom has ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and continues to press for its entry into force. We remain committed to our voluntary moratorium on nuclear test explosions, having ceased nuclear testing in 1991. The nuclear testing policy of the United States is a matter for the US Government, and it would therefore be inappropriate to comment further.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, it is easy to look on this as some sort of playground bravado by President Trump, who clearly did not understand the implications of, or what was meant by, the trials of delivery systems that Putin was conducting. With him having made his statement, President Putin wanted to show how tough he was and made his statement about doing tests again. This would be probably quite amusing if it was not so incredibly dangerous. The comprehensive test-ban treaty is one of the few treaties regarding nuclear weapons that are still in existence; many have fallen by the wayside. We are less safe than we used to be because of that. If the comprehensive test-ban treaty is broken, it opens a Pandora’s box. All of us will be far less safe. That is extremely worrying.

I know the Minister cannot say very much in response to my Question—in effect, it was nothing, but those are wonderful. However, even though something may not happen because the Department of Energy in America is unable to do a test straight away—it will take a couple of years and cost billions of dollars, so this thing may go away— and even though, as he says, it is their business, does he believe that the Government should make it very clear to the Americans how much we support keeping the test ban treaty in place and that we will be very disappointed if there is any break to that?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The UK has a long-standing and important relationship with the United States—it is important to start out and say that on a number of occasions. The comprehensive test-ban treaty, as my noble friend has said, is a really successful treaty, and we continue to push and to do all we can to ensure that it is as effective as it is with as many states as possible. We look forward to everyone who signed it ratifying it in due course.