Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether the UK will participate as an observer nation at the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons first meeting of state parties; and if will she make a statement.
The Government does not believe the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will bring us closer to a world without nuclear weapons. The UK will not sign the Treaty and will not send Observers to the First Meeting of States Parties to the TPNW. The Government firmly believes that the best way to achieve our collective goal of a world without nuclear weapons is through gradual multilateral disarmament negotiated using a step-by-step approach, under the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).