Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to encourage nuclear non-proliferation and multilateral disarmament of existing nuclear weapons.

We work with international partners in a variety of fora to prevent nuclear proliferation and to help achieve our shared goal of nuclear disarmament. The UK plays a very active role in the Iran nuclear negotiations, in upholding sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and in applying export controls via the Nuclear Suppliers Group. We encourage States that have not yet done so, to sign up to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) so that this important treaty can enter into force, pending which we provide significant financial and technical support to the international monitoring system designed to detect nuclear tests. We also encourage States that have not done so to sign up to International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocols. We continue to urge the start and early completion of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on a Fissile Material Cut off Treaty, to seek universalisation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and continue to work to build trust and confidence with other Nuclear Weapon States through the P5 process.