Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the joint statement by the UK, US and France of 7 July 2017 on the adoption of a treaty banning nuclear weapons, how the ban treaty risks undermining the existing international security architecture; and how the Government has promoted the effectiveness of Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on nuclear disarmament.

The treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons risks weakening the consensus around the near-universal Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which has played an unparalleled role in curtailing the nuclear arms race. The UK is working with international partners to make progress on the step-by-step approach to nuclear disarmament, including the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and negotiating a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament. The treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons does not take account of the complex challenges which must be overcome to achieve multilateral nuclear disarmament. The UK is committed to the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons, in line with the NPT. We believe that productive results on nuclear disarmament can only be achieved through a consensus-based approach that takes into account the wider global security context.