Sir, I would like to correct some misunderstandings in Mr Gorbachev’s letter (March 8) about the Government’s decision to maintain a nuclear deterrent.
First, the Government is not developing a “new generation” of nuclear weapons. We have decided to extend the life of our existing missiles. We have made repeatedly clear that there will be no increase to the capability or change to the posture or doctrine of our deterrent. And we have made clear that we will dismantle and dispose of about 40 further nuclear warheads.
All the nuclear weapons states continue to update their deterrents, as did the Soviet Union when it was led by Mr Gorbachev, and Russia since then. But the UK has been more open and transparent than any other in explaining the basis of our decisions to the international community, and this has been widely appreciated by other countries.
The Government could not responsibly “postpone the decision on the future of the UK nuclear arsenal” until 2010. To postpone the decision whether to replace our submarines would be to decide by default to give up our deterrent. To invest in new submarines requires assurance that the missiles will be available to launch from them.
We have made clear that decisions will be required only in the next Parliament on whether to refurbish or replace our nuclear warheads. None of these decisions commits the UK to possess nuclear weapons until 2050; they simply enable the UK to maintain a deterrent until we can achieve our continuing objective of a world free of nuclear weapons.
The decision is not “in contradiction to the spirit of the agreements that helped to end the Cold War”. The UK is recognised as the most forward-leaning of the nuclear weapons states on disarmament. We are the only such state to have reduced our deterrent to just one system. Our further reduction in warheads will bring to 75 per cent the total reduction in the explosive power of the UK stockpile since the end of the Cold War. We have also taken the lead in promoting practical multilateral steps, through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and by pressing for a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, to continue the downward trend in the number of nuclear weapons in the world.
My colleague Kim Howells set out to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva the conditions under which the UK would engage in multilateral negotiations on complete disarmament. We continue to encourage Russia and the US to make further bilateral progress. They are still some way from the point at which the part of the global stockpile that belongs to the UK (less than 1 per cent) would need to be included in such negotiations.
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MARGARET BECKETT
Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs
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