To ask Her Majesty's Government what responsibility they take, if any, in respect of (1) victim assistance, and (2) environmental remediation, arising from the testing of nuclear weapons; what programmes they support in each of those areas; and what assessment they have made of how any such programmes support the goals of the 2010 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Answered on
27 June 2022
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 or engage with the Treaty. 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).
The effects and consequences of nuclear testing are not part of the NPT. The Treaty related to the cessation of nuclear testing is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The UK has had a moratorium on nuclear testing since 1991, and was one of the first to sign and ratify the CTBT in 1998. We call on all States who are yet to ratify the CTBT to do so as soon as possible, so that it can enter into force.