Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about the government’s decision to increase the UK’s nuclear stockpile and the CND-led campaign requesting MPs support EDM 1667.

As you may know the Opposition has a long-established commitment to the UK leading efforts to secure multilateral nuclear disarmament, rather than unilateral disarmament which is the aim of CND and their EDM. This twin commitment to the UK maintaining a minimum credible deterrent and doing more to lead multilateral disarmament and arms controls agreements was set out in the Opposition's manifesto in both 2019 and 2017.

The previous Labour Government from 1997-2010 made progress in nuclear disarmament through international frameworks which saw the UK’s number of operationally available warheads almost halved, and the number of deployed warheads on each submarine reduced.

These efforts also resulted in the UK becoming the only recognised nuclear-armed Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) country to possess just one nuclear system, when WE-177 freefall tactical nuclear weapons were withdrawn in 1998. I believe this was important action towards multilateral nuclear disarmament and I want Britain to continue to play a leading role in moves towards this ultimate goal.

The Government’s plans to lift the cap on the number of Trident warheads by over 40% to 260, announced in the Integrated Review, reverse more than 30 years of UK non-proliferation policy under successive governments and in my view Ministers have not come close to explaining, let alone justifying, this change.

As Joe Biden has become US President and the US and Russia have agreed a new extension to their own nuclear arms control regimes, this announcement puts Britain out of step with the much-needed fresh focus on multilateralism and the decades of progress made by the UK on non-proliferation.

My colleagues and I are pressing Ministers hard to provide the full explanation that the public, Parliament and UK allies deserve, especially ahead of the NPT Review Conference in August this year. Thank you once again for contacting me with your views about this issue.

Yours sincerely