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COLIN BRAZIER: Now world leaders will gather at the Hague tomorrow in the Netherlands for a nuclear security summit, the aim is to stop nuclear materials getting into the hands of terrorists, how likely is it that terrorists could at some future time use nuclear weapons?  Des Browne, now Lord Brown, former Defence Secretary of course and was also a counter-terrorism minister in the last government, he has been patiently listening to Rachel Reeves there taking about others matters political and this, the most serious of topics, nuclear proliferation and particularly the idea of nuclear weapons falling into the hands or nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists, where are we now? 

DES BROWNE: Well we’ve made progress.  In 1990 there were 50 countries in the world who had what is called weapons usable material which is either highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium, in various places in their countries.  Over time we’ve reduced that to 25 and in the process that President Obama started with his speech in 2009 and a series of nuclear security summits, the most recent of which will start tomorrow in the Hague and the last one will take place in 2016 in Washington, 13 countries have given up these materials or destroyed them so that they don’t need to be secured.  I think we need to keep this in proportion, these materials cannot be made by terrorists but we know terrorists want to get their hands on them and the only way they can get their hands on them is they could steal them so we have to keep …

CB: Or buy them.

DES BROWNE: Well you have to steal them first to sell them, I suspect that there are no countries in the world who have them legitimately who would be minded to sell these to terrorists although there has been some trading, suspicion of trading of these materials in Eastern European countries following the collapse of the Soviet Union but that’s mostly been interdicted.  In any event, they need to get their hands on them illegally somehow and since there is 2000 metric tonnes of this material in 25 countries in the world, we need to make sure that is fully secure.  Some of that’s in this country and although our country is very secure I think we need an international standard that applies to all countries going forward and that should be the focus of this discussion among 52 countries in the Hague tomorrow.  

CB: There is a feeling, isn’t there, that the time you are talking about in the early 90s, the break-up of the old Soviet Union, the Central Asian Republics going their own way, that was the real low point, that was the point of maximum danger, that’s the perception isn’t it?   

DES BROWNE:  The scale of the challenge was much greater and many of these countries had very limited security facilities.  If you take for example the country which is in crisis at the moment, when Ukraine came out of the Soviet Union it was the third largest nuclear power in the world and …

CB: They signed them all away.

DES BROWNE: We should be thankful for that because it would have been incapable of looking after these weapons, it would have taken all of the resources of that country or alternatively we would have had to have done it for Russia and there would have been a much different situation now in relation to Russia than the one that they expect to be in the future.  

CB: It’s a terrible thought isn’t it, Des Browne, that there will be Ukrainians today lamenting the fact that they probably signed away their nuclear weapons because they would still own Crimea probably.  

DES BROWNE: I think the sensible ones would come to the conclusion that if they had had those Soviet weapons then they would have been utterly dependent on Russia for all of this time and not an independent country but if we go back to the challenge of what the world faces tomorrow in the nuclear security summit, we have a challenge to make sure that there is an international set of standards, that these standards are properly policed and that those of us who are utterly responsible nations do it in such a way that we give assurances to other countries and bring every country in.   The big challenge in that of course is that the system that we have at the moment applies really only to civilian materials and not military materials which is 85% of the world’s stocks.  

CB: Yes or no because we’re out of time, do you still cleave to the view as you did in 2013 that we cannot afford and should not have a like for like replacement for Trident?

DES BROWNE: We’re in a much different environment now than we were in 2006 when I addressed this issue as Secretary of State for Defence and I think we should consider these issues in the current context and the threats that we face and we’ve also got to bear in mind of course that we have been through an incredible financial crisis in 2008 and the cost of these weapons have to be considered too.  I don't think there’s any doubt about that but this should be a careful consideration, I don't think we should give these weapons up but I think we should consider how we do it going forward and we will make this decision in 2016 which will probably be in a different environment again.

CB: Des Browne, Lord Browne, thanks very much indeed.