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Four former foreign and defence secretaries have appealed to the world’s nuclear states to reduce their stockpiles of weapons in the hope of dissuading other countries from pursuing nuclear ambitions.

Writing in The Times today, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Lord Owen, Lord Hurd of Westwell and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen say that as more nuclear material gets into circulation, the greater the risk that it will fall into the wrong hands. “Some of the new terrorist organisations of today would have little hesitation in using weapons of mass destruction to further their own nihilistic agendas,” they write.

Although they are not advocating cuts at this stage in Britain’s nuclear arsenal, which stands at fewer than 200 warheads, they say that in the event of “major multilateral disarmament” Britain should also consider what contribution it could make.

“Our defence review, which was carried out ten years ago, led to a substantial reduction in Britain’s nuclear weapons but we want to put this issue back on the agenda,” Lord Robertson told The Times yesterday.

Lord Robertson, who was Defence Secretary from 1997 to 1999 then Nato Secretary-General until 2003, said: “We can’t lecture to nonnuclear states if we don’t fulfil our obligations under the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty to cut back on our weapons.”

Lord Hurd, who was Foreign Secretary from 1989 to 1995, said: “The threats have changed since the Cold War and a new initiative is needed.”

The decision of the four influential grandees to make a joint appeal for action follows a similar approach by a group of senior American figures led by Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former secretaries of state, William Perry, former Defence Secretary, and Sam Nunn, former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. They have written two articles for The Wall Street Journal in which they said that the accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, know-how and material had brought the world to a “nuclear tipping-point”. They called for a global effort to reduce reliance on such weapon systems.

Sir Malcolm, who was Defence Secretary and then Foreign Secretary between 1992 and 1997, told The Times: “We felt it was important that this same debate should take off in Europe in some way.”

Ninety-five per cent of nuclear weapons are possessed by the United States and Russia, up to 11,000 warheads between them. “It is difficult to understand why either the American or Russian governments feel that they need such enormous numbers of nuclear weapons at the present time,” the four former Cabinet ministers write in today’s article.

Lord Owen, Foreign Secretary from 1977 to 1979, said: “The world has moved on. There is a danger of nuclear proliferation. It is possible to make dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons. People forget that President Reagan wanted to abolish nuclear weapons at the Reykjavik summit in 1986 but he was blocked. Margaret Thatcher thought it too dangerous.”

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