Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what recent progress has been made on negotiations on the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. [158403]

Alistair Burt, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: The comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 1996 but has not yet entered into force.

159 states have ratified the CTBT. However, the CTBT requires all 44 states named in Annex II of the treaty to ratify it for it to enter into force. At present eight of the Annex II states have not ratified the CTBT (USA, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Iran and Egypt).

The UK has long been a supporter of the CTBT, being the first country, along with France, to sign and ratify the treaty in 1996 and 1998 respectively. We continue to push for the eight remaining Annex II states to ratify the treaty through bilateral discussions, discussions in multilateral forums, and our support to build the monitoring capacity and verification regime of the CTBT organisation in Vienna.

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