Paul Flynn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-12-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for the Government’s nuclear non-proliferation strategy of the emergence of 3D printing technologies capable of constructing components for possible use in nuclear weapons.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The Government keeps appraised of new technologies and their possible non-proliferation implications, both now and in the future. Although this technique could have some nuclear applications, currently there remain fundamental barriers to proliferation, such as the availability of fissile material.