Why has it taken 30 years for another fail-safe review to be conducted in the US, and why do you think that the UK has been so resistant to conduct a fail-safe review given its stated closest ally has now conducted two?

I think that the UK, uh, in common with all the other nuclear weapon states, is naturally cautious about, uh, venturing into, i- into what it might see as undefined Territory.

As you said, on, on the face of it, uh, who could object to the idea of an independent audit that was only available to the, uh, the government that had commissioned it and possibly some legislators.

But, um, most of the nuclear weapon-- well, all of the nuclear weapons states have in place many procedures and processes to satisfy themselves about the safety and security of their, um, nuclear deterrence systems.

And I mean, I, I know from my own background that the UK certainly has a great number of those kind of processes.

Although there is a, uh, a body which is, uh, sort of to some extent independent of line management, they don't have, uh, the same external examination of their, um, processes to, uh, that were a feature of the US case.

So I don't think the nuclear weapons states are re- at all resistant to the idea of making sure that their weapons, uh, can only ever be used when their head of government, uh, determines that they, uh, should be.

Given your experience in this field, it would be really interesting to hear your, um, understanding of what the dynamics and the politics are around, around this in the non-nuclear weapon state thinking.