Arms to Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on initiating this debate. I am opposed to arms being sent to the rebels in Syria, but let me make this absolutely clear: if I had a different viewpoint, I would still be of the opinion that it is Parliament that should decide whether or not such a decision should be taken. A great deal is said about reforms and changes for Parliament, but one of the most important aspects of the House of Commons is that major decisions such as whether arms should be sent in such circumstances should not be taken without the express and direct consent of the House of Commons.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman but, in furtherance of his argument, would he also accept that even if it were not generally the case that Parliament should have its say before such a step is taken, when it is widely known that there is very substantial opposition to what is proposed, and that it is very likely that there would be a heavy majority of opposition in Parliament, it would be particularly unwise for the Government to go ahead without letting Parliament have its say and have a vote first?

[Mr Winnick]

I could not have put that better myself. It is very rare for the hon. Gentleman and I to agree. I hope that does not mean that we are in the wrong on this issue. My concern is that we are going into two long recesses and the Government could make a decision arguing that, given all the circumstances, it was necessary to arm the rebels in Syria, and although the House would almost certainly be recalled, the decision would have already been taken. The Government would be asking for support from their own Members on a three-line Whip. That is why is there is a good deal of anxiety—all the more so as we start our recess next week.

During the statement yesterday the Foreign Secretary said that it is “possible to anticipate” the supply of arms and that therefore there is no reason why it should not be debated “in advance”. Let me say to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) that those words have been carefully noted and the Foreign Secretary will be held to account on them by all of us if any other decision is taken when the House is not sitting.

During that statement the Foreign Secretary also spoke about the amount of support already going to the Syrian rebels—those we support. We are talking about armoured vehicles, body armour and communications equipment. Moreover, as was stated, another £20 million of supplies will be sent in the coming months. Might not the argument then be, “With all these supplies already sent, why not lethal weapons?” These things escalate, although I am not altogether certain that what has been sent has been justified.

Let us be clear about the background to this debate. Nearly 100,000 people have died in Syria since the conflict started. So many of the people who have been killed have been civilians going about their normal lives—or trying to do so; these are the men, women and children who have been killed, on both sides. The bloodshed and the suffering continues now. The argument for the supply of arms is that the stronger the rebels—at least those rebels the British Government support—the more likely it is that the Assad regime will be brought to the negotiating table. That is the basic argument, and no doubt we will hear further arguments along those lines from the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the former Foreign Secretary.

I would not dismiss that view out of hand; it is possible that there is some logic in that argument. Is it not, however, much more likely that arms supplies from the west, including from this country, would simply lead, as other hon. Members have said, to even more arms for the regime from its current backers? We would have an escalating arms race. Why do we believe that if the west started to supply arms to the rebels, the countries supporting Assad’s brutal, murderous regime—Russia, foremost, but also Iran—which, without question, has no legitimacy, would not increase the arms supply likewise? As I say, an escalating arms race can lead only to further death and destruction. As has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), neither should we overlook the sectarian aspect to the conflict, with support being given to both sides in accordance with a religious divide between Sunni and Shi’a. Again, we should not intervene in that.

I want to make it clear that there are circumstances where armed intervention from this country is justified. Nobody could have been more in favour of the support given in Bosnia and Kosovo than me. I believed that we had a duty in those places to provide support, and I was pleased to be among those who did so when Muslims were facing outright massacre. In the mid-1990s, at the time of the Bosnian conflict, I said that such support should be given—unfortunately, it was often not to be given until too late—but in Bosnia and Kosovo we were not faced with extremist elements; we were not faced with elements such as those in Syria, who obviously want to bring about a form of state run along more or less the same lines as the Taliban. Syria is a different situation altogether and that should be very much borne in mind.

What should we do in the circumstances? I could not agree more with the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) that we should, first and foremost, maximise humanitarian relief in every possible way, bearing in mind the suffering that has already occurred. More relief should be given. Every help should be given to innocent people who have been caught up in the conflict.

Finally, we must redouble our efforts to try to bring the conflict to an end, not by sending arms, but by trying to persuade Russia and other such countries to come to the negotiating table to end the suffering, to end the war and to bring about a situation where people in Syria can once again go about their everyday lives, however much there was a dictatorship there. That is a far better way of trying to deal with this terrifying problem than sending arms to those in Syria whom we believe are on the right side. Of course, we have no guarantee that if we were to do so, those arms would go to the people we believe should be supported.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Democracy was born in Greece some 2,000 years ago and has come to these islands in stages. In most sophisticated democratic states, they would regard it as astonishing that we are discussing whether the elected Parliament has the right to declare war. That is taken as obvious in most states. We have begun to debate whether we should go to war rather than who should take the decision, but that is what we should be talking about today.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that even those people who believe that we should arm the rebels ought to vote aye for this motion, given what the Foreign Secretary and others have said from the Government Front Bench?

[Paul Flynn]

I absolutely agree. The assumption is being made that Governments decide whether we go to war, but even that is not true. The decision to go to war rests with the monarch under the royal prerogative. That is a key point, particularly as we might well have a change of monarch in the foreseeable future—although it is a long way off, we all hope. The change of monarch would not strengthen the case for continuing the status quo when we know that the future likely monarch has written letters that we are not allowed to see because it might endanger his status and his future prospects as the Head of State. A decision was taken by the Government, after a freedom of information inquiry and a decision by a High Court judge that anyone who lobbies Parliament should have the contents of their lobbying letters published, to censor that correspondence. That person will be in a key position on any decision about going to war. We might say that that does not matter, but it does.

The same issue came up in a little-known practical example published by the former MP for Cambridge, Robert Rhodes James, who wrote of the fear in the Conservative party, when it decided to get rid of Mrs Thatcher, that she might call a general election. At that time, she was much more popular in the country than she was in her own party and she could well have come back. No one could have stopped her in Government, in the Cabinet or in Parliament, but one person could have stopped her calling a general election if that person had said that Mrs Thatcher was a Prime Minister who was acting in her own interests and not in the country’s. I think we all know that the present Queen had the strength of character to ensure that Mrs Thatcher did not act in her own interests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I begin with a word of appreciation to the Backbench Business Committee for selecting a debate on this motion. Without wishing to be over-pedantic, I think it is necessary to remind the House of what the motion states:

“That this House believes no lethal support should be provided to anti-government forces in Syria without the explicit prior consent of Parliament.”

This is not a debate about whether lethal force should be made available to the Syrian opposition: we will want to have that debate if and when the Government propose to supply such lethal assistance. I have to say that some Members, though not the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), have made entire speeches that made virtually no, and in some cases absolutely no, reference to the terms of the debate.

I shall indeed keep my remarks short—perhaps even shorter than the four minutes that I am now allowed—by making one specific point about the debate and one specific point about the debate after this one, which I hope we will get if ever we reach the possibility of lethal weaponry being supplied. If the assurances from the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the House are worth what we wish and believe they are worth, there should be no prospect whatsoever of anybody on the Front Bench or on either side of the argument about supplying arms voting any way other than for this motion. I trust that they will do so. I also trust that there will be a vote today, even if its mechanics require a certain degree of contrivance by those of us who have sought to bring this debate to the House.

I have been making my point about the debate after this one week in, week out, month in, month out. It is a simple point about weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of mass destruction—chemical weapons—are known to exist in very substantial quantities in Syria. We went to war in Iraq precisely to keep al-Qaeda from any possibility of getting its hands on weapons of mass destruction—chemical weapons—that were thought to exist in Iraq. In this situation, people who wish to supply lethal aid can have no guarantee that, if Assad falls, the chemical weapons that he holds will not fall into the hands of the jihadists who are fighting on the side of the opposition. You do not have to believe me, Mr Speaker—you just have to look at the Intelligence and Security Committee’s annual report, which says at paragraph 67:

“The security of these chemical weapons stocks”—

that is, Assad’s stocks—

“is also of serious concern. The Chief of SIS noted the risk of ‘a highly worrying proliferation around the time of regime fall.’ There has to be a significant risk that some of the country’s chemical weapons stockpile could fall into the hands of those with links to terrorism, in Syria or elsewhere in the region—if this happens the consequences could be”—

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. There is already some evidence that certain rebels have swapped sides to the al-Nusra Front.

[Dr Lewis]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention. I am absolutely certain that there can be no guarantee—in playing with weapons with an opposition as mixed as this one—that the people who end up on top will be the moderate, secular, democrats about whom we have heard so much in this debate. I must finish the quote from the ISC report, which concluded that

“if this happens, the consequences could be catastrophic.”

There are almost as many strands in the alliance of opponents of supplying weapons to the Syrian opposition as there are in the Syrian opposition itself. I have not made some great journey from the Thatcherite right of the Conservative party to the centre left of the political spectrum—despite your excellent example, Mr Speaker, in that respect—and I do not intend to do so. I believe in the security of this country, so I will vote no in the future debate about supplying weapons to the opposition, but we should all vote yes in today’s vote on Parliament having its say first.

Middle East and North Africa

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I have already done that in some of the interviews that I have given and made it clear. I have also discussed the issue in detail with my colleague, Ahmet Davutoglu, who is extremely concerned about it. I simply add the rider that we also have to understand that it was a popular intervention or coup—however we want to describe it. That does not mean that that is the right way to proceed, but it does mean that we have to think about and give good counsel on how the various parties work together in Egypt now. Whatever happens and whatever the opinion in the rest of the world, what has happened is not going to be reversed by military intervention, so however great our disapproval, we now have to encourage all concerned in Egypt into democratic processes—a constitution agreed by consensus, protecting human rights, making the economic progress that the country desperately needs.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I warmly welcome the assurance that the Foreign Secretary has given that no lethal support will be supplied to the Syrian opposition without a prior vote in Parliament, as I welcome a similar assurance previously given by the Leader of the House, of which I was not aware until recently? However, may I remind the Foreign Secretary that, by coincidence, tomorrow we have a debate led by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on that very subject? May we therefore presume that if the House divides tomorrow, Ministers will be voting for the motion, rather than just sitting on their hands?

Non-Proliferation Treaty

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am delighted that we are having this debate on the operation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the UK contribution to it. This is an extraordinarily serious issue, and our attitude towards nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons states, as well as the prospects for our own disarmament, are hugely important. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us what the Government’s commitment is to promoting nuclear non-proliferation.

Nuclear weapons have existed since the second world war. They have been used only once in a war scenario—at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Several hundred thousand people lost their lives in a flash—literally—but the cancers have carried on for 50 years. The cancers brought about by nuclear testing and nuclear pollution around the world have carried on for a long time. We are dealing with weapons of mass destruction, which would cause very large numbers of civilian casualties, should they ever be used again.

The development of nuclear weapons by the United States during the second world war was supported by a lot of scientists from Britain. For a short period during the war, and for a long period afterwards, all the powers relied on captured Nazi scientists to develop their own nuclear weapons—that was particularly true of the USA and the rocketry that went with them.

Shortly after the second world war, the then Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons, followed by Britain and France, and lastly China, which exploded its first nuclear weapon in 1964. Interestingly, the development of British nuclear weapons was always shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Brilliant as he was in many ways as a Prime Minister, the post-war Labour leader, Clement Attlee, managed to spend £200 million—an enormous sum now, never mind then, when it was worth far more—on secretly developing Britain’s own supposedly independent nuclear missile. That practice was copied by a later Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, who in 1979 managed to develop the Chevaline project in secrecy, without even the Cabinet being informed.

Since the development of nuclear weapons, there has been one major occasion when there was a serious likelihood of their use. That was the Cuban missile crisis of 1963, which was resolved when the Soviet Union agreed not to put nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba. In return the United States agreed to remove its nuclear missiles that were targeting Soviet targets from Turkey—although that was done secretly. A year later, both the leaders who negotiated on that were either dead or gone. Khrushchev was removed by an internal process, and Kennedy of course was assassinated. What came out of that period was a realisation of just how dangerous nuclear weapons are, and how dangerous it would be if they proliferated further. A great achievement was the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which was signed in 1970.

There are several elements to the treaty. One is the agreement, by countries that sign it, not to develop nuclear weapons. They can develop nuclear power and civil nuclear facilities, but not nuclear weapons. They also place themselves open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is based in Vienna. The five declared nuclear weapons states—Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the USA and China—agreed to ensure that there was no proliferation of their weaponry, and to take steps towards their own eventual nuclear disarmament.

The treaty’s progress has been patchy, to say the least. It is subject to a five-yearly review, and I have attended several review conferences as vice-chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and chair of the parliamentary CND group. I am not making a declaration of interest, as there is no pecuniary gain in being an officer of CND; indeed, it costs quite a lot of money, but it is a joy to do. The review conferences are designed to monitor what is happening, but also to make proposals for a step forward. The review conference of 2010, with the support of a large number of states, proposed an international conference on the humanitarian effects of nuclear war.

That conference was held in Oslo, Norway, last year, and was supported by 77 countries. Unfortunately, none of the permanent five members chose to attend. There is no undertaking as yet about whether the UK Government will participate in its recall, which is due to happen in Mexico early next year. I think that the conference should be supported, and that we should recognise the good work that Mexico has done in being prepared to take the baton from Norway and make sure the conference happens. The situation is even more peculiar given the close relationship between Britain and Norway, and, indeed, their co-operation on nuclear disarmament issues and the decommissioning of nuclear weapons. Will the Minister give a firm undertaking that the UK will attend the conference?

Several countries have in the past 20 years taken steps that have lessened nuclear tensions in certain places. The most dramatic example was when post-apartheid South Africa, led by President Mandela, announced that it would no longer develop any nuclear weapons, and would completely disarm. That in turn brought about a nuclear weapons-free continent of Africa. That was an amazing step forward. We must ask ourselves who has the greater moral standing in the world: Britain, France, Russia, China and the USA, for their continued holding and developing of nuclear weapons; or South Africa, for ridding itself of apartheid and, shortly afterwards, of nuclear weapons? Those events were followed by nuclear weapons-free zones for the whole of Latin America and for central Asia, and a continuing debate about the possibility of such a zone for the Arctic, which would be a major achievement. I hope that we shall be able to develop a nuclear weapons-free middle east, which would be a huge prize.

A humanitarian initiative was adopted at the end of the Oslo conference and signed by 77 of the 106 states attending, and it is a lesson for all of us. It says:

“The catastrophic effects of a nuclear weapon detonation, whether by accident, miscalculation or design, cannot be adequately addressed. All efforts must be exerted to eliminate this threat. The only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used again is through their total elimination. It is a shared responsibility of all States to prevent the use of nuclear weapons, to prevent their vertical and horizontal proliferation and to achieve nuclear disarmament, including through fulfilling the objectives of the NPT and achieving its universality.”

There is a message for all of us from the countries that have deliberately not developed nuclear weapons.

India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel do, unfortunately, have nuclear weapons, and I want to talk about them, and the question of Iran. India and Pakistan were both initially signatories to the NPT. Both declared that they did not want to develop nuclear weapons, and eventually both did. Each has its weapons targeted at the other, and it would be the ultimate folly for either side to use them—the madness of mutually assured destruction. If a nuclear weapon were sent from Delhi to Lahore, or Lahore to Delhi, neither side would know which was sent first, because both sides would be annihilated. There is also something tragic about the fact that, although India is in many ways a fast-developing economy and a rapidly modernising country, it still has the largest number of poor, starving children in the world. Why on earth would it spend its resources on nuclear weapons, when they could be spent on education, health and welfare? The same applies across the border in Pakistan. Any encouragement to India and Pakistan to decommission their weapons and come back into the fold of the non-proliferation treaty would be very welcome.

I have attended nuclear non-proliferation treaty review conferences and preparatory committees for the past few years. Often they are dominated by the question of Iran, and whether it has nuclear weapons. Together with the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and two other Members on the all-party group on Iran, I attended a meeting with the IAEA in Vienna to discuss that very question, and the obstructions, or otherwise, that Iran put in the way of inspections.

It is clear to me that Iran is developing a nuclear power system and processing uranium, which it is open about admitting. It absolutely declares that it does not have nuclear weapons, and religious leaders and others in Iran have said that they have no wish to develop them. I know that this is a highly contentious position, but we now have an opportunity, with the new President—President Rouhani—to engage with Iran on this question.

The way forward has to be engagement through a nuclear weapons-free middle east, which was in the declaration of the 2010 review conference. A nuclear weapons-free middle east would of course have to include Israel, which is the only country in the region to possess nuclear weapons—it has 200 warheads—and is not signed up to any treaty obligations.

There is, however, a significant nuclear peace campaign in Israel and throughout the middle east, which is supported by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. I pay tribute to Sharon Dolev and all who have campaigned so vigorously and effectively in Israel to draw attention to the insecurity, not the security, that nuclear weapons offer.

At the recent preparatory committee in Geneva, I listened carefully to the speeches made by delegates from all the Arab League states. The Arab League obviously has a great interest in the possibility of a nuclear weapons-free middle east, and strong statements were made by both the Arab League and individual countries, such as Egypt. They bluntly told the permanent five, “If you don’t progress the question of a conference for a nuclear weapons-free middle east, we will either walk out or develop our own nuclear weapons.” The obvious counter to Israel holding nuclear weapons is their development by other states in the region.

The Egyptian statement, which I heard, said:

“Egypt strongly supports the NPT regime. It has always championed the cause of a nuclear weapon free world. However, the establishment of a Middle East nuclear weapon free zone is essential for our national interest. We cannot wait forever for the launching of a process that would lead to the establishment of this zone, a process that was repeatedly committed to within the NPT. We cannot continue to attend meetings and agree on outcomes that do not get implemented, yet be expected to abide by the concessions we gave for this outcome.”

After making that statement, Egypt withdrew from the process.

There is now a serious danger that other countries in the middle east—one thinks of Saudi Arabia and others—will decide to withdraw from the NPT process, because of the failure of the secretariat and the permanent five to ensure that the Helsinki conference on a nuclear weapons-free middle east is held. I have repeatedly asked the Foreign Secretary—I now ask the Minister, who is well intentioned on these matters—whether a date has been set for the nuclear weapons-free middle east conference, which, sadly, did not happen in Helsinki when it was supposed to last year.

We need to move very urgently on the issue. The crisis in Syria suggests the need for a political solution there, but the election of a new President of Iran is an opportunity, not a problem. We should see it as an opportunity to progress this issue very quickly. If western countries that are so ready to give economic aid, arms supplies and political support to Israel cannot put pressure on Israel to attend that conference, that says a great deal about the permanent five’s rather limited commitment to a nuclear-free world.

An issue that has recently come up, as it does increasingly, is North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. One could discuss for a long time why it has developed nuclear weapons. Is it because it feels threatened by the possibility of American ones being placed in South Korea, or is it concerned about seaborne ones being used against it by the USA or somebody else? Undeniably, there is a terrible imbalance within North Korea: the country can barely feed itself and has many people living in desperate poverty, yet at the same time it wastes goodness knows what resources on the development of nuclear weapons and a missile system to go with them.

The six-party talks made some progress, but then completely broke down. More recently, at the end of the latest stand-off, with all the hyperbole from the new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, there has been some clear news. An Associated Press report stated:

“North Korea’s top governing body on Sunday”—

last week—

“proposed high-level nuclear and security talks with the United States in an appeal sent just days after calling off talks with rival South Korea.”

North Korea’s position appears to be that it wants to talk not just to South Korea, but to the USA. One hopes that such talks can bring about not only a continuation of the ceasefire between North Korea and South Korea, but a permanent end to the state of conflict and both sides’ enormous waste of resources on the development of greater levels of armament to potentially attack each other. There is something very dangerous about that, but I hope that we seize that opportunity to encourage direct talks with the USA.

President Obama was in Berlin yesterday, on the anniversary of President Kennedy’s speech at the Brandenburg gate. He proposed a further reduction in nuclear warheads as a way of promoting some degree of peace. That has to be welcomed, although so far the Russian response is a little confused. It is not clear what is being suggested, but it has to be seen as a way forward. In response, Kate Hudson, general secretary of CND, said:

“We welcome President Obama’s call for further reductions in US and Russian nuclear stockpiles. His proposals, which echo his speech against nuclear weapons in Prague in 2009, give voice to the concerns of billions around the world who wish to see a world without these catastrophic weapons… The only way to create genuine peace and security for future generations is to follow up these admirable words with concrete actions.”

One obviously hopes that that will be the case.

What can we do in Britain? We are a country of 65 million people on the north-west coast of Europe, with challenges on public expenditure and the delivery of public services. We need to invest a large amount in infrastructure. Therefore, we have to ask ourselves why we spend so much money, resource, time and energy on maintaining nuclear weapons.

The history of nuclear weapons is that Attlee initially envisaged something independent and British, but that later developed into the importing of US weapons such as Polaris, Cruise and Trident. We are now locked into a programme: the initial gate decision has been made to replace the Trident system and to develop a new submarine system at enormous cost, and a main gate decision will be taken in 2016.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

No debate would really be complete in which I did not intervene on the hon. Gentleman. On the renewal of the submarines, does he acknowledge that the Trident missiles have many years of life left in them? Therefore, the decision about whether to replace the ageing fleet of Vanguard submarines that carry the Trident missiles could not possibly contravene the terms of the non-proliferation treaty.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is quite clear that the massive cost involved is largely for the replacement of the submarines. I argue that it is a breach of the treaty to replace submarines that will carry nuclear weapons, because that is an expansion of the nuclear capability, even if the number of warheads carried on each submarine is reduced as a result.

A review is being undertaken within the Government, following pressure from the Lib Dem part of the coalition. It fought the election on the basis of not having a like-for-like replacement of Trident.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I sometimes think that the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and I missed our profession. We have both been arguing the merits and demerits of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence—I would like to think passionately but also reasonably—for at least the last 30 years. Perhaps we should cast ourselves as the nuclear version of “Les Misérables”, but which one of us would be the fugitive and which one the pursuer is a matter for others to decide. Certainly, I would like to think that our relationship is a bit more positive, if adversarial, than that of Jean Valjean and his nemesis, but the fact is that we do disagree, and we represent two diametrically opposed schools of thought. I genuinely congratulate him on securing this debate. I was away with the Intelligence and Security Committee in the United States when he applied for it. Had I not been, I would have been happy to support him in applying for it, just as he supported me very fully earlier this year when I applied for the debate that we both secured on Trident, which most people thought was beneficial and extremely valuable, whichever side of the debate they happened to support.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that, and inform him that I prayed in aid his undoubted wish to have this debate in order to continue our lifelong struggle for nuclear peace.

[Dr Lewis]

I am delighted to hear that, and that is what I hoped he would do. I will try to follow the chain of the hon. Gentleman’s argument—not too pedantically, I hope. I will start where he did, in 1945, because as he said, that was the one occasion on which nuclear weapons were used. However, it all depends on what we mean by the verb “to use”, because although they were used, very controversially, to end the war with Japan, I contend that they have been used frequently, indeed continuously, ever since. Once we get to the stage of mutual nuclear deterrence, the use of the nuclear deterrent lies not in firing it, but in possessing it, so that no one else will ever be tempted to do to a country what America was able to do to Japan. Whether we regard that as right or wrong in the circumstances is irrelevant. We want to ensure that no one is tempted to do that again in the future. The use of the nuclear deterrent is to deter anyone from attacking a country with mass destruction weapons.

Towards the end of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, he said that nuclear weapons were a fat lot of use as far as 9/11 was concerned. That is an update of an argument that we used to hear in the 1980s, when it was said, “Well, your nuclear deterrent didn’t stop Argentina invading the Falklands, did it?” My answer to the more modern version of that has to be the same as my answer to the earlier version: if a weapons system does not deter every sort of threat—and it does deter some dangerous threats—there is no more reason to get rid of it than to get rid of the antidote to a deadly disease just because it could not cure us of other, unrelated diseases.

The question of nuclear deterrence was substantially worked out before nuclear weapons made their existence known. In 1944-45, the British chiefs of staff commissioned a study by defence scientists under a famous professor, Sir Henry Tizard, to try to imagine what the future nature of warfare would be once Germany and Japan were defeated. Tizard was not allowed to go into the question of nuclear weapons, even though he knew that they were under development, but he could not resist putting in his report, in 1945, that he and his fellow senior defence scientists could see only one answer to the atomic bomb, if indeed it was developed. He said:

“A knowledge that we were prepared, in the last resort”

to retaliate with such a weapon

“might well deter an aggressive nation. Duelling was a recognised method of settling quarrels between men of high social standing so long as the duellists stood 20 paces apart and fired at each other with pistols of a primitive type. If the rule had been that they should stand a yard apart with pistols at each other’s hearts, we doubt whether it would long have remained a recognised method of settling affairs of honour.”

The hon. Member for Islington North said that Nazi scientists played a great part in the subsequent development of nuclear weapons. I do not think that that is quite true. The Nazis went down a blind alley as far as nuclear weapons development was concerned. They were subject to eavesdropping at Farm hall, where intelligence experts heard them doubting and wondering whether it was true that the Americans had successfully developed the atomic bomb used in Japan. However, he is absolutely right that Nazi scientists played a key role in developing the rocketry that could carry such weapons to their destination, should they ever be fired. As I like to stress over and over, that is not what their use consists of, once the stage of stable nuclear deterrence is reached.

Similarly and interestingly, the hon. Gentleman said, again rightly, that the Cuban missile crisis was probably the most dangerous point in the cold war—the point when the possibility of a nuclear exchange was at its highest. The concession that the Americans made was even a little greater than he suggested, because they had nuclear-armed missiles based in Turkey. It was not a question of targeting Turkey; the US had missiles based in Turkey, which Kennedy wisely decided the US should offer to remove as a way of giving Khrushchev some face-saving ability, so it would not look too much like a straightforward climb-down for him to remove the Soviet missiles from Cuba.

Although the hon. Gentleman talked a great deal about non-proliferation, he did not quote from the relevant article in the non-proliferation treaty, which is often quoted incompletely. The preamble to the treaty states that nuclear disarmament should occur

“pursuant to”—

that is, in conformity with—

“a treaty on general and complete disarmament”:

in other words, worldwide conventional disarmament.

Article VI of the non-proliferation treaty states in full:

“Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

There are three elements to article VI: the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, a world free of nuclear weapons, and a world with general disarmament. On the first, Britain has never been part of the nuclear arms race. It is true that the superpowers have: they piled up nuclear weapons on both sides of the iron curtain.

The one thing on which I always used to agree with the famous former general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Monsignor Bruce Kent, was his view that the Americans and the Russians could each unilaterally cut their nuclear arsenals by 10% without any loss of security whatsoever. I agreed entirely: both sides had massive overkill capability. However, Britain never did. For that matter, China never has, and nor has France. We in this country have always followed a policy of minimum strategic nuclear deterrence. In other words, it does not matter if another country has the ability to wipe us out 50 times over, because we can cause unacceptable levels of devastation in retaliation, which is why the other country will not do it in the first place.

The hon. Gentleman—I nearly called him my hon. Friend, because I regard him as an honourable friend—asked rhetorically which country had greater moral standing in the world: South Africa, for renouncing its programme, or the United Kingdom. I suppose it depends on one’s standard of morality and how one measures it. I would say that it is a little like arguing that the neutral countries in 1940—for instance, Holland, Belgium and Norway—had greater moral standing than democracies such as Britain and France, which at least tried to have armaments with which to defend themselves. However, that is not my standard of morality or my way of measuring it. My way of measuring it is to ask which country, by adopting a particular policy, will do most to prevent a nuclear war from breaking out. It was implicit—at one point, it was virtually explicit—in some of the hon. Gentleman’s remarks that he accepts that both of us share the same end. We do not wish a nuclear war to happen; we just disagree as much as it is possible to disagree on the means of achieving that laudable end.

I will say a few words about Britain and the renewal of Trident, and about the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, and that will probably be enough. On the question of Britain’s renewal of Trident, I underscore what I said in the intervention that the hon. Gentleman generously allowed me to make. The Trident missiles that currently constitute the British strategic nuclear deterrent are not up for renewal. They have decades of life left in them. The only question is whether we should replace the submarines that carry them.

Of course, one could argue that not replacing the submarines would effectively disarm this country of its nuclear deterrent. That is why the hon. Gentleman and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament would like the submarines not to be replaced. Equally, it is why I am determined to do everything that I can to put pressure on the Government to ensure that they fulfil their promise to replace them. However, I do not think that it is credibly arguable, by any stretch of the imagination, that replacing four submarines that are reaching the end of their design life with three or four new submarines to carry the same missiles—indeed, the new submarines will have a smaller missile compartment, so arguably they will carry fewer missiles, although I freely acknowledge that the flexibility in the number of warheads that can be put on missiles probably means that it is a distinction without a difference—comes anywhere near a breach of the provisions in article VI of the non-proliferation treaty, whatever one regards our undertakings as being.

As I said before, the only time frame is ending the arms race “at an early date”. We have never been a part of the arms race, due to our policy of minimum strategic nuclear deterrence, and as far as I can see, there is nothing in the treaty that says that we must go for a nuclear-free world before the world is conventionally disarmed. In the next and final stage of my remarks, I will argue that that would be dangerous and destabilising.

To return to the point about Trident, we continue to follow a policy with the same weapons system that we have deployed ever since HMS Vanguard first went to sea in the 1990s. Whatever other arguments might be used to say that Britain ought not to build the new fleet of successor submarines, contravening the provisions of the non-proliferation treaty is not one of them.

Let me move to the final component of my argument, which is whether a nuclear-free world would be desirable, or a least a nuclear-free world that was introduced prior to general and complete disarmament—conventional disarmament—which is referred to in the same clause of the NPT that refers to a world free of nuclear weapons.

If nuclear weapons had not existed, it is unlikely that the cold war would have remained stalemated, as it did, rather than boiling over into a third global conflict. If nuclear weapons ceased to exist, but the world remained armed to the teeth and still as mutually hostile as it is, there would be nothing to prevent the first nation to cheat on the question of its abolition of nuclear weapons from using—that is, firing—secretly manufactured devices before any such temporary monopoly of them was broken.

I particularly draw attention to the example of what happened with a treaty that undoubtedly would have had the support of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1972, when it was signed: the biological warfare convention. I always remember that brilliant columnist, Bernard Levin, who wrote an article at the time of the biological warfare convention, talking about the fact that the Russians were apparently disposing at sea of all sorts of horrible biological weapons, under the terms of the treaty. He said that whatever things they were consigning to the depths of the ocean, he was pretty sure that biological weapons were not among them. He was dead right, because we now know that in 1973, the year after Russia signed the treaty, the Soviet leadership set up Biopreparat—a massive organisation—secretly to continue its deadly biological weapons research into such charming weapons as smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax, brucellosis, tularaemia and Ebola.

We know about this because in 1989—I remember when it happened—a defector from that organisation, Vladimir Pasechnik, revealed everything that was going on. We were able to get away with that cheating, because we had the ultimate fall-back of a nuclear deterrent system, which meant that it would have been just as dangerous for Russia to have exploited its secret monopoly of biological weapons, which it kept while everybody else kept to the terms of the treaty and disarmed. We would have been able to retaliate against those weapons with our nuclear deterrent, but heaven help us if we had not the nuclear deterrent as a back-up.

The question that people who advocate a nuclear-free world have to ask themselves is this: is it a sensible policy, in the real world as we know it today, to make the world safe once again for conventional warfare between the great powers? I would love to see a nuclear-free world, but I would love to see it only when I see a weapons-free world; for that to happen, there has to be a world Government and, above all, a reformation of the mind of man and a change for the better in human nature.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are deeply obliged to the Foreign Secretary, but we have quite a lot to get through and we need to be a bit sharper.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I would like to think that I heard the word “yes” in that answer, but I am afraid I did not. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the unholy alliance between Iran and the Assad regime, how does it help the interests of this country to change yet another Arab dictatorship into another Islamist state, complete with weapons of mass destruction for al-Qaeda to use against us?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend must bear in mind that the change happening in Syria is not one that was activated here in the United Kingdom—it started in Syria. It came from the people of Syria themselves, as it has in many other countries, where many people want economic opportunity and political dignity for their own countries. The situation we face now is that the crisis is getting worse. We need a political solution and we will not get one if the more moderate and pragmatic parts of the Syrian opposition are exterminated over the coming months.

Iran

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Let us hope that the new President of Iran is not a holocaust denier who wants to wipe a member state of the United Nations from the face of the map. Does the Foreign Secretary see any role for Iran in trying to bring about a ceasefire in Syria—I stress the word “ceasefire”—to stop the killing, whether or not it leads to a political transition?

[Mr Hague]

A constructive role for Iran in Syria would be very welcome, and there is the opportunity for that. Iran’s policy on Syria at the moment is the exact opposite, as there is an abundance of evidence of Iranian participation in the murder, torture and abuse committed by the Assad regime, so as things stand today Iran is a long way from playing a helpful diplomatic or restraining role, highly desirable though that would be.

Syria (EU Restrictive Measures)

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Absolutely. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that remains a matter of the utmost priority to us. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said yesterday, the situation is immensely complex. There is a humanitarian disaster not only within Syria but outside, with, it is reckoned, 1.5 million refugees scattered throughout Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and surrounding areas, and we are working to provide support both outside and inside the country. Some 71% of the latest UN plea for support has been provided, but the rest is urgently needed. We have fulfilled our pledges, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the situation in the camps and for those being hospitable to people in their homes is dire.

The hospitality being given in people’s homes is important—we think of this going on in Lebanon, Jordan and other places. It creates pressure on the domestic population, as rents go up and the local economy becomes distorted, and after a time hospitality becomes stretched and strained, so it is essential that we continue to provide support. I am proud of the way in which the United Kingdom, as the second largest bilateral donor, has been able to do that.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Minister knows that my greatest concern is about the dangerous folly of doing anything to assist an alliance of groups that contain thousands of al-Qaeda fighters to get their hands on Assad’s chemical weapons. Rather than reiterate that, may I ask for an assurance that before there is any lifting of the arms embargo, there will be a full debate, with a vote, in this House?

[Alistair Burt]

In response to my hon. Friend’s first point, let me again make it clear that the efforts of the United Kingdom Government—this should not be left unsaid—are directed to supporting those who do not have the ideology and the declared aims of al-Qaeda. It is very important that that distinction is made, because those moderate forces are looking for recognition. They want to be able to say that they can hold areas and provide support to civilian populations, because they want to be able to provide a contrast with those who might not have Syria’s long-term interests at heart. That is why our support for the National Coalition is so important.

In response to my hon. Friend’s second point, I can do no better than repeat the words of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who said yesterday:

“I regularly come back to the House whenever there is the slightest variation in the situation, so if there are any developments in the Government’s policy I would certainly seek to do so.”

He later said:

“If we come to a choice about that, it is a very important foreign policy and moral choice, which of course should be discussed fully in this House.”—[Official Report, 20 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 908-909.]

Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

If is of course our opinion—I suspect it is the opinion of everyone in the House—that Assad should go, but we are not producing any new precondition for the conference or recommending that anybody else should do so. Our starting point for the conference is the outcome of last year’s Geneva conference, which agreed that there should be a transitional Government with full Executive powers formed by mutual consent—that the regime and opposition should each be content with those forming that transitional Government. It would be wrong to retreat from what was agreed last year—that is the only basis for peace and democracy in Syria—and we are not adding any further precondition to that.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Although historical analogies are dangerous, I fear that if we were in 1917 now, the Government would be advocating backing the Russian revolution on the basis that the Mensheviks might come out on top and not the Bolsheviks. Is it not a fact that thousands of al-Qaeda fighters are fighting in order to overthrow Assad? If they get their hands on his chemical weapons stocks, woe betide us in the west.

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend is quite right about the importance of extremist groups not getting their hands on chemical weapons stocks. That is one reason for strengthening more moderate groups in Syria, rather than letting the extremists gain greater strength, which is what is happening on the current trajectory. I will not follow him into all his historical analogies, but he will be well aware that Winston Churchill pretty much pursued the policy he was just talking about.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

The offices function very well. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question because it gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to our embassy staff in Pyongyang. It is not an easy country for the staff of western embassies to work in, but their work is important, particularly as many of our allies, such as Japan, the United States and South Korea, do not have embassies in Pyongyang. Our embassy is important and the small staff there do a great job. We were informed on 5 April by the North Koreans that they could not guarantee the safety of embassies in the event of war, but we are responding in the calm way that I have advocated, and our embassy sees no need to be withdrawn from Pyongyang.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Despite the limited nature of the threat directly posed to Britain by North Korea, does the Secretary of State agree that the speed with which this crisis has arisen indicates how foolish we would be to downgrade our strategic nuclear deterrent in the future?

[Mr Hague]

Yes, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That would be a very serious national error. We have to bear in mind that North Korea has paraded, but not tested, a long-range missile with a claimed range of 12,000 km. That is clearly the sort of thing that it is trying to develop, and we must bear that in mind when making the decision that my hon. Friend talks about.

G8 Foreign Ministers

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, there is absolutely a role for parliamentarians. Indeed, as we work on the protocol over the next few months and take it to the United Nations, I would welcome informal meetings and informal consultation with hon. Members of all parties. Of course, we would have to speak to the business managers about debates. We did have a short debate that covered the subject on 14 February, and there was enthusiastic support for this measure across the House. However, I am sure that as the year goes on—indeed, during the forthcoming debate on the Gracious Speech—there may be opportunities for us to look at this together.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Even if the Assad regime fell tomorrow, the Government could give us no guarantee at all that their chemical weapon stocks would not fall into the hands of the thousands of al-Qaeda fighters who are fighting alongside the opposition—and it took just a couple of dozen people to organise 9/11. Would not a more sensible strategy be to work with the Russians and to try to get a ceasefire rather than to remain obsessed with overthrowing the regime?

[Mr Hague]

My hon. Friend must not misunderstand this. We are working on a political solution and endlessly debating and discussing it with Russia. We are not advocating, nor do we believe in, a military solution in any direction in Syria. The additional support that we give to the National Coalition is part of our effort to promote a political solution to show the regime that the National Coalition is not going to go away—and of course to save lives, which is another reason we give that assistance. We are not advocating the destruction of the institutions of the state. Whatever happens in Syria—if, as my hon. Friend says, Assad fell tomorrow—we do not want the same situation as arose in Iraq, when entire institutions and armies were disbanded. Therefore, a political settlement is absolutely what we should be looking for. Of course, we must also have contingency plans, and we must be discussing with other nations what we can do in emergencies about the security of chemical weapons. We do indeed discuss all those contingencies and we are preparing for them.

Syria

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes, of course people are right to be concerned about any atrocities and any opportunity for international terrorism to take hold in a new place. That is one reason why we cannot just turn away from this crisis. It is also why—this is the nub of the right hon. Gentleman’s question—the assistance we give must be carefully thought out and monitored. Of course, all the assistance and equipment I have talked about is non-lethal. We will monitor its use to the best of our ability, but if it were misused or fell into the hands of groups for which it was not intended, that would have a very serious impact on our willingness to provide any such further assistance in the future. I stress that while people read about the opportunity for extremists to take hold, and while we are concerned about it, as I have described, the great majority of the people, even those involved in the fighting in Syria as far as we can tell, are not extremists. The opposition leaders whom I meet are people who sincerely want a future for their country that has nothing to do with extremism and terrorism. We must not leave those people feeling abandoned by the world.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Unfortunately, the record of moderates in standing up against extremists in such situations is not all that great. Does the Foreign Secretary accept that our sworn enemies, al-Qaeda, are fighting on the side of the opposition? Our concern is therefore that if and when the appalling Assad regime is overthrown as the Government wish, its chemical weapons stocks will fall into al-Qaeda’s hands. What practical guarantee can the Government give us that that will not happen? I asked that question on Monday; it was not satisfactorily answered, which is why I am asking it again.

[Mr Hague]

No one can give any guarantees. This is why a political and orderly transition should happen in Syria. There are certainly terrible weapons, chemical and biological, in Syria, which is why it is important to be clear that there is no military-only solution, whatever one’s point of view on the situation. Those chemical weapons are best safeguarded through a peaceful transition. That is what we need to keep arguing for. Without giving additional assistance to the moderate elements of the opposition, however, we would reduce rather than enhance the prospects for an orderly transition.