Trident Alternatives Review

Debate between Lord Beamish and Tessa Munt

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

My position is very clear: I am working for a Labour victory at the next general election. But on the issue of continuous-at-sea deterrence, my answer is yes. Even though the report was commissioned by Her Majesty’s Government, its first line has the strange disclaimer:

“This…is not a statement of government policy.”

This must be the first time ever that the findings of a Government policy review have been abandoned at birth.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain why today’s edition of The Times carries a headline that reads “Labour could cut Trident fleet after review suggests this would save £1.7bn”?

[Mr Jones]

I am not sure where that came from, first, because the figure that the hon. Lady cites is not correct—this would not be the first time that a newspaper had failed to do its sums—and, secondly, because we agree with what the Defence Secretary says. If changes in technology make the nuclear submarines more reliable, meaning that we can go down to three, we will consider that.

Many Labour Members have waited anxiously to see the report’s conclusion but, 26 months later, the review to make the case for the alternatives, which had the full weight of the Government’s resources behind it, presents us with no conclusions, makes no recommendations and does not even support adopting any of the alternatives put forward by the Chief Secretary. Only the Liberal Democrats could envisage an alternatives review that rejects all the alternatives. It is the equivalent of starting a journey to discover the ark of the covenant only to end up where we began with the conclusion that it does not exist.

The Liberal Democrats’ 2010 manifesto said:

“At a cost of £100 billion over a lifetime”

Trident

“is unaffordable, and Britain’s security would be better served by alternatives.”

If that was the case in 2010, given that those alternatives have not been identified in the review, surely it is not too much to ask that the Deputy Prime Minister and his Liberal Democrat colleagues admit that what they claimed in 2010 was wrong. One by one, each of the alternative platforms to Trident are rejected in the review. Heavy bombers, fast jets, low-orbit vehicles, land silos and maritime surface vessels are all discredited for not offering sufficient capability while costing more.

The review even dismisses the Liberal Democrats’ most favoured option of replacing Trident with nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Page 45 of the document states that cruise missiles

“offer a much reduced level of destructive and second-strike capability and an increased level of operational complexity”.

Page 6 states:

“Maintaining the same level of assurance that the UK deterrent can overcome an adversary’s defences is…likely to be harder with a cruise missile-based system.”

Page 8 points out that the cost of developing a nuclear-armed cruise missile would more than double the cost of Trident missiles and would take some 24 years. In support of that argument, the Deputy Prime Minister told Andrew Marr in 2010 that the UK

“could use Astute class submarines and use cruise missiles.”

It is true that they are alternatives but, as the report says, they are not only very expensive, but not very good.

The review totally discredits the Liberal Democrats’ previous policy decisions. In fact, some of the more ludicrous suggestions were not considered in the report because exploring them was deemed to be a waste of civil service time and energy. Page 16 dismisses some of those more wacky ideas, such as using helicopters, unmanned air vehicles or space-based platforms. Hand-held devices on the ground were also excluded

“as they would not meet several constraints, including in particular credibility and absolute range.”

The report is therefore credible, as even the most far-fetched suggestions put forward in the outer reaches of the Liberal Democrat world have been addressed.