NATO

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 29th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

My Lords, I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and to start by paying tribute to the leadership he has shown in the creation of what I think is a remarkable group of people, excluding my own membership. One can look across Europe at the number of people who have come together, echoing the leadership given by Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn and George Schultz in the United States, to consider this issue. I hope and believe that it is a group that increasingly should be listened to.

The difficulty with nuclear weapons is now clear. When one considers the frequent changes of ministerial office, it is an almost impossible issue for a new Secretary of State to deal with, so it is important to draw in those with a background in and experience of these issues. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred to Cold War attitudes and the risk of those perhaps reappearing, with some concern about President Putin’s current approach in certain areas. I was Secretary of State at the time when the Warsaw Pact collapsed, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Berlin Wall came down and Germany was reunified. I do not think I could have believed at the time that since then, in a very real way, we have hardly moved on in the nuclear situation. The threat against which we perceived the need to maintain an effective deterrent was the Warsaw Pact and the threats coming out at the time, such as that the Soviet Union would bury us. All that belonged very much to the Cold War period. Surely the situation is now different and it needs to be addressed.

I certainly echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, when he said the DDPR report and the Chicago summit did not live up to expectations, but sadly I think it is what we expected would happen. It is disappointing that this has not been taken further forward. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, was too modest to say it, but the letter for which he corralled so many signatures should be compulsory reading for all noble Lords. If anyone has come to this debate not having done so, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. I say that in passing because I hope it reflects quite a broad spectrum. Yes, there is a desire to move to a world free of nuclear weapons, but there are different attitudes within the group about the speed at which it can be done and how realistic it is. But there is certainly a major opportunity for a significant step forward.

When one looks at the situation and the current threats, and the need to assess what our capabilities in defence for the security of our nation should be, one cannot leave out the question of money. Surely that is the great change in the world recently. Suddenly a lot of countries, including our own, are very much poorer than they used to be, and the ability, opportunity and options for spending money need to be much more carefully considered.

I was reading the CND pamphlet that came out quite recently—I do not know if the figures are right, and I do not expect that my noble friend the Minister will necessarily want to comment on this—which claims that if Trident goes forward, with the possible future development of a new missile and new warheads, the figure over the lifetime of that is possibly £100 billion. When one looks at the expenditure options one has against the threats one faces—the economic situation in the western world and in Europe, as was suggested with slightly dramatic force by the Home Secretary only a week ago, a possible collapse of national economies, perhaps with people coming out of the euro, and the risk of extreme poverty, extreme hardship and mass migration—nuclear weapons have got nothing to do with how one might seek to tackle those sorts of challenges.

I am not advocating in any way abolishing our deterrent but I believe that there has always been—and is still—a case for a greater, progressive reduction. I recognise the changes that have been made, the reduction in the numbers of missiles and warheads. But we ought to go further. The United States and Russia certainly ought to go further. Starting from our position in Europe, the key to this has to be an enhanced effort with Russia, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said. Russia cannot afford it either. Given the state of its economy, Russia is spending a ludicrous amount of money on its own strategic and tactical deterrents.

Whatever the difficulties with President Putin, he is undoubtedly a strong president, having now achieved his ambition of reattaining the presidency. I am delighted that the Foreign Secretary was in Moscow so recently. I hope that there will be really determined effort to build much more confidence and trust between ourselves and Russia, which is in our mutual interest and could be the most important single step forward to seeing an improvement in this area. We might then be able to manage a deterrent—moving step by step, but those are steps that definitely need to be made.

We were disappointed that more was not done in Chicago. I hope that we can return to the subject and keep it firmly on the agenda.