Scottish Referendum (Trident)

Debate between Lord Robathan and Nick Harvey

Thursday 7th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I was making the point before the Division that Faslane is ideally suited to its purpose. Back in the 1950s, alternative sites were investigated, including Falmouth, which has one of the largest harbours in the world, and Milford Haven, but we cannot turn back the clock and consider how Falmouth and Milford Haven were 50 years ago. The fact is that a great deal of development has happened in both since, and some of it is completely incompatible with a nuclear facility.

If another site were chosen, the cost would not be simply the massive cost of making a nuclear installation. My colleague the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) also gave evidence to the Committee, pointing out that making a site meet the standards for nuclear safety and hardening it in defence terms would multiply costs far above the requirements of normal construction. On top of all that would be compensation, restoration and all sorts of other attendant costs from nearby facilities and developments.

That was what led me to tell the Committee that the costs would be gargantuan. I think that they are basically unquantifiable—in all honesty, I have no idea what they would be—but if we are going to spend about £25 billion on the capital costs of renewing Trident, I would not be in the least surprised to see the same sum spent all over again if anybody were seriously to undertake the fraught project of relocation to another site. In a practical sense, it is all quite unnecessary, and it would take an enormous length of time. I do not see anything incredible about the estimates of 20 years.

If it does come about, and if the United Kingdom elects a Government in 2015 who wish to go ahead with the nuclear deterrent for a further generation, it would be one of the biggest items—if not the single biggest—on the table in the negotiation that would have to take place between London and Edinburgh in the aftermath of a referendum vote for independence. The Scottish Government would likely take the view, “This will all have to be paid for by the United Kingdom Government.” I would not expect them to write cheques for it. However, if the residual UK Government found themselves facing a massive bill of many billions of pounds for relocating the nuclear deterrent, they would have that many billions fewer in their back pocket for discussing the rest of the things on the table.

That brings us to the critical point that we have not heard from the proposers of Scottish independence what the defence policy of an independent Scotland would be. The United Kingdom, even denuded of 8.5% of its population and taxpayers, would continue to have global interests, which its armed forces are there to defend. It would continue to have a broad spectrum of capability with which to defend those interests, and it would continue to have the critical mass necessary to sustain a variety of equipment fleets, but the defence force of an independent Scotland would have neither those global interests nor that global reach.

Most critically, Scotland would not have the sheer mass with which it could possibly hope to sustain fleets of warships or fighter jets. We have heard that Faslane would continue to host submarines. What on earth would an independent Scottish force want with submarines? The purpose of submarines is to protect the nuclear deterrent, the aircraft carriers and warships. If Scotland is not going to have any of those things, why the dickens would it need any submarines at all?

The truth of the matter is that an independent Scotland would need defence forces. It would be about homeland security. If Scotland was forward-leaning in its global interests, it would perhaps be willing, like the Republic of Ireland, to volunteer troops to international peacekeeping operations. However, that is very different from taking the existing United Kingdom armed forces and slicing 8.5% from them.

[Mr Robathan]

Does my hon. Friend therefore agree with John Swinney’s assumption in this not very secret document that the defence budget of an independent Scotland would have to be a great deal reduced in proportion to what it is now as a percentage of the UK defence budget?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am certain that the defence budget would be much smaller, given the other aspirations articulated for an independent Scotland, but I am absolutely clear that a force proportionate to the size of the population and the economy would not have fast jets; what on earth would it do with them? That will leave questions in a lot of mouths. It would not have warships. It would not have submarines. It would need offshore patrol vessels, some sort of aerial offshore patrol and helicopters, but it would not need the spectrum of things that the United Kingdom armed forces have. It would be a different beast altogether.

The fact of the matter is that Faslane, in its entirety, taking the nuclear deterrent, the non-nuclear submarines and the entire supply and support chain, is Scotland’s largest single employment site. As far as I can see, there would be virtually nothing there if we took the site away from Faslane. There would be a small requirement for a navy, but that would be a strange place to put it, as we heard earlier. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) would therefore be looking at ruination. Work such as that on the future of Barrow and elsewhere would need to be done.

No one should be in any doubt that this issue is a massive part of the independence debate. The consequences for Scotland need to be assessed and analysed carefully, and the headache presented to a UK Government who wished to continue the nuclear deterrent would be immense. Finally, we should not assume that Scottish independence is to be equated with the SNP ruling for ever in Edinburgh. It might well be that an election would return a Scottish Government of a completely different political hue, and some of the issues would then start looking very different.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Robathan and Nick Harvey

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

We work in close co-operation with the Americans and other ISAF allies, and we have a sensible trajectory to withdraw all our combat troops by the end of next year. We are already not involved in the face-to-face operations in which we were involved two years’ ago, and we are witnessing a thankful reduction in our casualties. We do not intend to bring our troops out early. We think that that would be a great disadvantage to peace in Afghanistan.

[Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)]

May I ask my right hon. Friend about the process of packing up and getting our kit out of Afghanistan and bringing it home? How long will that take? When will it begin and finish? How many troops will be tied up in that logistical task rather than the combat task? How much kit are we going to leave behind?

[Mr Speaker]

That was three or four questions. I shall indulge the former Minister—he is a knighted one, I note—but I know that the Minister will provide a pithy reply.