Nuclear Deterrent

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey). I am glad that he did not repeat his assertion that the world would be a better place if my constituents were sacked and sent to the Bahamas with the money from the deterrent in their back pockets. It is also good to be back speaking here again for the first time since I banged my head. All will be fine, but if at any point, Mr Speaker, I look confused and ask what all these people are doing in my bedroom, please intervene and reassure me—no, I am not that bad.

The devastation of nuclear war would be an affront to nature itself, which is why I have said on many occasions that, if we could genuinely be confident that the UK disarming would make this horror less likely, that should come ahead of even the many thousands of jobs that the industry supports in my constituency and across the country. I am proud that the last Labour Government shifted Britain’s nuclear policy for the first time towards the aim of a global zero, but we should advance non-proliferation in a way that will maintain the security of the UK and, most of all, in a way that will make a nuclear catastrophe less likely, not more so.

That is one reason why I am wary of a party that up until now has been grossly irresponsible on the question of nuclear weapons and has suddenly be given access to the levers of power. It is one thing to be a fringe concern, making up positions that sound good on the doorstep. “When money is tight”, say the Liberal Democrats”, “Let’s have a mini-deterrent”—the nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on the Astute class submarines already being built in my constituency. “They would cost less”, they say, “providing more money for schools and hospitals, and they would be much less destructive than those awful Trident missiles to which the main parties are wedded. Vote for us!”

If that policy becomes a genuine possibility that could be enacted by a party of government, it will be put under scrutiny in the run-up to an election and its fundamental weaknesses exposed. The apparent savings evaporate when considered against the enormous cost of procuring new missiles—probably without a cost subsidy from the Americans this time—building new warheads from scratch, making considerable adaptations to the Astutes and writing off the £3 billion that will already have been spent on the successor by then. When the operational capacity of this “mini-deterrent” is scrutinised, we will come up against the points that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made so adeptly in opening this debate. All in all, this option is not a winner.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

It is really delightful to see the hon. Gentleman back in his place. The problem with using cruise missiles is precisely that they are vulnerable. The whole point of deterrence is that there should be an invulnerable system. Cruise missiles are vulnerable, which destroys the concept.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Most of all, such cruise missiles are indistinguishable on an enemy radar from conventional cruise missiles, raising the chilling prospect that in the confusion of battle, a conventional attack by the UK could trigger nuclear retaliation against British cities.

[Sheryll Murray]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we took up this idea, we could see another tuition fees scenario?

[John Woodcock]

I certainly know what the hon. Lady means—I am reluctant to compare tuition fees to the ultimate deterrent, but in political terms she is absolutely right.

To those looking to the latest review into the future of the deterrent and hoping that a major—and needed—push on global non-proliferation could make it possible for the UK effectively to wait and see before committing to renew, I put two questions. First, is it really realistic to expect a breakthrough within the next few years in global security—involving not just the former Soviet Union and America, but the whole world—that would give us sufficient hope that a hostile nuclear power could not plausibly threaten the United Kingdom 20, 30 or 40 years hence? That is the judgment that we have to make now. Secondly, what would be the industrial and financial consequences of a further delay, on top of the already significant increase in cost caused by the coalition Government’s delay, which enabled them to kick the main gate decision on a successor into the next Parliament?

Industrially, we must think in terms of jobs now and over coming decades. Let us not forget that we are talking not just about 5,000 or 6,000 jobs in Barrow shipyard, critical to the regional economy though they are, but about the 4,000 jobs and rising in the nuclear submarine supply chain, stretching right across the country. We must also consider the UK’s prized capacity to manufacture submarines of any kind. We rightly say that, for security reasons, we should not procure from abroad, but if we leave another gap in production like the one in the 1990s—the Astute programme is still suffering from the attempt to recover from that—we could lose those highly honed skills from these shores for ever.

Of course we should always examine new evidence, but so far all credible evidence has pointed to the same place: that like-for-like renewal is the most effective—and the most cost-effective—way of maintaining the UK’s minimum independent deterrent and that the decision to renew should be kept at arm’s length from our profound moral obligation to pursue a world free from the threat of nuclear war.