Trident Renewal
Lord Walney Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Angus Robertson
The difficulty with that position, of course, is that, were it true, it would mean that Germany, Italy and Spain were not safe and required nuclear weapons. In fact, it is the same argument made by the North Korean regime, which believes it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself. It is a dangerous argument to pursue.
I have yet to hear a supporter of Trident convincingly explain in what circumstances they would be prepared to justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children and the causing of massive environmental damage to the world for generations to come. Those are the consequences of using nuclear weapons, and surely if one has them, one has to be prepared to use them. I have yet to hear anybody give an example of circumstances where they would be prepared to kill millions of people.
Angus Robertson
Will the hon. Gentleman explain in what circumstances he would be in favour of using nuclear weapons?
John Woodcock
Will the hon. Gentleman explain the logic of his party’s position? It thinks that nuclear weapons are an abomination, but wants an independent Scotland to remain part of NATO, which is an explicitly nuclear alliance founded on the concept of overall nuclear protection.
Angus Robertson
The hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that the position of the SNP on NATO is exactly the same as that taken by the Governments of Denmark and Norway—countries that have provided the most recent NATO Secretaries-General. Those countries do not want to possess or host nuclear weapons, which is exactly the SNP’s position, but that has not precluded their participation in NATO. Perhaps having countries take that position might offer the opportunity to change the global approach to nuclear weapons currently pursued by NATO and nuclear-hosting states.
Michael Fallon
Indeed, we should certainly be concerned about the lack of progress in the talks that have been dragging on for months now, and we should be particularly concerned about the military dimension to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Let me deal now with the position of the official Opposition. On 14 November, the shadow Defence Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary wrote to the Prime Minister declaring that Britain should maintain
“a minimum credible independent, nuclear deterrent, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent”.
However, on 5 January this year, the Leader of the Opposition told Andrew Marr that
“we have got to have the least-cost deterrent that we can have, and that’s my philosophy.”
How, then, can we explain this apparent shift away from the continuous at-sea deterrent? Perhaps it has something to do with the comments of the leader of the SNP who, in talking about coalition, said that Labour would
“have to think again about putting a new generation of Trident nuclear weapons on the River Clyde.”
The public and those whose jobs depend on this programme have a right to know whether the Labour party would be prepared to trade our security if that were the price of power, and I offer the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) the opportunity to make that clear.
John Woodcock
I think that the Defence Secretary used wise words when, at the beginning of his speech, he said that we should not use this issue to play short-term politics. Let me gently warn him. We—he and I, and his party and mine—have worked constructively on this issue during difficult times in recent years. I hope that when the shadow Defence Secretary speaks, the right hon. Gentleman will take it from him—if he will not take it from me—that we remain absolutely committed to the statement that he read out. We remain absolutely committed to an independent minimum credible strategic deterrent delivered by means of the submarine programme that we started in government and will finish. A least-cost deterrent is, to our mind, exactly the same as a minimum deterrent. If the Defence Secretary wants to spend more than least costs, he should say so now.
Michael Fallon
What I am seeking, and what I have still not heard, is a recommitment to a continuous at-sea deterrent, but those words seem to have slipped out of Labour’s position. I hope that, when we hear from the hon. Member for Gedling—
Dame Joan Ruddock
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman does not know his history. There have been hundreds of wars since that time and hundreds of thousands of people have died. Many of the wars were proxy wars between the superpowers, so his argument is completely invalid. If he argues that deterrence is so wonderful because the weapons are never used, then he has to ask: why have them at all? Let us get rid of them rather than posture and spend vast fortunes and create a situation in which, at the very least, accidents and misjudgments could happen. The point about luck is that eventually it runs out, and that could happen.
It is instructive to inquire how other countries and institutions view the nuclear weapon states. I had an opportunity to find that out last December when I attended a conference organised by the Austrian Government on the humanitarian effects of the use of nuclear weapons, to which the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) has already referred. Building on two previous meetings hosted by Norway and Mexico, this conference was attended by representatives of no fewer than 157 Governments. Most telling were the contributions of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, the bodies on which the whole world depends, regardless of politics, in cases of natural disaster. Let me quote from their statement:
“Even though only a few states currently possess nuclear weapons, they are a concern to all states…They can only bring us to a catastrophic and irreversible scenario that no one wishes and to which no one can respond in any meaningful way.”
Their statement continues:
“All other weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical and biological weapons, have been banned. Nuclear weapons—which have far worse consequences than those weapons—must now be specifically prohibited and eliminated as a matter of urgency.”
I do not think that there is anyone who could not respect a statement from the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.
Dame Joan Ruddock
I am just about to finish.
After the conference, the Austrian Government issued a pledge in which they promised
“to identify and pursue effective measures to fill the legal gap for the prohibition…of nuclear weapons”.
About 40 countries have already signified their support for progressing towards an international treaty that could ban all nuclear weapons.
The renewal of Trident flies in the face of such international action and it must not be allowed to do so. The real threats to this country are cyber-warfare, terrorism, climate change and pandemics. We need all the resources we can muster to confront these threats and we cannot afford to squander billions of pounds on a weapons system that by general consent can never be used.
Sir Nick Harvey
I am going to make some progress and I will take another intervention in a little while.
Our defences have seen round after round of cuts as the financial situation has deteriorated, and later this year we face the gloomy prospect of the whole thing happening all over again. Whatever the outcome of the election, there will be a strategic defence and security review this summer and a comprehensive spending review this autumn.
The Secretary of State dismissed the cost figures offered by the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who opened the debate for the SNP, but I readily recognise those figures. It is a fact that if we go ahead and build four submarines, they will cost us between £25 billion and £30 billion. It is a fact that running the nuclear deterrent currently costs us £2.9 billion a year, and if we do that for another 30 or 40 years the cost will multiply. Whatever the outcome, at some point we will have to decommission it all at the end, so I would have thought that £100 billion is the very least it would cost. I would take a private guess that the quantum would in fact be well in excess of that figure, but I certainly recognise it as a starting point.
John Woodcock
On the basic maths, if the figure of £2.9 billion is right and, as CND’s own estimates say, the £100 billion figure is stretched over the whole lifetime of 50-plus years, could the hon. Gentleman tell me what is £2.9 billion times 50?
Sir Nick Harvey
I was taking the lifetime of the submarines as being more like 25 to 30 years. If we operate them for 25 years at almost £3 billion, that would take us into the realms of £75 billion plus the building and decommissioning costs, which would certainly take us over £100 billion very quickly indeed. I would have thought that, in reality, it will cost a great deal more than that.
We know that the national deficit remains a serious problem and we do not hear from any of the political parties—mine or anybody else’s—that defence will be insulated or protected from a tough comprehensive spending review later this year. If defence were to face another cut comparable to that which it took in 2010, which seems entirely possible, the proportion of our gross domestic product that we spend on defence, which is already destined to go below 2% next year, will make rapid headway down towards 1.5%.
We know, however, that on the table for discussion in this summer’s SDSR is a whole series of big procurement projects. The two new aircraft carriers are due to have joint strike fighter craft flying off them—we do not know how much their unit cost will be or how many of them we will be able to afford. The Type 26 frigate is due to be built in the next few years, but it is very difficult to know how much that will cost. We need more helicopters and more intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance assets. We need another generation of remotely piloted aircraft. The existing amphibious shipping is due to become redundant in the latter part of this decade and will need replacing if we are going to sustain that capability. The Army’s vehicle crisis remains unresolved after the collapse of most of the future rapid effect system programme.
All those things will be on the table and wrestled over in agony this summer. In addition, paper exercises are already being done looking at what an Army of just 60,000 would look like, because of the financial crunch that the Department will face. Yet, for some reason, keeping a nuclear deterrent going at the level we thought necessary at the height of the cold war in 1980 gets an automatic bye and is assumed to be beyond debate. Nobody even wants to put it on the table and debate it alongside those other things that are there to mitigate the dangers that our own security assessment said in 2010 are first-league threats that we face here and now.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a treat to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), and the House should take a moment to appreciate his tenacity. This is a man who at the last election spearheaded his party’s drive not to have deterrent successor submarines at all, but to have an entirely new form—a mini-deterrent, with adapted Astute submarines and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The Liberal Democrats were so sure of that policy that they put it before the electorate. It was not successful, but they retained it. As Minister, the hon. Gentleman was so determined that he persuaded the Government to fund the Trident alternatives review. That review took 18 months or two years to examine that option exhaustively, finally to conclude what we had been saying all along, which is that the policy was complete nonsense and would cost even more than the current system and be far less efficient.
The hon. Gentleman is not deterred by that. In the manner of a child jumping from sandcastle to sandcastle as the tide comes in, he seeks to find new ways to differentiate himself from the Opposition while never saying the words, after his exhaustive speech, that he is a unilateralist and his party is a unilateralist party. There is an absurdity—I think I have it right—to having not a part-time deterrent, but a no-time, or IKEA, deterrent that he could put together at some point. IKEA furniture can be difficult to assemble, but it does not take the months or years that his proposal would take. In the meantime, would we put glass in the submarines so they can become public viewing vessels? Could they carry grain, so that they could become underwater famine relief vessels, which is one of the more famous suggestions from the unilateralist CND members in my constituency? What is it? Tell the House, or is he going to leave this policy until the election to reveal it?
Mr MacNeil
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that famine relief vessels are a crazy idea?
John Woodcock
Goodness! If the hon. Gentleman wants to tell me that firing grain out of the torpedo tubes of the successor to Vanguard-class submarines is an effective use of public money, then he should go ahead. I will come on to his policy in a little while, if he does not mind.
Dr Julian Lewis
I am greatly enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s speech. Coming back to the real world, is it not the case that the need to have a continuous at-sea deterrent follows directly from the fact that we have a minimum strategic deterrent? We only have four submarines. At any one time only one or two of them can use or fire their missiles—they use them all the time to deter—but the fact is that if we did not have one continuously at sea, a surprise attack would wipe out the whole capacity.
John Woodcock
That is exactly right, which is why a part-time deterrent is no real deterrent at all. The point of having submarines that are continuously at sea means that they are, in effect, completely invulnerable. If, in a future nightmare scenario, the UK was seriously threatened by a nuclear attack, any potential nuclear adversary would know that they could not fire without being fired on. Even if they flattened the UK, they would always face the counter-strike. That is why it is a genuine deterrent and makes a nuclear attack less likely.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Was my hon. Friend not surprised to hear the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) say that his strategy is to try to acquire a nuclear weapon if it turned out we might need one? If someone fired on us it would be pointless responding by then. Potential adversaries of Britain would know that if they fired at a Liberal Democrat Government our response would be too late.
John Woodcock
Exactly. The fact is that the hon. Gentleman does not believe it. He and his party should come clean that they are unilateralists and stop this charade of ever-new inventive fantastical solutions.
John Woodcock
I will give way, but then I really want to take up less time than others have done.
John Woodcock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The global situation is profoundly unstable. Whether or not there is a nuclear adversary precisely at this moment, we simply cannot say what will be the case in the next 20, 30 or 40 years. That is the decision we are making now: what threats we will face while other countries are increasing, rather than decreasing, their arsenals.
Labour is proud of its record on non-proliferation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) was the Labour Foreign Secretary who committed the UK to a “global zero”—a world completely free from nuclear weapons. Britain was the first nuclear state in the world to sign up, before President Obama, before Russia—although it has clearly reneged on what it said—and, to the best of my knowledge, before either of the parties who have proposed the motion. They were busy thinking small, as is their wont. They were telling Scots that the answer to this issue was to expel nuclear submarines a couple of hundred miles south of the border—they are not coming to Barrow, by the way. They did that while having the cheek—I am not sure whether this is parliamentary language or not, Madam Deputy Speaker—to have the unbridled hypocrisy to say that nuclear weapons were grotesque and inhuman, but that they wished an independent Scotland to remain part of the specifically nuclear alliance of NATO.
Crispin Blunt
I realise that, as the hon. Gentleman represents Barrow and Furness, he might have a slightly different answer to this question from other hon. Members, but at what point and at what cost does this weapon system cease to be a proper value-for-money decision for the United Kingdom? How much of the defence budget does it need to take before he would say, “Actually, we are better off investing in other weapon systems that are much, much more likely to be used”? What would his number be?
John Woodcock
I will come on to figures later; I will make some progress first.
We will not insult people by saying that Trident is effectively fine as long as it is not coloured tartan. We are a party whose ambition is big. We have acted by reducing stockpiles and reducing to a single nuclear platform the minimum credible independent deterrent that it is responsible to maintain while others hold a threat that one day could be used to blackmail the United Kingdom. We led the world on “global zero” and we will lead again in government. Britain is an outward-looking country that shoulders its responsibilities. It will make genuine progress through multilateral negotiation, not futile unilateral gestures.
Labour is not a unilateralist party. I was at a CND “ban the bomb” demonstration at RAF Molesworth. I think it was in 1984 and I was aged five. If my mum will forgive me, I appreciate the fruit gums she gave me on that day but we are not going back to those days—we have moved on as a party. I listened carefully to my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock), who has had to leave for a constituency engagement, but I was left questioning her opening statement. She called herself a multilateralist, but scrapping the programme to replace the ageing Vanguard-class deterrent submarines is tantamount to unilateral disarmament—not today, but a decade or so hence, once the Vanguard-class submarines are no longer seaworthy. As a result of the delays in bringing their successor into service, they are now projected to be the longest-serving submarines in the history of the Royal Navy, but they cannot go on for ever. At that point, we would lose our nuclear capability for ever, yet we cannot possibly know what threats we will face in decades hence. Not only would it put our security at risk, but for any genuine multilateralist, it would be a missed opportunity to encourage other countries and bind them into a deal that makes genuine progress across the world.
The construction taking place in my constituency, and in all parts of the UK, is among the most highly skilled, cutting-edge engineering in the world. We cannot just put these submarines on hold and then pick them up when they might come in handy some years down the track. While a “global zero” remains beyond the horizon, we will finish the programme of renewal that we started in government but which this Administration have delayed to the point that there is precious little contingency left.
The investment announced is significant, but the £100 billion is highly flimsy at best. We do not accept the figure, but—imagining that we did—let me put it into the context of overall UK Government spending, on current levels, over those 50-plus years, a time period that never makes it on to CND posters. According to my office’s estimate, all things being equal, Government spending over those 50 years will be £35,700 billion, which I am told is £3.7 quadrillion—not a number I have used before. Within that, pensions would account for £7,160 billion, and health for £6,475 billion—I used to work for my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), but not even he would use such figures. Education would account for £4,510 billion, and conventional defence for £2,115 billion. Over that period, the £100 billion figure does not seem quite the show-stopper unilateralists would have us believe.
John Woodcock
I will not. I have given way once, and I want others to speak.
With money so tight, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) understandably ordered his defence team to re-examine the case for renewal and the most cost-effective way of maintaining the minimum credible deterrent, to which we have always been committed, and it concluded that the submarine- based, strategic, continuously at-sea system remained overwhelmingly the most appropriate system for the UK, and that the most cost-effective way to deliver it was to continue with the successor submarine-building programme, which we began in government and will be voted on in the next Parliament.
It is for the nationalists to explain why they are seeking to prioritise unilateral disarmament by making it, as far as I understand it, their one red line in any future coalition talks—they would prioritise it over all the pressing issues of health, jobs, education and the economy that matter to the people of Scotland and Wales. It is also for them to say how their stance fits with their desire to remain a member of NATO. But Labour’s view is settled. The Leader of the Opposition will never accept an irresponsible deal that trades the nuclear security of future generations in a deeply uncertain world for nationalist support to enter Downing street. We will carry on campaigning for a Labour majority. Plaid Cymru and the SNP can dream on.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Walney Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Reservists in the Royal Army Nursing Corps are putting themselves in significant danger as they are called up to serve in Sierra Leone to help combat Ebola. Why is the Ministry of Defence refusing to pay those brave people their operational allowance?
Mr Brazier
I share the hon. Gentleman’s admiration of those people, and I was privileged to see them off just before Christmas. I note that the senior nursing officer in the rotation—effectively the commander in the red zone on the current operation—is herself a reservist.
To answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly, those people are entitled to a number of other allowances, and we are looking at the moment at the issue that he mentions. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will write to him when it has been determined.
Michael Fallon
Absolutely. Successive Governments have maintained that commitment to a continuous-at-sea deterrent and this Government are also determined to do so.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I am puzzled by the attempts of the Minister for the Armed Forces to goad the Opposition on the issue of the nuclear deterrent. Let us be clear: we are committed to a minimum strategic nuclear deterrent delivered by submarines that are continuously at sea. We continue to support the programme that we started in Government, which his Government have delayed. In what way is that different from his policy?
Michael Fallon
What is different is that the Leader of the Opposition, who was challenged on this just a week ago, spoke only about the need for the least-cost deterrent, without repeating—[Interruption.]
Al-Sweady Inquiry Report
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Michael Fallon
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his earlier comment, and I will certainly take forward his suggestion that that aspect should be investigated too.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State expand on the answer that he just gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis)? What assurances can he give to the public that not only will the recommendations result in the protection and humane treatment of detainees, but that our armed forces will get protection when they need to be able to operate effectively in very difficult circumstances where lives are at risk?
Michael Fallon
On the first point, Sir Thayne Forbes himself has accepted that some of the procedures involved have already been improved. Corrections have been made and the procedures are now operating far better than in the very early years 10 years ago, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. There is a balance to be struck between the obligations that we ask our soldiers to accept when they are involved in very dangerous tasks, particularly on the battlefield. That is why I am concerned about the encroachment of other kinds of law on what is already a satisfactory basis of law—the law of armed conflict and our own domestic law.
UK Armed Forces (Iraq)
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Michael Fallon
No decision has been taken about which units are likely to be involved or which locations they are likely to be sent to; this is simply something we are considering at the request of the Iraqi Government. As my right hon. Friend says, however, this is expertise that we have in this country, and there are lessons learned from the Afghan campaign that we think we could usefully contribute to assist the Iraqi military.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to be clear about something the Defence Secretary just said. The House has only given permission for us to go up to the Iraqi border because it has never been asked to go beyond that. If he wants to do that, the Prime Minister should have the courage of his apparent conviction and ask the question. Will the Defence Secretary be specific about the request from the Iraqi Government? Have they made a specific request for the kind of increased ground force deployment he outlined to The Sunday Telegraph this week?
Michael Fallon
I did not outline any ground force deployment; I made it clear that we were not considering the deployment of combat forces to Iraq. I discussed the effort we might make in support of the Iraqi military with Iraqi commanders and the new Iraqi Defence Minister, Minister Obeidi, when I was last in Baghdad, and I discussed the same matter in Irbil. This is expertise that the Iraqi and Kurdish forces would certainly welcome.
Afghanistan
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Michael Fallon
I made it clear earlier that we have withdrawn our combat troops from Afghanistan and that we are not going to revisit that particular decision. I have outlined to the House the nature of our enduring mission there, which will help the Afghan military in the challenge that it faces. My hon. Friend is right to draw some comparison with Iraq. In many senses, Afghanistan is better placed, in that we have left as our legacy an Afghan security force that is genuinely representative of all parts of the country. That was not the case with the army that was bequeathed under Maliki in Iraq. Afghanistan therefore has a better chance of dealing with the insurgency in the name of the whole of the country, and of not being subject to the political and tribal difficulties that the Iraqi national army has experienced.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The British armed forces have spent more than a decade fighting the Taliban, yet it seems that the Taliban are now part of the reconciliation negotiations. What does the Secretary of State see as the future role of the Taliban in Afghanistan?
Michael Fallon
I have discussed with President Ghani his approach to this. There are moderate elements in the Taliban, and it is important for the new Government to reach out to them whenever possible. That is the ambition of President Ghani who—rather differently from his predecessor—is open to that and to building more effective international alliances with his neighbours, including Pakistan, India and China. It is in everyone’s interest that Afghanistan has a stable future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Fallon
Yes, the United Kingdom seeks to avoid civilian casualties. All air strikes are conducted under UK rules of engagement, which I have agreed for this campaign in accordance with the law. Close observation, careful selection and approval of targets before a strike, and the use of precision weapons, such as Brimstone and Paveway, minimise collateral damage and the potential for civilian casualties, in stark contrast with ISIL’s complete disregard for human life.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The moderate Syrian opposition continues to fight a two-fronted battle against a brutal dictator on one side and the ISIL extremists on the other. Are the Government actively reassessing their refusal to support these boots on the ground with the weapons that they need?
Michael Fallon
The decision to authorise military action in Syria is a matter for this House, and we have made it clear that we would return to Parliament for that authority if we wanted to proceed there. We are already considering the assistance that we might be able to give to help to train moderate Syrian forces and Syrian communities in self-defence, and we are looking now with our allies in the region as to how and where that training could be provided.
Michael Fallon
I am delighted to confirm our decision to deploy the second carrier within the Royal Navy. It will ensure that we have one carrier available 100% of the time, either at sea or at very high readiness. The carriers will give us unprecedented flexibility over the next 50 years to deploy our power globally to assist in joint strike fighter operations, peacekeeping, conflict prevention missions and the provision of aid and assistance in times of humanitarian crisis.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
What will the Government do to help unblock the long-stalled deal with the Indian Government for the innovative Barrow-designed and built M777, and when will the Army start using that superb piece of kit?
Mr Dunne
The hon. Gentleman is a doughty champion and I pay credit to him for his work in helping BAE Systems to conclude its contract with the Indian Government. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is due to visit India between now and Christmas. We are in active discussions in support of the US efforts—the contract is being placed through BAE Systems Inc.—to secure the order.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Philip Hammond
As I have said before in the House, part of the outcome of the strategic defence and security review in 2010 was that we should focus, while consolidating our armed forces, on our regeneration capability in case the need arose, or the resources became available, for capabilities or scale of operations that we do not have.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
We were delighted that the Secretary of State and his Australian counterpart made it through the Barrow fog to visit the shipyard on Thursday to announce major new infrastructure investment to make the Successor programme possible and the cutting of steel on the seventh Astute-class submarine. Did his conversations with the company and the work force on that day maintain his confidence that the leak in the test Vanguard reactor will not affect the build of the Astute programme?
Mr Hammond
I am not sure that I discussed that matter with the work force at Barrow, although I did have some interesting conversations that reassured me greatly about their commitment to the programme. We are clear that the incident at Dounreay will not have any impact on the progress of the Astute or Successor programmes.
Nuclear Submarines
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
As my right hon. Friend says, Governments of both persuasions over the years have adopted a prudent and precautionary approach to the safety of our nuclear submarine fleet, and have invested money, where it is necessary to do so, on the basis that safety always takes priority. As I have said, the decisions that I am announcing today are not driven by concerns about safety. There is no safety risk identified from this incident. They are driven primarily by concerns about future submarine availability.
The information on core burn is classified, but I can reassure the House that the percentage of core burn on the reactor at Dounreay exceeds by far the percentage of core burn on any of our operational reactors.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Continuous at-sea deterrence is of course the foundation of our deterrent policy. As the Secretary of State knows much better than I do, it requires not only the Vanguard-class submarines to be continuously at sea, but the Trafalgar and the Astute classes to be around. The worst-case scenario would be the refuelling of all Vanguard and Astute submarines. Does he have complete confidence that CASD would be maintained if that were to happen, and what additional capacity would be needed to carry out such an extensive venture?
Mr Hammond
The hon. Gentleman asks sensible questions, but he is verging into speculative matters at this stage. This is a very tiny flaw in a reactor that has been hammered at maximum output over a long time. It is premature to suggest that when we examine the core we will find some systemic need to refuel all other reactors of a similar type. That is not the expectation. However, as he would expect, we will plan for every contingency, and the measures that I have announced will allow us to preserve the option of refuelling further Vanguard and Astute submarines should that be deemed expedient in the future.
Defence and Cyber-security
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Arbuthnot
I do, and I hope that in answering the debate my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will take that point straight on the chin, because in many respects the armed forces are the resource of last resort, and cyber-security may be an area where the armed forces do not accept that responsibility.
There is a necessary focus within the defence world on securing the systems and networks needed by the MOD and the armed forces from cyber-threats. It is not only contemporary civil society that is utterly dependent on network technology; our armed forces are increasingly reliant on such technology for the tools of warfare, and the next step must be to ensure that the supply chain for those systems and their components is secure. That will require a trusting, transparent relationship between Government and their suppliers, with full disclosure of attacks and possible vulnerabilities, which runs all the way down the supply chain. The UK has world-class expertise and facilities on which to draw, but will the Government be able, in competition with the private sector, to keep enough of that expertise and experience in the service of the state? Are there enough such people to serve both and how should we prioritise?
The announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence in September 2013 about the establishment of a joint cyber reserve unit is a significant development, but that will rely on FTSE companies and other, smaller companies releasing key personnel to participate. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces tell us what progress has been made? According to the Government, the number of ICT and cyber-security professionals in the UK has not increased in line with the growth of the internet. Are there enough experts in industry willing to join a cyber reserve? Will technology experts—the geeks of our world—fit well within highly regimented military structures, or will a more flexible structure be required to facilitate their work?
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
The right hon. Gentleman is rightly raising just some of the myriad questions about the future in cyberspace. Does he agree that these questions are so wide-ranging and fluid, given the incredible acceleration in technology, as to pose the question whether in future we should have vari-speed defence and security reviews? On larger items we should look beyond the 10-year horizon, but in cyber, five years is far too long for what is happening.
Mr Arbuthnot
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier), the hon. Gentleman contributes effectively to the Defence Committee and makes an interesting point—one I had not heard before. That is the value of these debates. We will all have to think about that issue.
We must seek to defend ourselves, but we must also, as has been suggested, expect to develop a capability to respond to threats in cyberspace. When doing that, we face some of the same considerations as when developing conventional military capabilities. Where does the balance lie between international collaboration and sovereign capability, for example? What sort of international arrangements will best suit our aims?
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State also talked about how the UK was developing a full spectrum military cyber-capability, including strike capability. This is an interesting and novel declaration. Everybody knows it has happened but nobody has been prepared before now to announce it. Will this declaration act as a deterrent or will it make the UK a more likely target for hacktivists and foreign states? What about the legal implications of establishing a strike capability for the personnel involved? The necessary rules of engagement for cyber-attack need to be put in place, although of course we will not be told about them.
Some maintain that cyber is just another military domain and that we can expect to do everything in cyberspace that we do in the air, on land or at sea to prevent, deter coerce or intervene. But has the distinctiveness of the cyber domain been fully grasped? It is not clear, for example, that deterrence is a concept that can apply to a domain where there are real difficulties in discovering quickly who has perpetrated an attack and for what purpose, or even that an attack has taken place. Neither is it clear that everyone has grasped how important it is to avoid a silo approach to the cyberworld. It is essential to break down the dividing lines between civilian and military, among Government Departments, between Government and the private sector, and between our country and other countries, and therefore to approach the issue in an holistic way. Paul Dwyer of Mandiant came to brief the Defence Committee and told us that it takes a network to defeat a network.
Perhaps because the threat cannot be neatly categorised, it may be unrealistic to expect a neat categorisation of the responses. Everything we have been told in the UK emphasises that the armed forces have a very limited role, protecting their own systems and developing military cyber-capabilities. For other areas of activity, those in the lead are likely to be based elsewhere, particularly in the intelligence services. That is where the important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury comes in.
Afghanistan
Lord Walney Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
There are two separate points here. First, the equipment that was bought for Afghanistan through urgent operational requirements, especially armoured vehicles, represents a significant investment and we are repatriating it into core. All armoured vehicles except those that are damaged beyond economic repair will be returned to the UK and brought back into the core equipment fleet.
On the question of reserves, we have made a commitment that the reserves will increasingly in the future train on and use the same equipment as the regular forces. We have already started to deliver on that commitment by rolling out new deliveries of equipment to reserve units across the country. The pool of equipment will be joint, for the use of the integrated force—regulars and reserves.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Our fundamental mission in Afghanistan was of course to improve the security of the British people, rather than any improvement in the living conditions of Afghans. Does the Secretary of State agree, however, that the two go hand in hand? If we leave behind a more progressive country, it is more likely to remain an enduring ally of the United Kingdom in the decades ahead. Will he agree to look again at our principles for future intervention to ensure that making countries more progressive and upholding our values remain a fundamental part of what we are about as a country?
Mr Hammond
Let me answer that question this way: it is clear that our immediate mission was to deny Afghanistan to terrorists who would have used it as a base to strike at us and our allies and interests. But in the long term, it was never going to be a credible proposition that foreign forces could hold this territory. We had to build a stable and capable state in Afghanistan with a security force of its own that could do that job. My judgment is that a country that has a basic rule of law and recognises human rights will be a more stable and sustainable place in the future. A country that has education, health care and infrastructure will engage the loyalty of its citizens in a way that Afghan Governments have not always done in the past. We have to be very careful about the tone of this debate, however. It is not about exporting our perfect model of society and imposing it on others who in many fundamental respects will not accept some of the tenets that we regard as basic to our everyday existence.