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.

Defence Equipment and Support

Lord Walney Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Harvey]

My hon. Friend makes good points on the difficulties that SMEs believe they currently have in some of our big procurement projects. Since the move to the MOD contracting directly with prime contractors, which then handle subsidiary contracting, it would be true to say that the MOD has rather lost the skill set of managing SMEs. By the time the reforms are complete, I hope that a GOCO of the sort I have described will reinvest in those skill sets and that we will be better able to manage SMEs directly.

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

In the light of what the Minister has said on sovereign capabilities, and the fact that Aldermaston is already a GOCO, how will the successor deterrent programme be different if it is transferred into a GOCO?

[Nick Harvey]

There will be very little difference. The fact of the matter, however, is that the project management undertaken on behalf of the MOD by DE&S will—I say this with considerable confidence—be better, because there will be a higher level of skills in DE&S. It will bring in a variety of new commercial skill sets of which it is currently short. That will secure better value for money and more efficient delivery of the contract.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am not aware of any such cases, but I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend outside the Chamber and to write to him.

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

Further to the previous unclear answer, is the Secretary of State categorically ruling out revisiting the “cat and trap” system for the aircraft carriers?

[Mr Hammond]

I do not think that there was a previous unclear answer. We have made a decision to revert to the STOVL––short take-off and vertical landing—solution. We are highly confident of the delivery of the F-35B STOVL variant, which the US Marine Corps depends on. We have had the highest level discussions with the US Administration, who strongly support the programme. I am looking forward to seeing US Marine Corps aircraft flying at Pax River on Wednesday.

Defence Reform

Lord Walney Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Harvey]

I am sure we all wish the family member well. I did say that no criticism attaches to the shadow Secretary for his absence and I mean that most emphatically.

The matter before us is this nonsensical motion. It seems to say that the Opposition recognise the need to make the changes we are making, but the fact is that they ducked these changes year after year. They went for 12 years without a defence review, with pressure building up in the defence programme all the time, and there was a black hole of whatever size—we will come back to that in a minute—by the time of the strategic defence and security review. They left our armed forces overstretched, under-equipped and underfunded for the tasks they were set. That is the legacy of the Government in which the hon. Member for North Durham served. The blame for the need to remove platforms, reduce manpower and make the other reductions we have had to do sits very squarely at the previous Government’s door. They wrecked the economy, they wrecked the defence budget and they failed to make the changes necessary to prepare our armed forces for the future.

The hon. Member for North Durham made heavy weather of the black hole. When we began the SDSR process in the summer of 2010 we asked the officials who were presiding over it at the MOD, “What is our baseline and what is the true financial situation as we start this process?” The explanation came that if we took the manpower commitments, all the overheads and all the committed expenditure, including the contracts that had been signed for procurement and those that had been announced by the previous Government as Ministry of Defence policy, and planned to bring them on stream when the Labour party said they would be, over the 10-year period, there was a gap between all that and a “flat real” terms assumption on funding—not a “flat cash” assumption—in relation to the 2010-11 budget. We were told that the gap over the 10-year period would amount to £38 billion. It was a 10-year period because that is the length of time over which the MOD plans its budgets.

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) said that that was an unreasonable thing to view as a starting point. She compared it with the situation of someone who was about to go personally bankrupt aspiring to buy a Ferrari, but I do not think that is very kind to the right hon. Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth). When he came to the Dispatch Box a few weeks before Christmas in 2009, he announced that there would be 22 new Chinook helicopters. He did not sign a contract or find the money to pay for them but he announced there would be 22 new Chinook helicopters. I do not know whether in the fantasy budget of the Labour party it does not think that that was a commitment, but it was one of the commitments that that Defence Secretary made, and it was on that basis that the £38 billion black hole was presented to us by officials.

I do not call into question the personal commitment of the hon. Member for North Durham, but he has to recognise that his motion opposes everything that this Government are doing and is pretty scant when it comes to proposing any alternatives. He says that he recognises the need for defence reform, but the only response in his motion is to be concerned, “anxious” and “worried” about how we are clearing up the mess he made. He has not presented one properly costed plan or given us a coherent alternative. He has not given us a plan A, let alone a plan B. He needs to recognise that he has to do better if he wants to hold us to account for what we have done.

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

Does the Minister think the decision he has just criticised was better or worse than switching to a “cat and trap” system when first coming into office and then reversing that decision at great cost only a year later?

[Nick Harvey]

I think it was a perfectly sensible alternative to explore the “cat and trap” option. As we said at the time, it would have given us the ability to project a much better aircraft type off the carrier. I think that to commission the detailed work on that proposal was entirely responsible. If it ends up costing us the maximum, as the Secretary of State suggested, of £100 million, that is a small sum compared with the £1.5 billion the previous Government added to the carrier project in one afternoon, when they announced from the Dispatch Box that it was to be postponed by a year. That was a far greater drain on the defence budget than the relatively small bounded study, which unfortunately concluded that the costs of going ahead with the plan were such that it was not viable.

The shadow Defence Secretary has identified £5 billion of cuts that he says he supports, but that would barely scratch the surface of the black hole that his party’s Government left behind. Of course, his cuts are not new; they are already being made. On Labour’s current public plans, the defence budget would still be in chaos. They have pledged neither to make any extra savings, nor to restore the cuts that have been made. What is interesting is not what they are saying in public, but what they are saying in private. Earlier, reference was made to the interesting correspondence between the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Defence Secretary. It is worth quoting the letter from the Leader of the Opposition to his colleague, dated 23 January this year:

“You have powerfully made the case in your recent interventions that there is no easy future for Defence expenditure and clearly in the context of the current fiscal position we can expect to have to make further savings after the next election.”

In public, the Opposition are against the cuts that we are making, but in secret, they are planning even deeper defence cuts. Today’s debate is not simply opposition, but opportunism as well.

--- Later in debate ---

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

We got a lot of heat from the Minister, but we are not much clearer on the key issue on which I want to expand—defence procurement. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) have already made excellent points on the issue. It is of course true that any incoming Government at the last election would have had to make savings and the process could have been difficult. The Labour Government put in place the process to consider how we should do that, but the important thing was to learn and see where the next Government could improve. So far, the signs are that this Government have comprehensively failed to do that.

When the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), who became Defence Secretary, was not making promises in opposition about increasing the size of the Army, he used to tell the House how terrible it was that Ministers increased the costs of projects by delaying them, but in government his party is doing precisely that, with significant added cost to the taxpayer.

As we have seen again today, Ministers are patting themselves on the back as if they have finally and magically squared the circle on defence procurement. I am afraid that what they have done is simply seek the appearance of order, in the manner of a child tidying his bedroom in great haste. They have done this in a number of ways. Some costs have been swept under the bed, increasing the burden on taxpayers and storing up risk for future years. In that category, of course, I include the successor deterrent.

Ministers can announce the necessary long-lead items initiated in recent weeks with as much fanfare as they like—they know that I have welcomed the commencement of each one so far—but they know that that is now being done to a tight timetable and with increased costs caused by the delay they imposed in bringing the successor into service when they first came into office. When the Defence Secretary boasts about balancing the procurement budget, he knows that that has been made possible only by shifting the project’s cost profile to the right, largely out of this spending round, which is precisely what Conservative Members used to rail against from the Opposition Benches. The extra cost of refuelling the existing Vanguard class submarines alone, which was made necessary by the delay, was estimated at between £1.2 billion and £1.4 billion by the former Secretary of State. We are yet to hear the full cost of this exercise in political management and short-term debt clearing. Perhaps the Minister will seek to enlighten us when he winds up.

In their desperation to present a false image of order, the Government have gone beyond simply sweeping things out of immediate sight. Some projects have been subjected to the procurement equivalent of being hastily hurled out of the window, with little thought for the waste that that causes or, most importantly, the implications for national security. Any claim they might have made to have got to grips with defence procurement was surely destroyed by the farce over the aircraft carriers, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham set out well in his speech.

The final trick for those worried about their shoddy work being exposed is simply to turn off the lights. The Government have produced no credible evidence today or in the past about where this £38 billion has come from or how it will be filled in future. We are left with a lingering lack of certainty over the cost of big-ticket items and the personnel are bearing the brunt, with the Army that the Government promised to expand possibly set to get another whack. The books are cooked on the assumption of long-term increases in MOD funding post-2015, and black holes, which were never properly described in the first place, are apparently filled. The truth is that Ministers do not have a grip on procurement or cost overruns and have failed to put considered policy and the defence interests of the nation ahead of political posturing.

Nuclear-powered Submarines

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

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

This welcome announcement underlines just how many skilled jobs are sustained across the UK by the submarine programme, not only in Barrow. May I press the Secretary of State on what he said about the review of alternatives informing the main gate vote in 2016? Is he really saying that Ministers will form no conclusion about the review until then?

[Mr Hammond]

No, I am not saying that. I am saying that the conclusion of the review will come before the main gate decision in 2016 and will clearly therefore inform it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Peter Luff]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we understand the vital importance of keeping the minimum effective nuclear deterrent for precisely the reasons she sets out so eloquently.

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

The decision finally to go ahead is welcomed on the Opposition side of the House, and indeed in my constituency, but the previous Secretary of State put the cost of delaying at between £1.2 billion and £1.4 billion, so is the new Secretary of State’s estimate of the extra cost of delay higher, lower or about the same?

[Peter Luff]

I must be honest and say that I am not sure what delay the hon. Gentleman refers to, so I suggest that we have a conversation about it later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. My understanding, although I will have to check this, is that attrition is measured by ethnic group in the army. I will take the matter up with my Afghan counterpart on my next visit and let the hon. Lady know what I find out.

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

How is the review into the alternatives to Trident going?

[Nick Harvey]

The review is making good progress and is on target to report to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister at the end of the year, as was announced by the previous Defence Secretary.

Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I am obviously not privy to the advice given to Ministers in the previous Government by their defence advisers, nor should I be, but if the previous Government were succumbing to recommendations from the defence chiefs, they were doing them no favours by pretending that they could deliver equipment programmes for which there were no funding lines or budget cover, and when there was no prospect of their materialising.

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

rose—

[Mr Hammond]

I am going to make some progress.

Does it matter that Labour’s programme was stuffed full of projects that would never and could never be delivered? I would argue that it did matter, because so long as the fantasy persisted, the doctrine and philosophy of our armed forces—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) listens, he might understand the point being made. So long as the fantasy persisted, the doctrine and philosophy of our armed forces were built around the notion of those platforms being delivered, when what the forces really need is a realistic programme that we can deliver and that they can have confidence in, so that they can start rethinking their doctrine and operating philosophy for the future around the platforms and capabilities that we will have.

[John Woodcock]

To aid this debate, could the Secretary of State just remind the House whether his party in opposition argued for a smaller or larger Army than the then Government were prepared to support?

[Mr Hammond]

What I say to the hon. Gentleman is that we face the situation that we face. We came into office with a massive deficit, which we inherited from the previous Government, and as I shall argue, we have taken the tough decisions that, frankly, the previous Government shirked over the last few years, thereby doing the armed forces and the country no favours.

By 2010, Britain’s armed forces had endured a decade of high-tempo operations without a formal defence review and were faced with a period of acute fiscal pressure. The case for reform to ensure that the armed forces were restructured and re-equipped to protect our national security against the threats that we would face, within a budget that the nation could sustain, was unanswerable. Tough decisions were necessary to deal with problems on the scale of the inherited defence deficit, and this Government took them. I am clear, as the Prime Minister and my predecessor have been, that whatever the pain, our first duty is to put our armed forces on a sustainable basis by restructuring them for the future and putting the budgets that sustain them on a stable footing. As the SDSR acknowledged, the process of transitioning to Future Force 2020 will require us to take some calculated and carefully managed risks against certain capabilities, most prominent among which are wide-area maritime surveillance, to which the hon. Member for Bridgend referred, and carrier strike.

I regret in particular the cuts in personnel that are required to deliver that rebalancing and make the armed forces sustainable. However, in case any confusion has been created over the last few days, let me clear up one point. The headcount of military personnel will have been reduced by around 18% by 2020 compared with the 2010 baseline. That is in contrast to a 38% reduction in civilian headcount. Regrettably, some of that reduction will have to be achieved by redundancy. Where that is necessary, every opportunity is being given, and will continue to be given, for military personnel at risk of redundancy to retrain for alternative roles of which there are shortages in the armed forces.

I heard the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire earlier. Following the publication of the Select Committee’s report, I have asked for a specific briefing on the point that he raised. I would be happy to share that with him after the debate—[Interruption.] I will share it with the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) as well, if he wishes. It includes a list of the shortage trades for which suitably qualified individuals who are facing redundancy are invited to apply.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I am not quite sure how to follow that quotation, so I shall confine myself to saying how moving those remarks those were.

I have to confess that I had not intended to speak today, but Members will understand why, in the circumstances, I thought I should stress the importance that my party continues to attach to retaining and renewing the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent.

I say at the outset that the nuclear deterrent should primarily and ultimately be a matter of national and global security, not of employment. If we could genuinely be confident that the UK unilaterally disarming would make the world safer for future generations of UK citizens, and would make the almost unimaginable horror and destruction of nuclear war less likely, that should of course come ahead even of the thousands of jobs that renewing the deterrent would support in my constituency and the many thousands more that it would support across the country in the supply chain. However, my simple point is that unilaterally disarming would do no such thing.

If we were to take the view that deciding now not to renew would make the UK safer, we would have to be able to make decisions about the world as we thought it would look in 30 or 40 years’ time. We would also have to believe that the unilateral gesture would pave the way for a change in behaviour by other regimes. On the latter point, disarming would show a fundamental misunderstanding of the motivation of other regimes and groups that seek, or may in the future seek, nuclear capability. They do that to increase their capacity for aggression, not primarily because they fear the UK’s independent deterrent. On the former point, the pace of change has been so great in the past decade that we simply cannot possibly say with confidence that a deterrent will not be needed decades hence.

[Thomas Docherty]

My hon. Friend is demonstrating that he is probably the most knowledgeable Member on the issue of the deterrent. [Interruption.] I can see that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) will get me afterwards.

Has my hon. Friend made any assessment of the Liberal Democrats’ current review of the deterrent and what the pitfalls might be?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

That is a very important point with which I shall deal at some length in a moment. Suffice it to say for the moment that it is not simply the Liberal Democrats’ review; it is the Government’s review. They have commissioned it. The Conservative Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), looks like he is in two minds about it, but his own party’s former Defence Secretary sanctioned and announced it. The right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), was clearly not booted out because of that particular misdemeanour.

We have to ask whether it is right for the UK to maintain its independent deterrent. It strikes me as strange that it is often the very people who rail against the hegemony of the United States of America in world affairs who are prepared to sit quietly under its nuclear umbrella and suggest that the UK should not take responsibility for its own defence. I do not include my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) in that comment. I am glad to see him back in his place for my speech—I think.

We should redouble our efforts to tackle the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I am proud that the previous Labour Government were explicit in setting the ultimate target of zero nuclear weapons—of a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons—but we should not accept the argument that renewal is an act of proliferation. It is not. In fact, non-renewal would be an act of unilateral disarmament. It is right that our party has left those days behind.

Given the magnitude of destruction that the use of nuclear weapons would inflict, nuclear weapons are rightly an uncomfortable issue for all hon. Members and the country, but they are a deterrent. Our holding of nuclear capability is designed to make a nuclear war less not more likely. So far, that has been successful.

[Bob Stewart]

To slightly corrupt the saying, if we wish to avoid war, we should prepare for it and have the means to stop it. I fully support what the hon. Gentleman says about deterrence.

[John Woodcock]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right—he put it far more succinctly than I did and I am grateful to him for doing so.

I want to stress in the concluding part of my speech that the current Administration are creating a level of risk around the deterrent. That should be a matter of concern to Members on both sides of the House. As an aside, I hope the Minister who winds up could address the matter that was raised this week—

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

The Minister does not wind up.

[John Woodcock]

Oh, there are no wind-ups. Perhaps the Minister could find time to intervene in the short time remaining to make something clear. There are significant cuts to the MOD police. Do they mean that there are plans to reduce the MOD police presence at Faslane or Coulport? Would the Minister like to intervene?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Woodcock]

Okay. If he wants to write and make the position clear at a later stage, that is absolutely fine.

[Peter Luff]

indicated assent.

[John Woodcock]

On the risk that has been created around renewal, the alternatives to Trident review, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East referred, will be led by the Minister for the Armed Forces—it is a shame he cannot be here for the debate. Essentially, the review uses Government resources actively to explore the idea of adapting Astute class submarines for nuclear capability that falls far short of being a deterrent. That could be a cause of increased proliferation and could increase the risk of confusion. If a cruise missile is launched from a submarine at a point of war and the aggressor nation does not know whether it is nuclear or conventionally tipped, the prospects of escalation and horrible consequences increase. The Government have put that in train and we await the review.

In conclusion, the delay in the proposed in-service date of the successor to the deterrent is—it must be stressed—driven not by national security or primarily industrial concerns, but by a political fudge to delay the vote until the next Parliament. That creates increased costs for taxpayers because the overall cost of renewing our deterrent will increase. In addition, it risks stretching the life of the current Vanguard class submarine to the limit of safe operation. Pressure on the delivery timetable of the successor has been increased by putting political deals above the national interest.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Peter Luff]

I believe that, notwithstanding the views of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), no programme is subject to greater scrutiny in the House than the nuclear deterrent. That is one of the reasons for the accuracy of our costings. Let me assure my hon. Friend that the primary responsibility for our nation is the security of the country, that the nuclear deterrent is the ultimate guarantee of the country’s security, and that we stand firmly behind it.

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

Will the Minister tell us how many Government staff are working on his review of alternatives to the Trident system, when he now expects the review to end, and whether he has reached a final conclusion on whether its findings will be published?

[Peter Luff]

I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman off the top of my head exactly how many Government colleagues are involved in the review, but I will write to him about it. What I can tell him is that its findings will be available towards the end of next year for the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to consider, and that, given that it will constitute a full and frank exploration of the alternative systems at a highly classified level, there are no plans to publish either the report or the information on which it draws. However, we are a long way from the end of the review, and it is therefore premature to speculate on how the final assessment might be used once it has been completed.

BAE Systems

Lord Walney Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

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

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I shall take up some of the points about which he spoke so well. We have also listened to powerful speeches from the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). I hope that the company will listen to them, make this consultation genuine and rethink its approach to the jobs currently set to go.

It is hard to underestimate the appalling hardship that looms for these communities. While the Astute programme in Barrow shipyard is maintaining the order book there, we remember and still feel the scar of the 10,000 jobs lost there in the early ’90s and the tale of long-term benefit dependency, which still remains with us to an extent to this day. It is not only those communities that feel the blow, as this is a hit on the defence industry across the north where synergies between the aerospace and shipbuilding industry jointly support supply chain jobs, which many people will be worried about if these job cuts go ahead.

Most of all, of course, this affects individuals. When I attended BAE’s apprenticeships awards earlier this month, I saw brilliant talent there—people who had been employed in engineering manufacturing kit to help injured troops returning from the front line who were based at the Queen Elizabeth military hospital in Birmingham. The teams from the affected sites were not clear about what their future would be or whether they would be able to remain.

Previous speakers have highlighted the company’s responsibility to rethink. I want to stress the importance of the questions facing this and future Governments about their approach to the defence industry and to maintaining our defence industrial base. In an earlier intervention, the hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) criticised aspects of the previous Government’s defence industrial strategy as Stalinist. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden pointed to ways in which companies are still able to offshore, despite agreements put in place in certain areas. It is a great worry that current Ministers seem reluctant to take responsibility for helping to shape an overall strategy for industrial capacity.

[Mr Wallace]

If my memory serves me correctly, the hon. Gentleman was a special adviser in the Ministry of Defence—if not, I apologise, as I would not want to tarnish him with that accusation. Does he not think it wrong that under the last Government—it is not about party—the decision was made to underpin industrial strategy by guaranteeing work for a period, such as for 15 years on the Clyde, even if contracts were not going to be placed? That would restrict future Governments in deciding the shape of the armed forces’ and taxpayers’ money would be used to compensate for work that did not actually exist. The Government were the contractor.

[John Woodcock]

Agreements that secured work in the UK were really important. Where there are lessons to be learned from how those agreements were put in place, we should learn them, but the current Government have turned their back on this whole approach and that is a cause for considerable alarm. At a time when the Prime Minister and the Business Secretary are talking about reforming the Government’s overall procurement process to try to encourage more jobs here in the UK and to protect supply chains, I hope that such an approach will be meaningfully reflected in a rethink by the Ministry of Defence and in its forthcoming White Paper.

Whatever the balance of responsibility between Government and suppliers for ensuring that the current crisis is addressed and the future set more securely, we need to remember that it is not just the economic implications for areas that are important—as, indeed, they are—because what happens affects our ability to protect our country and support the front line. I have gone around and talked to companies and small businesses that are part of the supply chain about how they have been able to speed up getting vital equipment to troops on the front line for urgent operational requirements in Afghanistan. If our industrial base shrinks and we end up knocking on the door of foreign companies when we know we need new kit to ensure that we can have an edge on the battlefield, we will not have anything like the same level of guarantee that we will be able to accomplish that.

Finally, in an uncertain world, we simply cannot know what our defence requirements are going to be in decades ahead. It could significantly increase the nation’s vulnerability if we allow our prized industrial base to shrink from here.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Ministry of Defence (Procurement)

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). My remarks will follow on neatly from his, as his did from those of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—those who speak in debates on the deterrent are a kind of a parliamentary tag team. This is not the first time we have seen that, and I am sure that it will not be the last.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is an asymmetric triangle.

[John Woodcock]

Yes, that is quite possibly true, and I may say something about the fundamental importance of this debate for Opposition Members later.

I want to talk about the successor deterrent in the context of procurement and the critical issue of sovereign capability. Defence procurement is different from so much Government procurement in other Departments, because of the importance of Britain retaining capability in certain key strategic areas. Submarine capability must remain one of those, and British submarines defending British shores must continue to be built in Britain. It is a happy fact that the only place in Britain that can build them is in my constituency, and what an incredible engineering feat is achieved there.

It is important that procurement is undertaken in the most effective way. Gaps in construction could spell disaster for our capability to build submarines. Hon. Members will think back to the early 1990s, when the previous Conservative Government left a gap between finishing the Vanguard class submarines and starting the Astute class submarines. Ministers say—I welcome this, and we need to hold them to it—that they have learned from those mistakes and from the experience of how difficult it was to restart our capability in Barrow. In fact, the problems and cost overruns experienced with the new Astute class submarines came in large part from the fact that the people building them were learning their craft anew.

Given the constraints of sovereign capability and the fact that only one place in Britain will retain the skills to build submarines, it is critical that the Government do whatever it takes to ensure that the taxpayer gets value for money and that the country’s security is upheld. Conservative Members were hot on that in opposition, when they repeatedly pointed out the cost to taxpayers of delaying important procurement projects and of shifting timetables to the right. It therefore greatly concerned me that when they took office, they delayed the proposed in-service date for the successor deterrent submarines from 2024 to 2028, which necessitated a re-baselining of the Astute class submarines at an increased per boat cost to taxpayers and created the need for a costly refit of the Vanguard class submarines. In an answer to me on 8 November 2010, at column 5, the former Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), put the cost between £1.2 billion and £1.4 billion, which is the cost of refuelling alone aside from any other cost incurred in keeping the submarines going.

Apart from the increased cost, the changed in-service date has potentially stretched the safe life of the current Vanguard class submarine to its limit. Experts in the Navy, Barrow shipyard and the Government say that with the increased cost of the refit they think they can keep the Vanguard class submarines in service for the projected time, but their life will be stretched to the limit, and any further delay could compromise safety and radically increase the cost. I hope that the Minister will comment on that. It is important that we keep the project to time, but it has slipped in the past, and if it slips further, given that he has increased the risk to the project, what will happen?

I hope that the Minister will make it clear whether the new Defence Secretary intends to look at the issue afresh, and, if so, what that is likely to entail. Will he ring-fence the budget for Trident from the defence main budget, which has already been mentioned in the debate? Will he make clear the overall extra cost to the taxpayer from the political deal between the coalition factions, which the hon. Member for New Forest East has expanded on at length? That deal subjugated what was in the best interest of British taxpayers on procurement and the defence of the realm to political expediency in this Parliament.

[Nick Smith]

I take my hon. Friend’s point about timing, which is perfectly made, but the alteration to requirements is also important. In the strategic defence and security review the Government, as we have seen, changed their mind about what planes would travel on the new aircraft carrier, which has pumped up the cost by billions.

[John Woodcock]

My hon. Friend has extended my point. Because of the limitations that have necessarily been put on defence procurement for very good reasons, Ministers have an increased responsibility to make the right decisions. The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson), whom I congratulate on obtaining the debate, expanded at length on other areas of difficulty, and I hope that the Minister will deal with those points, particularly the most important issue of all for our defence—the ultimate deterrent that the UK maintains.