Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Debate between Lord Walney and Mike Gapes

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock]

Absolutely. Is the SNP’s position that NATO should cease to be a nuclear alliance? If so, how would that make us safer from Russia given what we know about its aggressive stance under President Putin and the way that it is proliferating, in contravention of the non-proliferation treaty, in a way that UK is not? Or is the SNP’s position actually that we should leave it all to the Americans and that although we do not accept the hegemony of American global power in any other form, we are fine just to sit underneath their nuclear umbrella here? That is not a responsible position, but unfortunately it is one that we hear far too often.

I am a great admirer of the shadow Defence team for the way that they have battled to try to keep Labour’s policy, on the face of it, sensible. They have been huge allies over the years. However, we cannot escape the fact that the Leader of the Opposition remains implacably opposed to the use of the deterrent, which renders it, at a stroke—

[Mike Gapes]

Is not the essence of nuclear deterrence that if you have nuclear weapons you have to be prepared to say that you will use them, and does not someone who says that they will never use them under any circumstances undermine the essence of that deterrence policy?

[John Woodcock]

They do, absolutely. It makes it very hard to imagine why a future Labour Government would continue to pour in the billions of pounds that would be needed to maintain the deterrent once they had rendered it useless.

Let me once again thank the people of Barrow, in particular, for the amazing work that they have done in serving the nation for over 100 years of the submarine, 50 of which have maintained our policy of continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence.