Scottish Referendum (Trident)

Debate between Alan Reid and Lindsay Roy

Thursday 7th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Reid]

I am now confused by the hon. Gentleman. Rather than chuntering away from a sedentary position, perhaps he could get up and explain just what the position of the Scottish Government would be if they won the referendum. No, he has chosen not to do so. I look forward to his speech.

The Select Committee report said that, should the SNP win the referendum, it would probably take about two years for Trident to be gone from Faslane. There would be two years’ worth of work there—probably not as much work as there is at the moment—in the decommissioning process, but what would happen next? That is a big question on which we still await details from the SNP, but let us consider what other countries that are in a similar position to that of an independent Scottish state do with their defence.

Let us take one of the countries in what used to be termed by the SNP the arc of prosperity—Ireland. The Irish navy consists of eight patrol boats. However, eight patrol boats are not going to keep anything like the current Faslane work force in a job. It is also extremely unlikely that those eight patrol boats would all be based at Faslane, because what assets would an independent Scottish navy seek to defend? The key assets would clearly be the oil rigs and fishing grounds in the North sea, but as the Chairman of the Select Committee pointed out, that is entirely the opposite side of the country to Faslane.

I can imagine an incident on an oil rig, for which a patrol boat based at Faslane would have to sail down the Clyde, round the Mull of Kintyre, up the west coast of Scotland, through the Minch, round Cape Wrath, through the Pentland firth and eventually arrive at the incident. Clearly an independent Scotland would base at least half of its patrol boats at an east coast port—Rosyth, Aberdeen or Lerwick, for example. Even if Scotland’s navy were slightly bigger than Ireland’s and we had 10 or 15 patrol boats, probably only about six of them would be based at Faslane. That would keep only a handful of people in jobs.

We often hear references to the Norwegian and Danish navies from the SNP. They are certainly bigger than the Irish navy, but I have to point out that Scandinavian taxation is a lot higher than taxation in Britain or Ireland. People in Scandinavian countries pay about 10p to 15p in the pound more in taxation than people in Britain or Ireland do. I have never heard the SNP say that we would all be paying 10p or 15p more in the pound in taxes in an independent Scotland, which we would have to do to have a navy the size of a Scandinavian navy, but even if we matched the size of the biggest of the Scandinavian navies, there would still be far fewer jobs at Faslane and Coulport than there are at the moment.

[Lindsay Roy]

Why does the hon. Gentleman think there is a vacuum in SNP defence policy after so long declaring that it wants independence?

[Mr Reid]

I can only speculate, but my speculation is that the SNP simply does not have a clue what to do. It simply knows that there would be nothing like the same number of jobs in defence in an independent Scotland. We would see mass unemployment at Faslane and Coulport, and the SNP is not willing to own up to it. It must own up to the fact that, if it wants a Scandinavian-sized navy, it has to levy Scandinavian levels of tax on Scotland. People would have to pay 10p to 15p in the pound more in tax, and the SNP is simply not willing to face up to that fact.

I represent the prosperous town of Helensburgh. Part of the reason for its prosperity is the well-paid, specialist jobs at Faslane and Coulport. The people of Scotland will have a simple choice in 2014: they can keep the Union, the Royal Navy and the thousands of jobs, and Helensburgh and the surrounding area will prosper, or they can vote for separation, and they will get a few patrol boats, a small navy and a P45. I know what choice my constituents will make.