Oral Answers to Questions

Angus Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The House is, as ever, grateful for my hon. Friend’s interest and expertise in this matter. The Government’s policy is that the Vanguard class submarine will be replaced at the end of its life in the late-2020s by the successor strategic submarine, which will carry the Trident missiles, subject to main-gate investment approval for the programme in 2016. I know that he will approve of that.

[Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)]

The last conference was attended by more than 140 states and by the United Nations, the Red Crescent and representatives of civil society. What message does it send to the rest of the world and to rogue regimes that seek to have nuclear weapons that the UK is prepared to boycott such a conference? The Minister went to school in Vienna. Why does he not take the opportunity to go back and take part in the conference?

[Mr Ellwood]

As I said, the objectives of the conference are unclear. That is why the P5 nations have not attended in the past. The hon. Gentleman suggests that we are doing nothing. We have reduced the number of nuclear warheads that we possess by well over 50% since the peak of the cold war. In 2010, this Government announced further reductions to have no more than 120 operationally available warheads and a total stockpile of no more than 180 warheads by the mid-2020s. That is action, which is what the Government need to pursue.