Nuclear Deterrent

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

What I am making clear today is that for the rest of this Parliament we will be going ahead with the replacement programme. We are setting out the budget, the areas of policy and the industrial implications for doing so. As I have said, it is part of the coalition agreement that the Liberal Democrats are able to look at these alternatives. Having looked, as Secretary of State since we came to office, at all the alternatives in great detail, including the costs and the implications for defence, I remain absolutely confident that the study is very likely to come to exactly the same conclusion as the 2006 White Paper, but we have given a commitment and we are carrying that out, through Cabinet Office officials, for our Liberal Democrat partners in the coalition. We made an agreement and we are going to honour it.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the independent nuclear deterrent is being used all the time because it is, by definition, a deterrent to potential enemies? The firing of the weapon would be a disaster of course, but the point of its possession is to prevent that.

[Dr Fox]

I cannot fault my hon. Friend’s logic. He understands the whole basis of the concept of deterrence. Of course, the deterrent is designed to protect the United Kingdom from the threat of nuclear blackmail, but we still have to work hard to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in other parts of the world as a complementary, not an alternative, policy.