Trident Renewal

Debate between Bob Stewart and Roger Godsiff

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Godsiff]

I have not had the pleasure of being asked to be a Labour spokesperson, so I cannot answer that question. What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that I will go into the same Lobby as him, and I shall explain why.

I have no ethical objections to nuclear capability or to nuclear weapons. As I said, NATO is the most successful mutual defence pact the world has ever seen. It has never attacked anyone, unlike the Warsaw pact, and it kept the peace in Europe for 50 years. I am one of the people who regret the change in strategy that resulted in NATO becoming the world’s policeman. That was dangerous, and it has put enormous strains on NATO, but it is still an effective mutual defence pact. I shall argue that that is how we get our security, rather than with the mythical idea that we have an independent nuclear deterrent. There are two myths.

[Bob Stewart]

I do not think that it is mythical. We have command and control. The management of some of the systems is based on the east coast of America when we change them, but command and control arrangements are entirely ours, so the deterrent is independent.

[Mr Godsiff]

I am coming on to that. Let me deal with, in my opinion, myth No. 1. The UK has four nuclear submarines. Each can carry up to eight missiles, and each missile can carry up to five nuclear warheads. That is 40 nuclear weapons of the 17,000 that the Minister said are in existence. The UK does not own the missiles on its submarines. It leases Trident II D5 missiles from the United States, where they are made, maintained and tested. Our four submarines have to go to the American naval base in Georgia to have those missiles fitted. If Members like to believe that somehow that means that we are an independent nuclear power, so be it, but I would say that we are totally dependent on America. I do not oppose our being dependent in defence on America; I am a strong supporter of the Atlantic alliance, but I am not a supporter of mythology.