Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I would be very disappointed if they were not to be made in the United Kingdom. My understanding is that the bomber pins are manufactured here in the United Kingdom.

Even as we pay tribute to the submariners, it is equally important that we think of their families, too—those who often have to go for months on end without hearing from their loved ones. We must also pay tribute to the thousands of industry experts who have played a vital role in this national endeavour.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

I wonder how the Secretary of State thinks we can possibly lecture other countries about not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. What moral high ground do we have to do that if we ourselves not only possess them but are upgrading them? Does he really think the world would be a safer place if every country had nuclear weapons, and if that is not the case, how on earth do we justify what we are doing?

[Gavin Williamson]

I firmly believe that the world is a safer place because we have a nuclear deterrent and because of the responsible way that it is deployed.

[Caroline Lucas]

But would the world be safer if all countries had them?

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady and I will probably always find room for disagreement on this. I will come on to the issue of deterrence later.

I want to make progress, because it would be remiss of me not to mention the town of Barrow-in-Furness and give our thanks to the people of Barrow, who have crafted these giants of the deep and continue to do so, ensuring that we have the right technology and the right vessels to deliver our nuclear deterrent.

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[Gavin Williamson]

We are intending to see the first decommissioning of submarines over the coming year. That important issue needs to be addressed. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) have been looking at it and have made some very important contributions. It is an issue that the Ministry of Defence takes very seriously. I was hoping—this was obviously very naive of me—that the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) was going to talk about Scotland’s pride at being the home of our submarine forces, about the economic benefit that our continuous at-sea nuclear benefit delivers Scotland, about the fact that 6,800 people are employed at Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde and about the fact that that will increase to 8,500. It is disappointing that he could not talk with a bit of pride about the service personnel who contribute so much. This is about saying thank you, to the submariners who have continuously put their lives at risk and done so much for our nation to keep us safe. I hope that all Members in this House, regardless of their view about the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent, will have the courtesy to pay tribute to those brave men and women. We cannot wish away the rise of the atomic bomb, especially given that there are some 14,500 nuclear weapons on this Earth. That is not to say we have given up our determination to create a nuclear-free world. On the contrary, we have been at the forefront of arms reduction. Since the height of the cold war, the United Kingdom has reduced our forces by more than 50%. We have delivered on our commitment to reduce the number of warheads carried by our Vanguard submarines from 48 to 40, and we have decreased the number of operationally available warheads to no more than 120.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Gavin Williamson]

I have given the hon. Lady the opportunity to speak.

We remain committed to reducing our stockpile to no more than 180 warheads by the mid-2020s, but the reality is that other nations have not taken the hint from the lead that the United Kingdom has shown. Even as we have cut back, others are creating new systems to get around treaty obligations or are simply ignoring the commitments that they have made. I have already spoken about Russia’s breach of the INF treaty. The truth is that the only way to create the global security conditions necessary for nuclear disarmament is by working multilaterally. Our commitment to the deterrent is cast-iron.

We are spending around £4 billion every year to ensure the ultimate guarantee of our safety for the next 50 years, not least by investing in the next generation of ballistic missile submarines—the Dreadnought class. We have made significant progress.  We have already named three of the state-of-the-art submarines—Dreadnought, Valiant and Warspite. Construction has already started in Barrow on HMS Dreadnought. Those names recall some of the greatest ships of our naval history. We are investing millions of pounds in state-of-the-art facilities and complex nuclear propulsion systems, and we are ensuring every day counts by utilising our Dreadnought contingency, with access to up to £1 billion, to fund more in the early years to drive out cost and risk later in the programme.

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[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke).

I want to make a couple of what I consider to be very important points, but let me begin by saying that I think it is really good that the British Parliament is discussing this fundamental issue. I have agreed with most of the speeches that I have heard today—although I have disagreed with the Scottish National party—but I think it important for us to recognise that we sometimes need that clash of views, that clash of opinions, to establish better public policy. I say that as someone who utterly supports the continuous at-sea deterrent. However, I also strongly believe that it is representative of, and to an extent a political declaration of, the importance of our country on the world stage.

I have no problem at all with stating that view. It is not an old-fashioned view, as was suggested earlier, and it is not a view that Members should somehow not be proud of expressing in this Parliament. We are a senior member of NATO; we are a senior power in the world; and we are a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Those are fundamental matters for our country, and they bring with them fundamental responsibilities. In my opinion—which is not held by everyone in the Chamber—those responsibilities mean something when it comes to military deployment, diplomacy, and our view of the world. I think that our country makes a massive contribution to stability and peace in many parts of the world, and part of that contribution is the deterrent.

I was very pleased that the Secretary of State—and, indeed, many other Members—observed that we spend a lot of time in this Parliament simply asserting the need for the deterrent. We do not argue the case. We do not take on, in a proper, intellectual way, those who oppose it. We simply dismiss their opposition, and I think that that is wrong. As was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), it is perfectly possible, and feasible, and a philosophy that some people support, that having a nuclear deterrent is fundamentally wrong. We should accept that philosophy and argue with it, rather than simply dismissing it.

I think that some of the arguments that have been advanced are very important, but I also think that the argument has to be won in our country again. I have to tell the Minister, as someone who supports the deterrent, that mine is not a view held universally across the country. [Interruption.] Not just in Scotland, but throughout the UK, there are people—people in my own party, people in my own family, people in my own community—who do not agree with what I am saying. They will ask me, for example, “Vernon, how does having nuclear weapons defend us against terrorism?” Well, of course they are not meant to defend us against terrorism, but it is no good just saying that; it is necessary to argue it.

We have other ways of defending ourselves against terrorism, through, for instance, special forces, policing and Prevent. However, as many other Members have said, we are witnessing a rise in the activities of Russia and other states, and not simply rogue states. We used to say, “There are rogue states: what happens if North Korea…?” However, it is not about that; it is about what is actually happening in the state of Russia, which, as far as I can see, is a very real threat to our country, to western Europe and to democracy. But we have to explain that, and put that point of view.

Many of my constituents do not see Russia as a threat, in terms of its using nuclear weapons against us, and do not understand why we have to have nuclear weapons to deter it. It is therefore incumbent on people like me to say that it is important for the stability of the alliance—the stability on which NATO vis-à-vis Russia works—that that nuclear deterrent is in place. I think that the concept of mutually assured destruction does bring stability, but it is necessary to argue that constantly.

Similarly, I understand where the SNP is coming from, and I think it is perfectly legitimate to challenge its members, and to say, “You may have a non-nuclear policy in terms of Scotland, but how does that fit with membership of the NATO alliance?” That is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. It is not dismissing what they are saying, but it is a challenge.

It is not only people in this Parliament who challenge that. Scottish National party Members know that at their conference in 2012, people resigned from the party because they saw it as a betrayal of policy to hold that a non-nuclear Scotland could still be a member of NATO, as NATO was a nuclear alliance. Indeed, one person said:

“I cannot belong to a party that quite rightly does not wish to hold nuclear weapons on its soil but wishes to join a first-strike nuclear alliance.”

That is a challenge to the SNP. I am not condemning that, but that is a challenge. Members of the SNP will have that argument within the party. All I am saying is, I believe in a continuous at-sea deterrent, and therefore it is important that I argue why I think that brings stability to our country.

President Obama made a brilliant speech in Prague, which inspired the world, in which he talked about global zero. He said he wanted a world where nuclear weapons did not exist. The challenge for people like me, and the challenge for this Parliament, and for the Defence Secretary, the Chair of the Defence Committee and all my hon. Friends, is, do we share that ambition? When has this Parliament ever debated how we re-energise, re-enthuse the drive for multilateral nuclear disarmament?

The Secretary of State rightly pointed to the fact that the last Labour Government and this Government, to be fair, have reduced the number of nuclear weapons and nuclear warheads. Who has got a clue that we have done that? The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) will condemn any possession of nuclear weapons. That is a reasonable position to adopt. As for those of us who support that deterrent, how often have we gone out and explained to the British public that we believe that we can still defend our own country, but we can do it with fewer warheads, fewer missiles, in our submarines? That is a challenge as well.

How do we re-energise the non-proliferation treaty? How do we re-energise multilateral talks? These are big strategic questions for our country—even if there was an independent Scotland, they are massive strategic questions for us, and for NATO. When do we ever debate that, rather than simply hurl accusations at one another? There is a real need for that debate. I ask the Defence Secretary, how do we re-energise those non-proliferation talks, that non-proliferation treaty? Do we really mean that we want a multilateral process that leads to global zero?

[Caroline Lucas]

On that issue—a good issue—of how we revitalise multilateral talks, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we would have a better chance if our Government had taken up their potential seat at the negotiations for the UN ban treaty, which had 122 countries supporting it? That is multilateral; it is exactly multilateral. Why were we not there?

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a real pleasure and honour to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), because she speaks with real authority and eloquence about these issues. I am happy to speak as well in my capacity as chair of the cross-party group on nuclear disarmament. Let me put it on the record at the top of my speech that I am very happy to pay tribute to the submariners for their service to this country and to their families for the sacrifice that they make, which the hon. Lady has set out very clearly.

I do not think that there is any contradiction between paying tribute to that service and also being very clear that, for me, nuclear weapons are abhorrent. Others have said during this debate that it is inconsistent to have a nuclear deterrent if we are not prepared to use it. I absolutely agree with that, and I am very proud to say that I would not, under any circumstances, use nuclear weapons, and still less would I support the Prime Minister’s position of a first use of nuclear weapons. I believe that nuclear weapons are indiscriminate, illegal and obscene.

Let us just think what that first strike, which the Prime Minister was so proud not to rule out, could really mean. The heart of a nuclear explosion reaches a temperature of several million degrees centigrade. Over a wide area, the resulting heat flash literally vaporises all human tissue. At Hiroshima, within a radius of half a mile, the only remains of the people caught in the open were their shadows burned into stone. People inside buildings will be indirectly killed by the blast and the heat effects as buildings collapse and all inflammable materials burst into flames. The immediate death rate in that area will be over 90%. Individual fires will combine to produce a fire storm as all the oxygen is consumed. As the heat rises, air is drawn in from the periphery at or near ground level. This results in lethal hurricane-force winds and perpetuates the fire as the fresh oxygen is burned. The contamination will continue potentially for hundreds of thousands of years. The Red Cross has estimated that 1 billion people around the world could face starvation as a result of a nuclear war.

Let me be very clear: I hate all war, but there is something particular about nuclear war. Simply saying that it is in the same category as other forms of war is wrong. What is wrong as well is to say that we cannot uninvent things that have already been invented. We saw what happened when it came to chemical weapons, biological weapons and cluster munitions being banned. If there was more support from countries such as the UK, nuclear weapons could be banned as well. There was the UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons, and I found it frankly outrageous that the UK Government could not even be bothered to turn up to the talks. That was a campaign that was run throughout the world. One hundred and twenty two countries supported the nuclear ban treaty. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the Nobel peace prize for its efforts. The treaty is a strong and comprehensive text, with the potential to achieve a world without nuclear weapons. It opened for signature in September 2017 and will enter into force when 50 states have ratified it. It has so far been signed by 70 states and ratified by 22, and more and more are signing up.

I want to counter the argument made from the Labour Benches that the treaty is somehow not multilateral. It is, not least because there is no requirement for a country to join; there is no requirement on a country to have forgone their nuclear weapons before joining. If the UK had used its considerable clout on the world stage to have really shown some leadership on this issue, there could have been at least a chance of getting the countries around the table to have gone away and begun the process multilaterally of getting rid of their weapons.

[John Spellar]

The hon. Lady is very critical of the United Kingdom in this respect, but did Russia, China, France and the United States—in other words, the declared nuclear weapon states—attend either? Surely this is just another cul-de-sac, whereas the real way of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons is through negotiations, primarily between Russia and the United States initially, but then involving all the nuclear weapon states. Is not that real politics, rather than gesture politics?

[Caroline Lucas]

If the right hon. Gentleman really thinks that 122 countries around the world are engaging in gesture politics, I would suggest to him that it is perhaps more a gesture from him than it is from them. I believe in Britain taking a leadership role. Perhaps he does not. The constant sitting back and waiting for something else to happen—doing the wrong thing—would frankly be unconscionable.

It is very easy to characterise those of us who are against nuclear weapons as somehow not living in the real world, so perhaps I could just remind the House that there are plenty of people within the military world who do not think that nuclear weapons are a useful tool going forward. Back in 2014, senior political and diplomatic figures—including people such as the former Conservative Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Defence Secretary Des Browne and former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen—came together with very high-ranking military personnel to say that they believe that the risks posed by nuclear weapons and the international dynamics that could lead to nuclear weapons being used are being underestimated and that those risks are insufficiently understood by world leaders.

The Government’s main argument for replacing Trident appears to be that it is the ultimate insurance in an uncertain world. I argue that they fail to acknowledge that it is our very possession of nuclear weapons that is making that world more uncertain. Nor have the advocates of nuclear weapons ever explained why, if Trident is so vital to protecting us, that is not also the case for every other country in the world. The Secretary of State did not answer me at the beginning of this debate—it seems a long time ago now—when I put it to him that we have no moral arguments to put to other countries to ask them not to acquire nuclear weapons if we ourselves are not only keeping them but upgrading them. I put it to him again that a world in which every country is striving for, and potentially achieving, nuclear weapons would be an awful lot more dangerous than the world we have today.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Let me try this question again. If we were to give up our nuclear weapons, which other countries that possess nuclear weapons would follow suit? Does the hon. Lady know how many nuclear warheads have been reduced as a result of us reducing our nuclear warhead totals unilaterally? The answer is a big fat zero.

[Caroline Lucas]

That is why one needs international processes such as the UN treaty that I have described, which is supported by 122 countries, to make that happen. Although I am personally in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament, that is not the case that I am making this afternoon. I am moving one step towards people such as hon. Members like himself—or right hon. Members like himself, perhaps, I cannot really remember—who I completely understand are never going to be persuaded by unilateral nuclear disarmament, but who I hope might be willing to engage in a serious argument about multilateral nuclear disarmament.

So far there has been very little recognition in this debate of the fact that nuclear weapons systems are themselves fallible. According to a shocking report by Chatham House, there have been 13 incidents since 1962 in which nuclear weapons have very nearly been launched. One of the most dramatic, in 1983, was when Stanislav Petrov, the duty officer in a Soviet nuclear war early-warning centre, found his system warning of the launch of five US missiles. After a few moments of agonising, he judged it, thankfully and correctly, to be a false alarm. If he had reached a different conclusion and passed the information up the control chain, that could have triggered the firing of nuclear missiles from Russia.

[Deidre Brock]

Parliamentary questions I have asked uncovered the shocking fact that since 2006 there have been 789 nuclear safety incidents at Coulport and Faslane, and half of the incidents at Faslane have taken place in just the past four years. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is a very serious worry that nuclear safety incidents are on the rise under the watch of a Government who should not have control of a TV remote, let alone the most dangerous weapons on the planet?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She rightly shines a spotlight on issues that far too rarely get covered in the media or even in debates such as this one.

The UK Government have shamefully refused to participate in the treaty negotiations I have been describing while nevertheless claiming that they share the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world. But it is not too late to make amends. The Government should now engage constructively and work towards signing that treaty and supporting the global moves towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons. That, unlike a willingness to launch nuclear weapons and incinerate millions of innocent people, or to waste billions on a weapon that will never be used and therefore serves no evident purpose, would be the true test of a Prime Minister’s leadership.