Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Douglas Chapman Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

The general consensus is that we are debating a very thin Queen’s Speech, the most striking aspect of which is the lack of attention paid to defence and our armed forces. Today, I want to speak about keeping our people safe at home and abroad—a subject that this Government seem constantly willing to sacrifice to accommodate the obsession their right wing has with the EU.

This Government are slavishly dedicated to renewing the UK’s discredited and unusable nuclear deterrent, despite the effect that might have on the rest of our conventional forces and capabilities. That is a serious matter. Time does not allow me to dwell on the knock-on effects Trident renewal will have on our armed forces personnel, but they include the 1% pay freeze that has been built into all MOD calculations and will result in a real-terms pay cut for those who give so much. I assure the Secretary of State that the Scottish National party group of MPs will hold him to account on every aspect of Trident renewal and every aspect of protecting our service personnel.

I do not have time to highlight the lack of any sort of timeframe for the main gate for Trident—or weapons of mass destruction—or indeed any idea that there will be no single main gate decision to be made by this Parliament. That is an absurdity in a programme that is predicted to cost more than £167 billion—or, as some recent estimates suggest, £205 billion. In our Queen’s Speech—an alternative Queen’s Speech—we would have a nuclear weapons consent Bill, to be agreed to within the Scottish Parliament before another generation of weapons of mass destruction is located in Scotland.

The SNP would also commit to keeping our people safe by introducing a defence shipbuilding Bill. This Government have failed to reassure the Royal Navy on the number of frigates it so desperately needs. Such a Bill would have the knock-on effect of increasing certainty for thousands of skilled shipbuilding workers, particularly on the Clyde. As the Minister for Defence Procurement suggested in answer to a parliamentary question just last month, the whole programme for the purchase of the Type 26s has been delayed, with most estimates giving a date of late 2017 for the cutting of steel on those vessels.

During the referendum campaign, a clear vow was made to the Scottish people. On the basis of the rejection of the Type 26 programme, that vow has been broken by this Government. We should do all we can to ensure that the vow is kept and the programme reinstated.