Defence: Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Earl Howe Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Lords Chamber

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[Earl Howe]

That this House takes note of the Government’s assessment in the 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review that the United Kingdom’s continuous at sea nuclear deterrent should be maintained.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, a Motion on the UK’s independent minimum credible nuclear deterrent will be debated in the other place on Monday next week, and in particular the Government’s commitment to build four new ballistic missile submarines to maintain the UK’s continuous at-sea deterrent posture. Given the overwhelming importance of the matter at hand and its pivotal implications for the future security and prosperity of this country, time has been set aside for us to consider the issues at stake and to help inform the forthcoming debate.

I do not need to remind your Lordships that the first duty of any Government is to safeguard their people against external aggression, a task that grows in complexity and scale along with the palpable threats that inform it. In the words of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review:

“Defence and protection start with deterrence, which has long been, and remains, at the heart of the UK’s national security policy”.

Deterrence means convincing potential aggressors that the benefits of attacking are far outweighed by the consequences. Decades of careful foreign and defence policy, formulated in concert with our allies, have ensured that our deterrence arsenal is well stocked, ranging from the soft-power tools of diplomacy and economic policy on the one hand to the hard power of our Armed Forces on the other.

At the extreme end of this arsenal is, of course, continuous at-sea deterrence—or CASD—the UK’s minimum credible and assured nuclear deterrent that is the ultimate guarantor of our national security and way of life. We have maintained CASD successfully and unceasingly for nearly 50 years to deter nuclear attack, nuclear blackmail and extreme threats that cannot be countered by any other means. Our nuclear deterrent kept us and our NATO allies safe for the duration of the Cold War and it continues to do so in this post-Cold War era. That is why this Government are committed to building four new ballistic missile submarines to replace our ageing Vanguard fleet—a commitment that we stated prominently in the manifesto on which we were elected last year. It is a commitment that must be acted upon now if we are to replace our current fleet on time and without a break in our CASD posture. It is a commitment that no responsible Government should, or indeed could, rescind, for three compelling reasons. First, we live in an increasingly dangerous and uncertain world. We cannot rule out the future possibility of extreme threats to the UK emerging. Therefore, CASD remains as relevant as ever. Secondly, we take our responsibilities to the British people and to our allies seriously. Thirdly, in an unstable nuclear world, we must be realistic when it comes to the goal of disarmament. So the reasons are relevance, responsibility and realism; let me take each in turn.

First, I will speak to relevance. Despite being a by-product of the Second World War and a defining facet of the Cold War, the nuclear deterrent is no relic of the past. Yes, the world has changed. The Soviet Union no longer exists, new global power dynamics have evolved and technology has changed the way we fight wars, but the nuclear threat has remained throughout. In fact, if anything, it has become more dangerous as the international situation has become increasingly fragmented and less predictable. The facts speak for themselves. Today, there are an estimated 17,000 nuclear weapons around the world, a figure that could well rise. North Korea is particularly worrying. It has stated a clear intent to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. This year, it has conducted a fourth nuclear test, a space launch that used ballistic missile technology, and several ballistic missile launches. It is attempting to develop a submarine launch capability for nuclear weapons, and claims to be testing components for a future intercontinental ballistic missile capability.

Nuclear aspirants aside, the threat from established nuclear states remains clear and present. As I speak, a resurgent Russia is in the midst of upgrading its nuclear forces, including commissioning a new class of nuclear-armed submarine. At the same time, it has increased the frequency of its snap nuclear exercises, and there has been a notable escalation in its official rhetoric about the use of nuclear weapons—most recently, threatening to base nuclear forces in Kaliningrad and Crimea.

This is the briefest of glimpses at our national threat assessment. However, the decision to replace our Vanguard fleet rests not on the here and now but on what the world could look like in the 2030s, 2040s, 2050s and beyond, when the Successor fleet would be in operation. Given the parlous state of world affairs now, can we say with any certainty that the nuclear threat will disappear within that time or that no new threat will emerge? Of course we cannot. Given our inability to predict some of the world’s most seismic events in recent decades—the end of the Cold War, the rise of Daesh and Russia’s annexation of Crimea—is it fair to say that, within reason, anything could happen? Of course it is.

It is our duty, not only to current generations but to ones not yet born, to act now to retain our strategic nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the current system and so preserve the ultimate safeguard of our national security. Let me be unequivocal here: nothing less than our current CASD posture will do. Those who seek to dilute our deterrent by proposing a different, cheaper or diminished posture are no better than those who seek to scrap Trident altogether. We estimate four new submarines would cost £31 billion spread over 35 years and have set a contingency of £10 billion, a prudent estimate based on past experience of large, complex projects. On average, that amounts to 20 pence in every £100 the Government spend, for a system that will provide a capability through to the 2060s. I believe that this is a price worth paying to keep our country safe.

From 2020, all the Royal Navy’s operational submarines will be based at Faslane. HM Naval Base Clyde is one of the largest employment sites in Scotland and will sustain around 8,200 military and civilian jobs by 2022. Furthermore, the specialist skills required in this industry—in engineering, software development and design—will keep our nation at the cutting edge of technological advancement for many years to come. If the decision were taken to discontinue the programme, not only would we lose the ultimate guarantee of our security and sovereignty, but local economies would be crippled and key skills lost, while our chances of regaining those skills and capabilities would be dealt a mortal blow.

But this is about far more than national self-interest: it is about our international responsibility, because if we failed to renew our strategic nuclear deterrent, we would be gambling with not only our own future but the future security of our NATO allies. NATO is a nuclear alliance that is the cornerstone of our defence, one that has arguably become all the more load-bearing in the wake of Brexit. Along with those of the US and France, our nuclear forces are a key facet of NATO’s commitment to collective defence, providing a robust nuclear umbrella under which many non-nuclear nations shelter. Our contribution massively enhances the alliance’s overall deterrent effect by providing added agility and resilience and by complicating the calculations of potential adversaries. To renege on our commitment while expecting the US and France to continue protecting us would be a dereliction of duty that would diminish our integrity in the eyes of our allies, diminish NATO’s credibility in the eyes of the world, and embolden our adversaries.

That leads me to my final point, which is about the need for a good dose of realpolitik when it comes to considering how a decision not to renew our deterrent would be received by our adversaries. All sides of this debate share an ambition to see a world in which nuclear weapons states feel able to relinquish their weapons. The UK is committed to working towards multilateral disarmament under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In fact, we have done more than most to fulfil our obligations. Since the height of the Cold War, we have reduced our nuclear forces by well over half, and we remain committed to reducing our stockpile of nuclear weapons to no more than 180 warheads by the mid-2020s, approximately 1% of the declared global total. But despite our honourable intent, have others had a change of heart? Quite the opposite. Instead, we have an increasingly recalcitrant Russia and North Korea and the threat of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism.

We all want to see a world where nuclear weapons are no longer necessary, but unilateral disarmament by the UK is not a route to achieving that. It would only weaken our ability to bring about lasting change. The only viable alternative is to work multilaterally to create a safer and more stable world in which states with nuclear weapons have the confidence to relinquish them. It sounds almost as Utopian as unilateral disarmament, but it can be done. Just look at the success achieved by the US and the former Soviet Union under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which reduced both parties’ deployed strategic warheads from about 12,000 to some 6,000 in total. Look at the recent deal with Iran—encouraging evidence of what we can achieve through diplomatic negotiations.

So, despite the very real threats that we face, there is cause for hope, and we should find further grounds for hope in our collective will—in this Chamber, in this country and among our allies—to create a world in which nuclear weapons are no longer necessary. But it is imperative that we go about achieving this in a measured, intelligent and cohesive way that does not leave us, our allies and future generations fatally exposed in a world fraught with danger. Let us make no mistake. We stand at this moment at a critical juncture. One path leads to uncertainty, vulnerability and powerlessness on an unstable and volatile world stage, while the other will lead us to a place where we can continue to shape our own future and have a positive stake in global affairs. To me, as a part of the Government entrusted with defending our realm, there is no real choice here, just an imperative. We must replace our Vanguard class submarines. No responsible Government would or could do otherwise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, my confident expectation for this evening was for a constructive and illuminating debate, and I have not been disappointed. No doubt all of us could have wished for a somewhat longer time to devote to this crucial matter, but I am extremely grateful for the invaluable insights and expertise that your Lordships have brought to bear on it. I hope that the wide support for the Government’s policy voiced this evening will inform and assist our right honourable and honourable friends as they prepare for their own debate in five days’ time.

I should like to address some of the highly pertinent questions and observations raised by noble Lords who have spoken. I begin with the question posed by the noble Lords, Lord Tunnicliffe and Lord Ramsbotham: why are we having this debate now? There are some simple realities which we must confront. The Vanguard fleet is due to leave service in the early 2030s, and the successor submarines are highly complex vessels, which take 20 years or so to design and build. It is important, too, to recognise that industry needs certainty for the investment that it needs to make both in construction and in skilled workers. It has the assurance from the Government of a clear policy, but at this juncture in the successor programme, it is right that it knows that Parliament as a whole is behind this programme.

In 2007 Parliament voted to maintain our strategic nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the existing system. Last year Parliament voted twice to retain our deterrent, and the issue will be debated again next week. It is important that we keep reminding ourselves that this is not a judgment about short-term threats, but about the threats we may face over generations to come. It is right that Parliament has the opportunity to vote on such an important issue. It is important, too, for the Government to have the backing of Parliament in pursuing the policy on which we were elected to office.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, asked about the need for ongoing scrutiny of the programme as it goes forward. The 2015 SDSR concluded that a step change was required in the performance of the defence nuclear enterprise to deliver the successor submarine programme on time and on budget. We are currently engaged in intensive negotiations with industry about how best to contract on both Astute and successor to deliver the necessary performance improvements. It would not be appropriate for me to comment further while those negotiations are ongoing.

In addition, we have established a new Director General Nuclear post and supporting organisation to create a single and accountable focus within the Ministry of Defence for all aspects of the defence nuclear enterprise. In parallel, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, the MoD also plans to create a new organisation for the procurement and in-service support of all nuclear submarines, including the successor programme. This organisation will have a specific focus on delivery, with the authority and freedom to recruit and retain the best people to manage the technical challenges and industrial base. Options for the new organisation continue to be developed and assessed.

Furthermore, as regards the Director General Nuclear, we expect to make a permanent appointment by the end of the year, but to maintain momentum at what is a critical point in the successor programme, Ian Forber, a civil servant with extensive experience of nuclear-related issues, has been appointed as acting DG Nuclear. The need for primary legislation will be considered as part of the continuing development and assessment of options for the new organisation.

My noble friend Lord Sterling, in his thoughtful and wide-ranging speech for which I thank him, spoke about the defence budget and the 2% commitment. The Government have made two defence spending commitments: to increase the budget in real terms in each year of this decade and to meet the NATO 2% commitment. Obviously, the first commitment means that defence spending will increase irrespective of what happens to GDP. I hope that reassures the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham.

My noble friend Lord Sterling referred to the depreciation of the pound in the context of the defence budget. I can tell him that the department carefully monitors fluctuations in currency markets and takes steps to protect its budget from short-term volatility. Like any responsible large organisation, we take appropriate financial precautions in all our procurement contracts.

The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, and the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, were right to underline that there is no viable alternative to CASD. The Trident Alternatives Review, published in 2013, demonstrated that no alternative system is as capable, resilient or cost-effective as the current Trident-based deterrent. It found that submarines were less vulnerable to attack than silos or aircraft and can maintain a continuous posture in a way that air and land-based alternatives cannot. Alternative delivery systems, such as cruise missiles, lack the range of the Trident missile system, meaning that the reach and capability of our deterrent would be reduced.

In that vein, the noble Lords, Lord Robertson and Lord Lee, and my noble friend Lady Buscombe all made a point with which I wholly agree. To those who, like the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, propose saving cash by cutting our fleet from four to three, I contend that that would be a false economy. A continuous at-sea deterrent without the capacity to be continuous is no good to anyone. It would ultimately undermine the credibility of our deterrent on the international stage, rendering it pointless. Any savings made would be offset by the very real danger of being left in the lurch in the event of unplanned refits or breakdowns and our consequent inability to provide a second-strike capability.

My noble friend Lord King, in his wise and helpful speech, rightly rejected the proposition that the United States protects NATO, so why do we need UK nuclear weapons? What do they add to the alliance? He knows, as do many noble Lords, that the supreme guarantee of the security of the allies is provided by the strategic nuclear forces of the alliance in the round, particularly those of the United States. The independent strategic nuclear forces of the UK and France, which have a deterrent role of their own, contribute to the overall deterrence and security of all allies. Having more than one nuclear power in NATO makes it more difficult for adversaries to predict how the alliance might respond if threatened, so the deterrent effect is stronger.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, questioned how nuclear weapons help us to fight terrorism. The noble Lord, Lord West, put it very well. Nuclear weapons by themselves do not deter terrorists, but they were never meant to. We believe that they will, on the other hand, deter states tempted to sponsor terrorist groups by providing the capability to enable them to act as nuclear-armed terrorists as proxy against the UK or our NATO allies.

The UK has a wide range of policies and capabilities to deal with the wide range of threats we currently face—or might face in the future. Our nuclear deterrent is there to deter the most extreme threats to our national security and way of life, which cannot be done by other means. The nuclear deterrent does not deter terrorism any more than a tank or infantry deter nuclear war.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, went on to ask whether the deterrent serves a rational purpose. On that, I align myself with the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and many other speakers. We cannot be certain what extreme threats we might face in the 2030s, 2040s, 2050s and beyond. Our nuclear deterrent provides the ultimate guarantee of our national security and way of life. Deterrence means convincing any potential aggressor that the benefits of an attack are far outweighed by its consequences. It is in no one’s interests to attack another nuclear power with nuclear weapons because of the consequences of its response.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, also raised a practical issue. He asserted that emerging capabilities will one day enable our enemies to locate our submarines or subvert them through cyberwarfare. I can tell him that a great deal of work has been done on that subject. Let me assure him that, despite ongoing and exhaustive monitoring of nascent technologies, there is nothing to suggest that this will be remotely possible in the foreseeable future. If it were remotely possible, we should ask ourselves why both Russia and China are expanding their nuclear submarine fleets.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, suggested that the Government should remove the cost of Successor from the mainstream defence budget, accounting for 2% of GDP. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Triesman and Lord Touhig, about the indivisibility of deterrence. All our forces, including conventional forces, have a powerful deterrent effect. Nuclear weapons, however, pose a unique threat and remain a necessary element of the capability we need to deter threats from others possessing nuclear weapons. It was made clear in the 2006 White Paper that investment required to maintain the nuclear deterrent will not be at the cost of other conventional capabilities. That remains the case today.

My noble friend Lord Arbuthnot on a similar theme asked why CASD was funded by the Ministry of Defence. I say to him that it is right that, as the ultimate defensive and protective capability, the deterrent continues to be funded by the Ministry of Defence. The regular reviews that form SDSRs examine the whole spectrum of threats. The Government, and the Ministry of Defence as part of that, are thus able to take appropriate decisions and allocate funding when required to defend our nation.

My noble friend was right to speak of the political sensitivities of basing the deterrent in Scotland. Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde is one of the largest employment sites in Scotland, as he knows, with around 6,800 military and civilian jobs now, as well as a wider economic impact on the local economy. The future is very positive. The numbers at HMNB Clyde are set to increase to an estimated 8,200 by 2022. That increasing presence generates economic benefits for communities throughout Scotland—through jobs, contracts and requirements for supporting services and skills. That is the message that we need to get across to our friends and colleagues in Scotland. In the end, the people of Scotland voted to remain part of our United Kingdom in 2014 and they will continue to benefit themselves from the security that our deterrent provides.

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, in his customarily thoughtful speech, spoke about nuclear disarmament. I agree that the only way to achieve global nuclear disarmament is to create the conditions whereby nuclear weapons are no longer necessary. We believe that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty should remain the cornerstone of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament and for peaceful uses of nuclear energy. All state parties should be pushing for universality of the treaty and for concrete progress across all three of its mutually reinforcing pillars. It is worth reminding ourselves that the NPT process has worked. It has stopped the nuclear arms race, reduced stockpiles and slowed the pace of proliferation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked me what we are proposing to do practically with the NPT. Clearly multilateral disarmament will be challenging, but we remain fully committed to a world without nuclear weapons in line with our obligations under Article 6 of the NPT. We firmly believe that the best way to achieve that goal is through gradual multilateral disarmament, negotiated using a step-by-step approach within the framework of the NPT. We remain determined to continue to work with partners across the international community to make progress on this to build trust and confidence to underpin the process. We have put forward a proposal to create a working group that can identify, elaborate on and make recommendations on effective measures for nuclear disarmament. That proposal remains on the table, and we continue to work with other member states with the aim of reinvigorating the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.

My noble friend Lady Goldie spoke compellingly on the futility of unilateral disarmament. I agree with every word that she said. Unilateral disarmament would not make the world a safer place. It is naive to imagine that the grand gesture of UK unilateral disarmament would change the calculations of nuclear states or those regimes seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. There is no good reason to think that other nuclear-capable states would follow our example; that has not been our experience to date.

The noble Lord, Lord Hutton, asked specifically about the comprehensive test ban treaty. The UK is a strong supporter of the CTBT and we actively urge states to sign and/or ratify it. The remaining Annex 2 states outside the treaty need to join as soon as possible, and we press for this whenever the opportunity presents itself.

This has been an extraordinarily useful debate, and I apologise to those speakers whom I have not been able to mention. Amid our deliberations, notwithstanding the hesitations expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, there has been a steel core of consensus. Whether one is in favour of or opposed to maintaining this nation’s nuclear deterrent, we can all surely agree on the laudable premise that a world without nuclear weapons would be a better one. Utopian dreams aside, though, we have to face facts: we cannot predict the future. As so many speakers have said, nuclear weapons are here—17,000 of them around the world. They present a real and present threat to our national security and, for as long as they continue to do so—as I fear they are likely to—we must maintain our ability to respond in kind. To do otherwise would be a dereliction of this Government’s primary duty, the defence of the realm—a duty that we must discharge not just on behalf of the men, women and children living in the UK today, not just on behalf of NATO, but on behalf of countless generations yet to be born.

Motion agreed.