Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

As my hon. Friend knows, we are currently engaged in introducing private sector management skills into the logistics and defence support group activities carried out at Donnington. Both are at advanced stages of negotiation, so I am unable to give him any more information at this point about the competition. However, as soon as a decision is reached, he will be one of the first to know.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the recommendations of the concluding report of the Trident commission set up by the British American Security Information Council.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I welcome the commission’s conclusion that while there remains the possibility of a direct nuclear threat to the UK, we should retain our nuclear deterrent. We are clear that for this to be effective we need to retain a continuous at-sea deterrent posture, as we have for the past 46 years.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer, with which I wholeheartedly agree. Will he confirm that the British American Security Information Council Trident commission report did not consider a two-boat solution?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There have been suggestions that, to save a relatively small sum of money, Britain should abandon continuous at-sea deterrence and opt for a part-time deterrent, with boats tied up alongside or even sent to sea without nuclear weapons on board. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government firmly reject such advice and I can further assure him that a Conservative Government will never take risks with Britain’s strategic security.