UK's Nuclear Deterrent

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No.

It is hardly surprising that in May 2009 an intense debate went on in the shadow Cabinet about going for a less expensive upgrade by converting to air-launched missiles. The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said at the time that

“the arguments have not yet been had in public in nearly an adequate enough way to warrant the spending of this nation’s treasure on the scale that will be required.”—[Official Report, 20 April 2009; Vol. 491, c. 84.]

Seven years later, we are perhaps in the same situation.

The motion proposes an open-ended commitment to maintain Britain’s current nuclear capability for as long as the global security situation demands. We on the Opposition Benches, despite our differences on some issues, have always argued for the aim of a nuclear-free world. We might differ on how to achieve it, but we are united in our commitment to that end.

In 2007, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) embarked on a meaningful attempt to build consensus for multilateral disarmament. Will the Government address where these Successor submarines are going to be based? The people of Scotland have rejected Trident’s being based in Faslane naval base on the Clyde—the SNP Government are opposed to it, as is the Scottish Labour party.

We are debating not a nuclear deterrent but our continued possession of weapons of mass destruction. We are discussing eight missiles and 40 warheads, with each warhead believed to be eight times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed 140,000 people in Hiroshima in 1945. We are talking about 40 warheads, each one with a capacity to kill more than 1 million people.

What, then, is the threat that we face that will be deterred by the death of more than 1 million people? It is not the threat from so-called Islamic State, with its poisonous death-cult that glories in killing as many people as possible, as we have seen brutally from Syria to east Africa and from France to Turkey. It has not deterred our allies Saudi Arabia from committing dreadful acts in Yemen. It did not stop Saddam Hussein’s atrocities in the 1980s or the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It did not deter the war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990s, nor the genocide in Rwanda. I make it clear today that I would not take a decision that killed millions of innocent people. I do not believe that the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about dealing with international relations.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

As Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend will be privy to briefings from the National Security Council. Will he explain when he last sought and received such a briefing and what is his assessment of the new Russian military nuclear protocols that permit first strike using nuclear weapons and that say that they can be used to de-escalate conventional military conflicts?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Britain, too, currently retains the right to first strike, so I would have thought that the best way forward would be to develop the nuclear non-proliferation treaty into a no first strike situation. That would be a good way forward. I respect my hon. Friend’s wish to live in a nuclear-free world. I know he believes that very strongly.

I think we should take our commitments under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty very seriously. In 1968, the Labour Government led by Harold Wilson inaugurated and signed the non-proliferation treaty. In 2007, the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South rightly said that

“we must strengthen the NPT in all its aspects”

and referred to the judgment made 40 years ago

“that the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons was in all of our interests.”

The then Labour Government committed to reduce our stocks of operationally available warheads by a further 20%. I congratulate our Government on doing that. Indeed, I attended an NPT review conference when those congratulations were spoken. Can the Government say what the Labour Foreign Secretary said in 2007 when she said that her

“commitment to the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons is undimmed”?

Is this Government’s vision of a nuclear-free world undimmed? My right hon. Friend also spoke as Foreign Secretary of the

“international community’s clear commitment to a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone”.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not going to give way any more, because I am up against the clock.

In case it is not obvious to the House, let me say that I will be voting against the motion tonight. I am sure that will be an enormous surprise to the whole House. I will do that because of my own views and because of the way—

[Mr Jamie Reed]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I apologise for having to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but we have a point of order.

[Mr Reed]

I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker, on the accuracy of the language used by the Leader of the Opposition. We are not voting tonight on new nuclear warheads; we are voting simply on the submarines used to deploy those missiles. That is fundamentally different from new missiles.

[Mr Speaker]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that it is up to each right hon. and hon. Member to read the motion, interpret it as he or she thinks fit, and make a judgment accordingly. It is not a matter for the Chair.

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[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

So it is that I, as a democratic socialist, support every word of the motion before us in the name of the Prime Minister, because the truth is that the preservation of our national security does not wear the colours of any political party.

I begin by reaching out to all those in our country who do not support the retention and renewal of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. This is a frequently polarised debate, but I want to say to those who oppose renewal that I understand how and why they feel the way that they do. I understand how and why their opposition to nuclear weapons motivates them to vote and act in certain ways, and I understand their fears. Like those people, like every defence worker and trade union representative of defence workers, and like the people who live in the communities where those jobs are so valued, I hope for a world free of nuclear weapons. I wish that we could uninvent those weapons of mass destruction, but we cannot, and will never be able to do so.

The world is an increasingly difficult and challenging place. The complexities we face in international affairs, foreign relations and diplomatic matters are increasing, not receding, and even if a mood swept our country that saw unilateral nuclear disarmament as desirable, I would argue against such a move. Multilateralism is the only way forward for our country. We can and should only divest ourselves of our nuclear weapons when those who seek to do us harm divest themselves of their nuclear arsenals too. The arguments for a multilateral approach to the UK’s nuclear deterrent, our obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, our responsibilities towards our allies, global security, and more, are compelling.

An American diplomat told me recently about an emerging view on the left and right of American politics that the United States is tired of both fighting and paying for Europe’s safety. American politicians, in Congress and elsewhere, increasingly think that their European partners are not pulling their weight. There is already a long-term diplomatic pivot taking place in US foreign policy. Other alliances outside of Europe are being sought and established. That is the right of the US, but we risk the strategic relationship that we have enjoyed with it if we conspicuously fail to take the necessary steps to maintain our own nuclear deterrent.

Alongside this, we have a belligerent Russia on the borders of the European Union—a Russia that is now not only replacing its nuclear fleet but renewing it with a new programme of research, development and manufacture for a new generation of nuclear missiles. More concerning is the fact the Russian military has changed its nuclear engagement protocols. The new protocols permit the use of nuclear weapons in a conventional conflict in order to achieve “de-escalation”—an incredible proposition, but true none the less. Is this the time, with a weaker EU, an exasperated United States, and a sabre-rattling Russia, for the United Kingdom to abandon its nuclear deterrent? No, it is not.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Obviously the hon. Gentleman supports the renewal of Trident. Has he any idea why his colleagues in the Scottish Parliament do not?

[Mr Reed]

That is a matter for my friends in the Scottish Parliament.

It is the policy of the Labour party to retain and renew our nuclear deterrent. As a Labour Member of Parliament, steeped in my party’s traditions, proud of its achievements, and excited by its possibilities, I will support my party’s policy tonight. But for the first time ever, we have witnessed the leader of the Labour party stand at the Dispatch Box and argue against the policy of the party that he leads. That is unprecedented. Moreover, this reckless, juvenile, narcissistic irresponsibility makes me fearful for the future of the party that I love. The sheer stupidity of this approach should be dragged out into the light and seen for what it is, because renewal is not only Labour party policy but the settled will of the country, and every parliamentary decision relating to it will have been taken by 2020.

Further to that, Lord Kinnock has repeatedly warned—and it looks as though he will have to say this to the Labour party for the second time in my lifetime—that

“the British people will not vote for unilateral disarmament. And that reality has to be dealt with.”

A policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament is a bar to being elected. A democratic socialist party with this policy can campaign to rid this country of poverty, to restore the national health service, to rebuild our economy, and to make sure that every man, woman and child in every community in our country enjoys equality of opportunity—but campaigning is all that it will ever do, because a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament will ensure that we will never govern. This logic is inescapable, and the leader of the Labour party knows it.

[Chris Law]

There is a little flaw in the hon. Gentleman’s argument. The SNP has 56 out of 59 seats here and in the Scottish Government, and we all hold to the position of unilateral disarmament. To give him some hope, we are doing what he hopes his party can do in future.

[Mr Reed]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for that audacious and fundamentally incorrect intervention. I really do applaud his audacity.

The logic is inescapable, and the leader of the Labour party knows it. So we are forced to accept that the refusal to support the established policy of the Labour party and to acknowledge the achievements of the greatest Labour Government is not just a knowing embrace of electoral defeat but a real, studied and determined desire to split the Labour party. The manifesto I stood on at the last election pledged to renew our nuclear deterrent. The manifesto that I will stand on at the next election will pledge to renew our nuclear deterrent, whether the leader of the Labour party likes it or not. That will be true for hundreds of colleagues on the Labour Benches.

I urge all colleagues on the Labour Front Bench to respect the democratic processes of the Labour party, to respect the conference decision of the Labour party, and to vote with the established policy of the Labour party, and if they cannot do that, to return to the Back Benches.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I am against the renewal of Trident for all the reasons that have been so ably laid out by my hon. Friends here today. I am mainly against it because, morally, it is a corrupt concept. It is a weapon that is designed to kill people indiscriminately. The Prime Minister said earlier that she was willing to take the decision to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children, but she should perhaps take some advice from the International Court of Justice, which says:

“States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets.”

In my time as an MP, I have held many surgeries around my constituency. People come to me with their problems and I try to help them as best I can. Sometimes people come to my surgeries in tears because their disability benefits have been cut because the UK Government do not have the money to give them a decent life. People come to me saying that they have been unfairly sanctioned because the welfare budget has to be trimmed because there is no money. Women who were born in the 1950s come to my surgeries to tell me that they have to miss out on their pensions because there is no money. When Conservative and Labour Members tell us that it does not matter how much the Trident replacement costs, I tell them to come to my surgery, look those people in the face and tell them that.

If Conservative and Labour Members want to spend up to £205 billion on replacing Trident, they should think about the consequences for people. Incidentally, those consequences stretch right into my constituency, to the Army base that has been there for 250 years. Fort George is on a Ministry of Defence list of sites considered for closure because there is no money. That is the benefit of MOD spend, but it will be taken away from conventional, hard-working and valuable service personnel to pay for useless weapons of mass destruction.

[Mr Jamie Reed]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Drew Hendry]

No, I am going to carry on.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) has said, our future threats include cyber-attacks. There has been hardly any talk of the future investment needed to make sure that we make vulnerable systems invulnerable. I want to quote—[Interruption.] I know that the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) likes to intervene, but he rarely says anything of value. The Defense Science Board final report, “Resilient, Military Systems and the Advanced Cyber Threat”—

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that that is the first of 4 million conversations my hon. Friend will be having at the coming election. It sounds like this one is going quite well. There is an important point here: there is no strong NHS without a strong economy. With our economy, we can see the deficit cut in half, 1.75 million more people in work and the fastest growth of any major economy in the west. That is the record, and that is what will enable us to fund our NHS, to fund our schools and to provide the public services our country needs.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

Q3. With patients being told to pretend that they are camping, the symbol of the Prime Minister’s NHS is of patients being treated in tents outside accident and emergency. When he promised a bare-knuckle fight against accident and emergency service closures, did he intend to mislead the electorate?

[The Prime Minister]

All our health services right across the United Kingdom face a challenge. Actually, the English NHS that I am responsible for is performing better than the Welsh NHS, the Scottish NHS and the NHS in Northern Ireland, but the facts are these: compared with four years ago there are 2,500 more people every day seeing a doctor or a nurse within four hours. Why is that happening? Because we put the money in; and when we put the money in, the shadow Health Secretary said it was irresponsible. Presumably that is why Labour cut the NHS in Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says about Warton. The enterprise zones are now all up and running, and they are all working well. They have created over 12,500 jobs, and 434 different businesses are coming into the enterprise zones. Making sure that they succeed means that we have to market them even better, using UK Trade & Investment and its resources both here and around the world. In terms of advanced manufacturing, if we promote to companies the tax rates we have, the patent box and the catapult institutes up and down the country to support advanced manufacturing, and bring all those things together, it is absolutely clear to me that there is no better place to invest in Europe right now than coming to invest in Britain.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

Q13. The first thing I think of when I see a white van is whether or not my father or my brother is driving it.The National Audit Office has revealed that 40% of cuts to councils in England have been made at the expense of adult social care. The consequences of this on the NHS are obvious. This is the Prime Minister’s disaster. Will he tell the House today what the cost of this failure is?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Gentleman values people who work hard and want to get on, he ought to cross the Floor and come over to the Government Benches.

On the issue of social care, we have introduced the Better Care fund, which has taken money and pulled it between the NHS and social services to make sure that they can work together. It is absolutely vital that we do that, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is working in his local area to make sure that that happens.

Iraq: Coalition Against ISIL

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Friday 26th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in this debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) said, there are no simple solutions to this complex issue. Today’s debate illustrates the complexity that we face as legislators in having to take decisions on behalf of the British people. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a very compelling case. It was an absolutely excellent speech and I agree with every word of it. I have tried to press on him my view that we should have taken this action sooner, but I understand why he could not do so: it is because he was not prepared to bring before the House a motion on which he was not certain of securing a result. I do not blame him for that caution.

The Prime Minister posed the question, “Where is the British national interest?” We need to be satisfied that the British national interest is met by the strategy that he set out. I believe that the answer is crystal clear and that it is in the British national interest that we should support this motion. All the leaders around the world have declared that these IS, ISIL, ISIS people are beyond the pale and are a major threat not just to the middle east but to us here at home. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) said, they have already overrun a large part of Iraq. They have threatened to overrun the whole of that country, resorting to their barbaric methods in so doing—methods that we have ruled out and most countries abandoned centuries ago. We have seen, and our constituents have seen, the slaughter of innocent people and the way in which these barbaric people have been behaving. They have seen our own nationals and US nationals murdered as well.

It seems to me therefore that if this threat is so great, we have to address it. There are two clear issues. There is a blurred line between them, it is true, but the imperative today is that we should prevent IS from overrunning the whole of Iraq. Indeed, the objective must be to drive them out of Iraq as far as we possibly can. As the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) so eloquently said, it is not a question of making an act of faith; we have seen it work. The troops on the ground have said that without the intervention of the United States’ air strikes, they would not have been able to blunt the attack of IS in northern Iraq. We know it works. It is not as though we are trying to suggest something for which we have no intimation as to what might happen.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is right; this motion is squarely within the national interest. He talks about being honest with the British people and we must do that. I support this action, but does he agree that we do not know for how long we will be involved or how long it will take? We do not know in any finite term where this will end and we ought to be honest with the British people about that.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly fair point, but I am afraid to say that that is the case with all military action. We cannot start any military operation and say at the outset that it will take six months. At the outbreak of the first world war, which we commemorated this year, the expectation was that everyone would be home by Christmas. That turned out to be a rather false hope—tragically false. Such things go with the territory of military operations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I shall be brief. I support the motion and I commend both the case made by the Prime Minister and the excellent case for support made by the Leader of the Opposition. There has been a great deal of unanimity in the comments and contributions from across the House, but I have some concerns about the debate so far, like the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), and hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will be able to address those.

First, we must be absolutely clear with the British people. Our support for intervention is morally, strategically and politically right, but we have to be clear: we do not fully know how this will end. As is usually the case, this plan will not survive contact with the enemy. We need to be frank about that—frank, too, about the potential consequences. We must never again see soft and hard power as separate strategies. The lesson of the 21st century has been that hard power without soft power is disastrous, and that soft power without the prospect of hard power is too often pointless. Nobody in the House wants to write a blank cheque, morally, strategically or financially. The motion seeks to avoid that, but the motion will not be on the battlefield.

We will return to these issues before a general election, I am sure, to discuss them again, perhaps with regard to further intervention. That is the truth. When the Deputy Prime Minister concludes, I hope he will be able to tell us what assessment the Government have made regarding the potential domestic consequences of our intervention. The public would expect that, and surely some assessment has been made.

Finally, were I a Muslim Briton, I would feel under siege in my own country—marginalised, treated with suspicion and caution, even contempt, for more years now than I would care to remember. As a Parliament, and as a legislature, we need to do more to reach out to our Muslim countrymen. We have to let them know that we know that the extremism we are fighting against is as alien to them as it is to everyone else in this country. We do not do that enough, and I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will ensure that he does so when he concludes the debate.

I support the motion, but it deliberately avoids a series of difficult questions that demand some extremely difficult answers. We will, I am certain, return to these issues very soon, but fundamentally, we must deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

EU Council, Security and Middle East

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We should of course ensure that we protect Christians, but we should also ensure that we protect other minorities. The Yazidi people—where we were prepared to undertake a substantial airlift operation—is a case in point. This is absolutely at the heart of our foreign policy—protecting minorities, protecting religious freedom and protecting the rights of Christians and others to practise their faiths.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister is absolutely right: de-radicalisation is critical, but so too is community cohesion. What specific proposals does he have to ensure that no community in our country feels that it is being marginalised or brutalised, or under attack or constant suspicion?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman puts it well. We need to be intolerant of intolerance and very clear that supporting extremism that falls short of violence, as well as supporting violence, is not acceptable. At the same time, we need to take people with us, because among the most effective groups, organisations and people are those from Muslim communities themselves who want to confront the problems—perhaps in a local mosque or a community centre, but more commonly online or in other forums. We need them to help us do this job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The national planning framework is very clear about the importance of listening to local people on development. My hon. Friend will have received a letter recently explaining some of the changes in the guidance under the framework to make sure that, for instance, previous housing performance by local councils is taken into account in these very important decisions.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

Q4. At a time of unprecedented crisis, the Prime Minister saw at first hand just how good the West Cumberland hospital in my constituency can be. Six years into a rebuilding programme, that hospital has been plunged into crisis, is being starved of staff and faces being stripped of key clinical services. The nearest hospital is not just down the road—it is 42 miles away in Carlisle, and that, too, is struggling. Will the Prime Minister commit today to do everything he can to assist me, local clinicians and my community in retaining consultant-led services at the West Cumberland hospital?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that I saw for myself what an excellent job this hospital does and how important it is. The clinical commissioning group total revenue available this year is an increase of 2.3%—£663 million. That is because this Government decided to protect NHS spending and not cut it, and that is why important hospital developments can go ahead.

European Council and Nuclear Security Summit

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes the important point that in looking at considerations within energy policy—security of supply, making sure that there is capacity, contributing to the decline in carbon emissions, and national security—there is no doubt that the national security part of the picture for Britain and for Europe has become a much more pressing issue. We have good, diverse supplies of electricity; we are reinvesting in nuclear; we have the world’s leading offshore wind industry, which I saw for myself in Hull yesterday; but we obviously need to help Europe to diversify away from Russian gas, and we should recognise our strategic interests in helping it to do just that.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement and the answer that he gave earlier that related to my constituency. Away from diplomatic processes and soft power, our efforts on nuclear security must be underpinned by an effective plutonium disposition strategy. We have the potential to lead the world in that regard. To that end, will the Prime Minister commit to funding fully and commissioning the National Nuclear Laboratory, and will he commit to a timeline so that the plutonium that is stored in my constituency, which I believe is the biggest stockpile in the world, can be utilised as nuclear fuel, thereby helping us to meet our non-proliferation objectives, secure our energy supplies and fight climate change?

[The Prime Minister]

What I say to the hon. Gentleman, who has an important constituency interest in this matter, is that the National Security Council has met specifically to consider how to make progress on Britain’s plutonium supplies and the work that we want to see on energy generation. Perhaps I could write to him to update him on that work and on the decisions that we are taking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Well, I have to say to my hon. Friend that that shows that some of the loony left is still alive and well in our country. [Interruption.] I think you’ll find it’s over there. Frankly, insurance premiums ought to reflect risk, and my hon. Friend is, as ever, displaying common sense, whereas the European Court did not.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

Q10. It is now almost 12 months since the Prime Minister visited the West Cumberland hospital in my constituency in the wake of the shooting atrocities that took place there. It is, I believe, a matter of profound regret to Members on both sides of the House that the Government have chosen to do nothing on gun laws in the intervening period, but while the Prime Minister was at the hospital he also visited the accident and emergency clinicians and other clinical service providers, who are now facing the prospect of their services being removed as a result of GP commissioning. Will he do them and my constituents a favour by removing GP commissioning from the Health and Social Care Bill?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I well remember visiting the hospital in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. It is a fantastic hospital and it did brilliant work during those incredibly tragic times about which he spoke. I can absolutely reassure him that he does not need to worry about the future of the West Cumberland hospital. I understand that he has met the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), to discuss the concerns, and they are in agreement that issues need to be resolved swiftly. The Department of Health is working closely with the local NHS to produce proposals to redevelop the hospital. That is what is going to happen: investment will be going into the NHS because of the commitments we have made, whereas, sadly, I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman’s party—[Interruption.] Luckily, he is not in Wales, where Labour is cutting the NHS, but I suspect it would do the same in England as well.