Ukraine
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
At this incredibly dangerous time, I notice that the Defence Secretary did not say much about the Minsk agreement. Does he think that is a way by which we can get back to talks? If the Russians pulled back, would he be prepared to countenance any reduction in the NATO presence on the border, to bring about longer-term, secure peace in the region?
Mr Wallace
The right hon. Gentleman raises a point about Minsk. I was clear in my press conference in Moscow and elsewhere that both Russia and Ukraine signed Minsk. As he will know, and as we have found with the Good Friday agreement, treaties are one thing, but the big challenge is in rolling up our sleeves and delivering the sequences in the right way. We all remember that from decommissioning in Northern Ireland, which was easy to write into the Good Friday agreement but hard to deliver, and it is the same for the Minsk agreement. However, we all recognise that the Minsk agreement is one of the ways out, and we should do our best to support its implementation.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about pulling back NATO, we did not put 165,000 combat troops on the edge of a sovereign country and hold a gun to the head of a democratically elected Government; Russia did. We have nothing to de-escalate from; Russia does. I hope that he will condemn the Stop the War Coalition, which always seems to paint us as the aggressor. Perhaps he would like to ask the people of Ukraine who they think the aggressor is.
Migrant Crossings: Role of the Military
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
In all the awful answers the Minister has given, he has not shown one iota of empathy for desperate people putting their own lives at risk to try to get to a place of safety, many of them coming from war zones around the world that Britain has been involved in. Can he not show some humanity and sympathy to these people and come to a European-wide agreement on support for asylum seekers and refugees? Can he not also look at the sources and at why people come, as well as the awful conditions that many face when they arrive in this country? These are human beings trying to survive in a very difficult world, and history will judge very harshly those Governments who use military means to repel refugees at the time of a refugee crisis around the world. Let us have some humanity, not just reach out to the military all the time.
James Heappey
I know that it was very much the right hon. Gentleman’s policy as Leader of the Opposition not to use the military at all, and probably to defund it as a consequence. I reject, however, the suggestion that we are not guided by a deep sense of compassion. The right hon. Gentleman is correct in observing that these people are desperate—so desperate, in fact, that they are putting themselves in the hands of exploitative criminal gangs that put them to sea in dinghies, increasingly in sea states that those dinghies are woefully ill-equipped to deal with. The responsible, compassionate response to this threat is to provide a robust deterrent so that people no longer put themselves in the hands of the criminal gangs, and that is exactly what we are doing.
If you will indulge me on a final point, Mr Speaker, the idea that conflicts in which I proudly served, as did hundreds of thousands of other British service personnel, are somehow the cause of why people are coming here now is utterly for the birds. Our nation’s armed forces are engaged around the world trying to provide stabilisation and security in some of the countries that need it most precisely so that people do not feel they need to take on the perilous journey across continents to the United Kingdom.
Ukraine
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
I hope that it does what it does for all nations in Europe. Britain will always be interested in the security of Europe, whether we are in the EU or not. The security of Europe is important for our security as much as it is for that of others. Britain will mean what it says. Britain will not just say, “Please don’t do this” on behalf of those people; we will help people defend themselves. That is why this announcement today is just one of those steps. That is sometimes the difference between us and others.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
When the Minister meets his Russian counterpart in a few weeks’ time, will he use that opportunity to widen the debate into nuclear disarmament and security measures in general, to build up a dialogue with Russia so that we can deal with all the issues and also de-escalate the dangerous tensions, which are rising? Will he assure the House that no British troops are going to be sent to or stationed in Ukraine?
Mr Wallace
First of all, I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman will accept my invitation; I have made it, and I hope he does. Of course we will start the process of establishing a dialogue on a whole range of issues, which hopefully will involve security, confidence in each other and transparency, to make sure that there is no miscalculation going forward.
British troops who are orbital have been based in Ukraine for years. They are not NATO bases, as President Putin alleges: no one is setting up NATO bases in Ukraine and no one is positioning strategic weapons in Ukraine. This is unarmed orbital: we train people in all sorts of methods. As I said, the trainers that come over on these systems will leave once the training is done. All I can say is that this is not new—we have had people there for years. But of course we are there at the invitation of the sovereign nation of Ukraine.
UK Defence Spending
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, but I have to say, with all due respect to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), that it is deeply depressing to follow him when he seems to be contemplating with equanimity the idea of further nuclear arms and a global nuclear war. Surely this debate, of all debates, ought to be concentrating on issues of peace, issues of security and issues of hope for the future, but very little that I have heard so far offers any hope to anybody for the future other than a preparedness for more conflicts and more wars.
The Government’s White Paper on security was very interesting, and I read it with interest and care, yet I felt that it had missed the fundamental point. What is real security? Is real security the ability to kill somebody else, to destroy something else or to go to war with somebody else, or is it the ability to feed your population and to ensure that they have good healthcare and good education and breathe clean air, and that their young people can look forward to a future with some degree of hope? For many around the world, that is not a possibility and they suffer grievously. Looking at the causes of wars that have happened over recent years in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Libya, they have all been followed by non-state actors getting more and more active and thus more and more dangerous. There are consequences to every military conflict that we involve ourselves in, and we would do well to think about that.
The Government’s proposals in all this, in a post-covid world where wealth has been transferred from the poorest to the richest at an unprecedented rate over the past year to 18 months, are to spend £24 billion more on our defence budget over the next four years and to cut our overseas aid budget from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5%. What kind of message to the world is that? It says that post-covid, recognising all these issues around the world, we are increasing expenditure on arms and preparedness for war and decreasing that which we invest in clean air, clean water, education, health, housing and all the other things that are so important in many parts of the world that are significantly poorer than we are.
The White Paper also makes real a decision that the Government have been inching towards, perhaps galloping towards, for quite a while, and that is to, as they see it, restore Britain’s global role. In the 1960s, the Labour Government led by Harold Wilson, while giving political support to the Americans in Vietnam—which I profoundly disagreed with at the time, as did many others in my party—nevertheless recognised that Britain’s role of imperial grandeur around the world had to come to an end, and so ended the east of Suez policy on deployment of the Navy and of significant numbers of troops. That was a significant, important and quite seminal moment.
This Government seem to have abandoned all those ideas and now talk grandly of a global role for this country. We should just pause and think about this for a moment. We are a country of 65 million people in one part of the world. We are not a global power. We are not an imperial power. We should not be having pretensions of being an imperial or global power but play our part in the family of nations, through the United Nations, to try to improve the lot and living standards of people all around the world.
In that context, I ask myself what we are doing sending an aircraft carrier to patrol the South China seas to encourage a build-up of military hardware between India, Australia, the United States and ourselves all around the South China sea and towards China. It seems to me that this is a recreation of the whole idea of a cold war philosophy, which will not serve us well any more than building up to further conflict with Russia by the deployment of the Navy in the Black sea. Before anybody shouts at me about human rights abuses in China, Russia or anywhere else—Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or any country you care to name—I will just say this: I would challenge any country or any leader on their human rights record if I thought they should be challenged, and I do think they should be challenged, because human rights are a universal concept, based on the universal declaration of 1948. Would it not be so much better if we put our energies into engagement with all those countries to try to ensure that the ideals of the universal declaration were actually met in a proper way and if we supported the United Nations in what it is trying to achieve?
In this post-covid world, let us recognise that we need to spend a great deal of money on healthcare around the world. The World Health Organisation frequently points out that the greatest risk to the health of us all is another novel virus that will come from goodness knows where and goodness knows what source. It will not be dealt with by military means; it will only be dealt with by healthcare and health means. When Prime Minister talks of sharing our vaccine surplus, I hope it happens. I hope he is right in doing that and I hope those vaccines get to all the people and all the countries that need them.
I want to say something more on the issues of nuclear weapons. The General Assembly of the United Nations and the vast majority of nations in the United Nations have supported the idea of a global ban on nuclear weapons. They have signed up for it. A number of countries have already ratified that particular treaty. We are in a minority of countries that does not support the principle of a global ban. We are in a very small minority of countries that, contrary to what the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) says, are, in my view, in breach of the principles of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The nuclear non-proliferation treaty was set up with the idea of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and it has had some successes in that through nuclear weapons-free zones in Africa, central Asia, Latin America and others that are proposed, but it has not been so successful in persuading the declared nuclear weapons states or the non-declared, but “no nuclear weapons” states such as India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel to take part fully in the principles of the NPT.
The NPT review conference is coming up later this year. How on earth will Britain go to the NPT review conference and say, “We support the nuclear non-proliferation treaty”, while at the same time expanding our nuclear warheads from a maximum of 180 to 225 or 250—the figure is unclear from the White Paper and statements from the Ministry of Defence? Or, will we be able to say something more positive: that we will adopt a “no first use” policy, that we will not further increase the number of nuclear warheads, that we will take steps on greater mutual verification and on reducing the number of warheads and that we will seriously engage with the idea of a global ban on nuclear weapons?
Nuclear weapons usage is inconceivable and unthinkable for anyone who wants to see the world survive. Any one nuclear weapon used anywhere would cause massive and intense damage. What happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was a firework compared with the power of the current nuclear weapons held by China, Russia, France, the United States and ourselves, so we have to think about what that means.
There was an article yesterday in the i about some of the survivors of the nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll in 1954. Many died from cancers as a result of those tests, as indeed did many British nuclear test veterans as a result of being forced to observe those particular tests. Can we not instead start looking towards a future where we play our part in trying to bring about a more peaceful world? We as a country want to live in a peaceful world. The people of this country want to live in a peaceful world. The people of this country do not want to see soldiers underpaid, badly treated, suffering mental health stress when they come out of the armed forces and getting inadequate support for it, nor do they want to see the privatisation of their facilities. They are proud when our armed forces help to deal with Ebola or save people, desperate refugees, drowning in seas around the world. They are proud of that. Can we not move in a slightly different direction and start looking not just at our own defence policy and the need to diversify so much of our defence industry while protecting jobs that are so important in different parts of the country, but also recognise that when we sell arms to others, they get used? They get used by Saudi Arabia to kill people in Yemen. They were used by Israel in the recent bombing of the Gaza strip. We need to think a bit more carefully and a bit more seriously about that.
The study of history is always important: the way in which the world went from the complacency of Edwardian England to the horrors of the first world war by a series of semi-secret mutual defence treaties all around Europe and the borders of Europe; and the way in which the rise of fascism was for a long time ignored in Germany and we ended up with the holocaust and the genocide of the second world war. Let us not go back to those days. Let us instead look to a world where we are actually making our contribution to peace around the world, and our contribution to supporting people who are going through human rights abuses and oppression. I hope that our debate will consider what I started my contribution with: real security in a very difficult and very dangerous world. That, surely, is something we could all, I hope, agree with and sign up to.
Strength of the UK’s Armed Forces
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) [V]
This is an important and obviously very timely debate—timely because of the Government’s review of security needs for the future, and because of the vote in the other place last night on the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill. The Government were defeated over issues of ensuring that our political system, our Ministry of Defence, are held to account when allegations of serious offences such as torture or genocide are made against any British forces. We should never put ourselves above the law and should surely support international law, which is what all Governments have said they absolutely do.
The review that has just taken place seems to miss out a number of very important things. But the headline figure was the one about nuclear weapons. Contrary to what the previous speaker has just said, there is an increase in the number of nuclear warheads, which will go up to 260. That is contrary to our obligations under article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, originally conceived by the Labour Government of the 1960s.
As one of the declared nuclear weapons states, we are required to take steps towards nuclear disarmament. The Government are proposing to move in absolutely the opposite direction—not just by increasing the capacity, the number of warheads and their firepower, but apparently by changing the strategic basis on which they may be deployed. They seem to be moving away from the “no first use” concept towards using them as a threat—or rather, when they believe there is a threat that has to be met.
Surely we ought to be joining the rest of the world in seeking a global ban of all nuclear weapons, rather than this huge expenditure on weapons that everyone obviously hopes will never be used and that, in effect, do not provide us with any credible form of defence on the real security issues that we face at present.
The coronavirus crisis has shown us how dangerous this world is when it comes to contagious diseases and when it is so divided by the poverty of the majority of the populations of the planet against the minority—and, of course, environmental disaster is coming down the line. Surely we need a strategic approach that deals with those issues—one that protects us from cyber-attacks, obviously, and ensures that we look at the causes of war and that we do not cut overseas aid expenditure but instead increase it, where appropriate, to improve developments around the world and cut down on the enormous gap between the world’s richest and poorest. Because the motor behind the conflicts of the past 30 years has often been human rights abuses, political instability and a fight for resources all around the world.
The last thing I shall say in the few seconds I have left is that instead of reducing the numbers of uniformed servicepeople, as we are, we should be looking at their pay, conditions and treatment over the past 10 years and recognising the enormous work that they have done in peacekeeping operations, as others have pointed out, as well as dealing with crises such as the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, where they performed heroically. Surely real strategic thinking is about making the world a more peaceful and safer place.
Middle East: Security
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for the advance copy of his statement. Can he tell us where the Prime Minister is, and what he is doing that is so much more important than addressing Parliament on the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, an extremely dangerous and aggressive act that risks starting yet another deadly war in the middle east?
On Friday, I sent the Prime Minister a letter posing a series of questions. He has not answered any of them. Instead, today he is hiding behind his Defence Secretary. Is it not the truth that he is scared to stand up to President Trump because he has hitched his wagon to the prospect of a toxic Trump trade deal? At this highly dangerous moment, we find the Government giving cover and even expressing sympathy for what is widely regarded as an illegal act, because they are so determined to keep in with President Trump. This assassination puts British troops and civilians, as well as the people of the region, in danger.
As the Secretary of State will confirm, I have long spoken out against the Iranian Government’s human rights record, including when he and I visited Iran together in 2014. This is not a question of Soleimani’s actions or record in the region. Whatever the record of any state official, the principle and the law is that we do not go around assassinating foreign leaders. Without the clear demonstration of an immediate threat, it is illegal. So do the Government regard the assassination as legal under international law? If so, how? Do the lawyers in the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence regard it as legal?
If the Secretary of State really believes that this was an act of self-defence, what evidence has he or the Prime Minister seen of an imminent attack on the US? The Secretary of State says that the United States is confident that attacks were imminent, but US officials have been quoted in the press as saying that the evidence was “razor thin”. How would the Secretary of State describe it?
In the past few days, the US President has threatened to target Iranian cultural sites and to attack Iran in a manner that is—I quote him directly—“disproportionate”. Both actions would be war crimes, yet the Government still seem unable to condemn such threats. On Sunday, the Foreign Secretary said that the onus was entirely on Iran to de-escalate. I wonder whether, if Iran had assassinated an American general, the British Government would be telling Washington that the onus was entirely on the US to de-escalate.
We talk about this as a conflict between the US and Iran, but the worst consequences are likely to be felt by Iraq, a country on the brink of further terrible violence and instability. President Trump has threatened Iraq with
“sanctions like they’ve never seen before”
after its elected—yes, elected—Parliament voted to ask US and other foreign forces to leave their country. He has said he will not withdraw entirely unless the US is compensated for the “extraordinarily expensive air base” that was actually built by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. The Prime Minister—when he finally resurfaced from his trip—said that he was committed to the sovereignty of Iraq, so will the Secretary of State confirm that this Government will respect Iraqi sovereignty if the Iraqi Government ask all foreign forces, including British forces, to leave?
We know that the British Government were not consulted by the Trump Administration in advance, despite there being obvious British interests at stake. Let me also ask what the Government are doing to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other dual nationals who are currently in detention in Iran. This must be an utterly terrifying time both for them individually and for their families.
It is not in anyone’s interests for this to escalate to an all-out war. All sides should exercise maximum restraint and allow for meaningful dialogue, led by the UN Secretary-General’s office. To prevent war, we need a strong plan for diplomacy, so are the Government in contact with the UN Secretary-General? And let us not forget that there was a diplomatic plan: the Iran nuclear deal. It was working, until President Trump came along and tried to rip it up.
Time and again over the last two decades, the political and military establishments have made the wrong call on military interventions in the middle east. Many of us opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the failed invasion of Afghanistan, and I opposed the bombing of Libya in 2011. Have we learnt nothing from those events? This House must rule out plunging our country into yet another devastating war at the behest of another state.
Mr Wallace
I note that the Leader of the Opposition sent the Prime Minister a letter in which he posed three questions, none of which he has just posed from the Dispatch Box. I find that rather interesting. I am afraid that instead of a serious interrogation about we would de-escalate this situation in the middle east and how we would ensure that British citizens and British allies were secure, we heard the usual tripe—“This is about Trump, this is about America”—and all the other anti-American, anti-imperialist guff.
The Leader of the Opposition asked where the Prime Minister was. Well, funnily enough, the Prime Minister is running the country, something that the right hon. Gentleman will fail ever to do as a result of the general election. This Prime Minister actually believes in Cabinet government, and in letting the members of the Cabinet who are responsible for the policy come to the House to be able to answer questions about a matter relating to that policy. Indeed, the Prime Minister felt that it was appropriate for me, as a Secretary of State for Defence who currently has a significant number of assets in the region—in Iraq—and who is charged with the duty of defending this country, to attend and to answer the questions in his place.
Perhaps I can answer some of the few questions that were asked by the Leader of the Opposition. First, it is for the United States to answer in detail the question whether it views the intelligence on the basis of which it made its decision to be illegal or not. On the basis of the information and intelligence that I have seen, what I can say is that it is clear that there was a case for self-defence to be made in respect of an individual who had come to Iraq to co-ordinate murder and attacks on US citizens. That begs the question what the Leader of the Opposition would have done if that individual had come to Iraq or anywhere else to plot the murder of British soldiers and diplomats. Perhaps, as he recommended with al-Baghdadi of ISIS, he would seek to have him arrested at that time.
It is of course the case that this Government are engaged in a full diplomatic effort at all levels to de-escalate the tensions that have grown in the region, not only at the United Nations but in leader-to-leader, Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary discussions and using all other levers that we have. More broadly than just in the region, we are seeking efforts to ensure that Iran does not retaliate in any way that would escalate the situation and that our friends and allies do not escalate the situation either. The call that this Government are making is to ensure that we pause, that we focus on the safety of the peoples of that region and that we seek a way out for Iran and for its neighbours. The first way we can do that, which this Government are determined to try to do, is to ensure that the destabilising activity that has been going on in the region is ceased, so that we can all progress to find the solution that we desperately want to the conflict. In the meantime, the Government will get on and ensure that they keep people safe in the region, and we will do everything we can to protect them and their lives.
Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Fallon
I do not think that my hon. Friend or the House would expect me to go into too much detail about how we gather intelligence in either Iraq or Syria, except to say that 30% of the intelligence-gathering effort is done by British aircraft. We need to build up a more accurate picture of ISIL’s strengths up the Tigris and west along the Euphrates before we can assist the Iraqi and Kurdish forces to retake the ground that has been lost. That advice, and train and equip, is all part of the mission to help bolster Iraqi forces.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I think we should thank the Freedom of Information Act for today’s statement. The Secretary of State really ought to come clean. What specific discussions has he had with Saudi Arabia about what happens to the arms supplied to it? Are any of them leaking through and ending up with ISIL forces or, indeed, any other weapons supplier in the region?
Secondly, what is happening about the oil that is clearly sold from the ISIL area of Syria to someone else and the money that then flows back to support it? How effective is the sanctions regime conducted by the western forces, with the co-operation of other Governments, to stop arms and money flowing to ISIL?
Michael Fallon
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this does show the Freedom of Information Act at work: a question was put to us and we answered it, and the answer is produced on our website. I have regular discussions with the Defence Minister of Saudi Arabia—the deputy crown prince—not least about the situation in Yemen and the need for humanitarian aid and to get talks going. I am not aware of significant leakage of Saudi arms into the conflict in Iraq or Syria.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Michael Fallon
Let me assure my hon. Friend that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is fully aware of the commitments that were made at the NATO summit and has been even more fully aware during recent negotiations over the in-year savings, which have not taken us below 2%. It is important to note, though, that seven of the 28 NATO members do not even spend 1% on their defence and 20 of the 28 do not even spend 1.5%.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
As NATO now requires us to pay 2%, and apparently other member states the same, and has since 2006 given itself a global role, whose interests is it defending worldwide, and is it demanding that we replace the Trident nuclear missile system, or is that a self-grown decision?
Michael Fallon
The purpose of the alliance is to defend its members. That is why our troops were exercising last week in Estonia and will shortly be exercising in Romania and the Baltic sea, and why our Typhoons are flying with the Norwegians to protect the skies over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the face of Russian aggression. We are one of the nuclear members of the NATO alliance, and that nuclear shield helps to protect all members of the alliance.
HM Naval Base Clyde
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
I should first thank the Justice Secretary. In his anxiety to avoid answering a simple question, he has extended the time available for the Adjournment debate by 10 minutes, with his customary generosity. I have to acknowledge the role that he has played. Perhaps he wants to join us and focus on the key issue of safety at Her Majesty’s naval base at Clyde.
I am delighted to have won this Adjournment debate. I regret slightly that I am not able to make a maiden speech for my new constituency of Gordon, largely because Gordon is a constituency of outstanding landscapes and natural beauty. Few constituencies can compare with Gordon, but one of the few that can is the constituency so ably represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara). It is a constituency of stunning natural beauty far too great to be polluted by the obscenity of weapons of mass destruction. I am grateful for the Minister’s agreement to allow my hon. Friend to say a few words. This is a matter of constituency as well as general interest to him.
I want to do three things in the debate this evening. First, I want to get some detailed answers from the Ministry of Defence. We had today in a written statement from the Secretary of State for Defence 500 words of the suffocating bland complacency that typifies so much of the MOD’s reaction to serious concerns. I knew the Secretary of State for Defence at university and, although I might have accused him of many things, he was neither bland nor complacent. He seems to have picked up some bad habits in his tenure as Secretary of State for Defence. We want detailed answers to detailed questions this evening.
Secondly, I want to examine the lessons from the working, or indeed malfunctioning of the reactor prototype HMS Vulcan at Dounreay and what that tells us about the safety concerns at the Faslane base. The difficulties that that reactor has experienced and the MOD’s reaction to them give us serious cause for concern. Thirdly, I want to examine the inherent safety concerns about nuclear reactors, made double of course by the fact that the nuclear reactors in this case are associated with nuclear weapons and tripled by the fact that the nuclear weapons are on a submarine. That tells us that there is an inherent unsafe aspect to Trident submarines. How can that be reconciled with the new political reality in Scotland, where by my count 57 Members of Parliament out of 59 oppose the renewal of the Trident deterrent in Scotland?
I say 57 not because I am expecting an imminent by-election in Scotland, but because the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) is on the record as opposing the renewal of Trident. I congratulate him on his recent promotion to the Labour Front Bench—I should say that we have been the cause of that promotion. I hope that that promotion to the Front Bench does not mean that he has undergone some mind-melding process over the last week. I hope that he will stay faithful to the commitments made to his constituents publicly on his opposition to the renewal of Trident as a nuclear device.
I want to start with the claims made by Able Seaman McNeilly—claims that are published via WikiLeaks and also through the excellent journalism of the Sunday Herald. Briefly, those claims—I know that the Minister will treat them seriously and give us the detailed answers that we seek—are, first, that at the final security checkpoint in Faslane naval base, no security checks of ID cards were made, that the PIN code system was broken and that both Navy personnel and contractors were allowed access with no verification of identity. Secondly, aboard a vessel, on the missile compartment deck, no one asked for identification or checked to see whether personnel were on the list providing them with access to that part of the submarine. Thirdly, bags coming on board the submarine were going unchecked. It would be extraordinary if we had a greater level of security in the House of Commons than might exist at that nuclear naval base.
Fourthly, the vast majority of equipment onboard may be defective. It was alleged that HMS Vanguard was in the worst condition and had to be recalled to port several times, forcing other vessels to do extended patrols. Fifthly, it is alleged that a problem with one of the nuclear reactors aboard one of the SSBNs had been found and an instructor had suggested that all the boats might need to get their reactors replaced. We know that the process of refuelling is already under way.
It is claimed, sixthly, that firefighting equipment has been removed from the submarine while in port; seventhly, that complaints about defective equipment and safety concerns are being ignored; eighthly, that rules on constant manning of crucial positions such as the nuclear reactor’s main control desk and the nuclear missiles’ control and monitoring position are being ignored; ninthly, that the correct procedures to avoid a fire in the weapons storage compartment were not being followed, but no disciplinary action followed or was pursued; tenthly, that HMS Vanguard was nearly lost on two separate occasions, first in a deep depth incident, where the SSBN exceeded the recommended depth, and secondly when it crashed into a French SSBN. The report alleges that the extent of the latter incident has not been fully revealed.
It is claimed, eleventhly, that there have been numerous floods and fires aboard the SSBN, fire alarms are frequently ignored and concerns over fire hazards were dismissed; twelthly, that personal electronics equipment is frequently used in the vicinity of the missile compartments, despite being explicitly banned; and thirteenthly, that standard operating procedures and safety procedures are routinely ignored across the board. The last of the main allegations in the report is that the tests carried out at the end of a patrol had to be conducted three times because they kept failing, largely due to defective equipment.
Those are just some of the allegations—or revelations—made by Able Seaman McNeilly. Of course, we have no way of knowing whether any or all of them have substance, but I would submit to the House that in the crucial matter of safety, which is clearly what is at stake, the House and the public deserve better information and a more comprehensive explanation than the 500-word written statement issued by the Defence Secretary today. That is not just an insult to this House; it is an insult to the intelligence of the general public.
Alex Salmond
I gladly give way to a Member who has a long interest in these matters.
Jeremy Corbyn
The right hon. Gentleman may be aware that, in the previous Parliament, the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), the former Member for Lewisham, Deptford and I attended the conference on the humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons in Vienna. Most countries that took part in that conference have put on record a detailed assessment of the effects of a nuclear explosion, brought about by an accident or an act of war and the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Is he aware of any assessment made of what the effects would be on Scotland, on Glasgow, on the north of England or on Northern Ireland of a nuclear explosion, either by accident or design, in the Clyde, and what the effect would be on the wider population? Would he support such a report being sought from the UK Government?
Alex Salmond
I am aware of reports estimating the extraordinary damage that could result from such an occurrence. What I am not aware of is whether Her Majesty’s Government have ever conducted such an assessment, and whether they would be prepared to do that now and to release the findings to the general public and to this House.
The second question I want to raise is what the failings in the prototype reactor at Dounreay tell us about the functioning of the reactors on board the submarines at Faslane. I point to a statement—another written statement—from the Secretary of State for Defence on—
Falkland Islands Defence Review
Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Michael Fallon
I hope the signal that will go out from the House today—from both sides of the House—will be the signal to the islanders themselves that this Government are determined to ensure their defence for the short, medium and long term, and will always protect their right to determine their future.
My right hon. Friend drew attention to the smaller number of ships. He will of course be aware that the ships we have today are much more powerful than some of the earlier platforms. He will know that we are constructing two new aircraft carriers and building altogether seven new hunter-killer submarines, and that the Prime Minister has recently announced the next phase of the construction of the Type 26 frigate fleet on the Clyde.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Does the Defence Secretary not think it a bit odd that he said nothing in his statement about diplomatic initiatives or relations with other countries, and that only in response to questions from Opposition Members has he even conceded that there have been discussions? Will he be more specific: what political, diplomatic and defence discussions has he had with Brazil, Uruguay or Argentina to reduce tensions and stress in the area, rather than proposing to spend £180 million?
Michael Fallon
As I have told the House, we have close and warm relations with other countries in the region. As I said, I have recently met the Foreign Minister from Brazil, and I and my colleagues continue to meet Ministers from other Governments. There is a standing invitation from the Falkland Islands Government to other Governments in the region to visit the islands for themselves and to understand the islanders’ wish to remain British.