Trident Renewal

Debate between John Leech and Lord Coaker

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) for the contribution he has made, and often makes, in his speeches on this issue in the House of Commons. I do not mean to question the other parts of his speech, but may I tell him that its last couple of minutes encapsulated what the debate is about in a nutshell?

I do not believe that anybody in the House would not prefer a world without nuclear weapons or would not wish to see the end of nuclear weapons as soon as possible. No matter what party we belong to or how big or small it is, we are all united in trying to secure a world that is safe and secure, and rid of nuclear weapons. As hon. Members have said, this debate is about how we go about achieving that. I congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) on holding this debate. We disagree with each other, but I do not doubt that we all want to achieve the same end.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Vernon Coaker]

I will make some progress first. I have only just started my speech, so let me have a minute or two.

I am grateful for the opportunity to outline clearly our position on nuclear deterrence and multilateral disarmament. The Labour party is an internationalist, multilateralist party, and proud to be so. We are firmly committed to working with our allies and partners around the world to advance our ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and we are proud of our strong record in office on multilateral nuclear disarmament.

The previous Labour Government abolished the UK’s free-fall bombs, reduced the number of deployed warheads from 96 to 48, and almost halved the UK’s nuclear warhead stockpile to 160. Today, a written statement in response to the hon. Member for Moray states that the current Government have continued that policy with further reductions from 48 to 40 warheads, and that available operational warheads have reduced from 160 to 120—something we all commend. However, we believe that the Government could be doing more to advance that agenda. That is why, as the Defence Secretary said, the shadow Foreign Secretary and I wrote to the Prime Minister in November, urging the Government to ensure UK representation at the recent Vienna conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons—a conference they did attend in the end.

Multilateralism is making progress and the UK took the lead in achieving global reductions and international bans on landmines, chemical and biological weapons and cluster munitions. A strong and consistent voice for nuclear disarmament on the world stage means that the UK has played its part in reducing the global nuclear stockpile by more than 70% since the end of the cold war.