Julian Lewis
Main Page: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)Department Debates - View all Julian Lewis's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Lady and I will probably always find room for disagreement on this. I will come on to the issue of deterrence later.
I want to make progress, because it would be remiss of me not to mention the town of Barrow-in-Furness and give our thanks to the people of Barrow, who have crafted these giants of the deep and continue to do so, ensuring that we have the right technology and the right vessels to deliver our nuclear deterrent.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for the way in which he is introducing the debate. The question about other countries possessing nuclear weapons takes me back to the old arguments where we used to ask people to name a single country that would either acquire nuclear weapons because we had got them, or get rid of them if we decided unilaterally to get rid of ours. Do you know what? They never came up with the name of one country.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am delighted to follow two such supportive speeches on the nuclear deterrent and the work of those who have crewed it for the past 50 years. It is amazing to think of the combination of high training and long periods of low activity that such personnel have to undergo. They truly are the silent guardians of the country and we are hugely in their debt.
What is more, most Members of this House recognise that fact. It is worth putting on the record that in recent years the House has had two key votes on the question of the renewal of the nuclear deterrent submarine fleet, the first under the Labour Government of Tony Blair on 14 March 2007. The House voted by 409 to 161—a massive majority of 248—to proceed with the initial gate of the replacement or successor submarine fleet. The second was under the Conservative Government of the current Prime Minister on 18 July 2016, when the House voted by a colossal majority of 355—namely, 472 votes to 117—to proceed to the main stages of development and production of the submarines.
The only issue to which I took a little exception in the contribution of the shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), was in one turn of phrase, when she said how appalling it would be if the deterrence weapons were used. I remind her gently that the nuclear deterrent is in use every day of every week all around the year, because the purpose of the nuclear deterrent is to ensure that nuclear war does not break out because no one is in a position to attack us with impunity.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
In the right hon. Gentleman’s description of the deterrent, will he explain why none of the missiles is actually targeted at any targets?
Dr Lewis
It is for the simple reason that, in the unlikely event of anyone being mad enough to attack us—because we have the ability to retaliate—it would be simple to target missiles to retaliate against them, and that could easily result in the obliteration of any country unwise enough to launch a nuclear attack against a nuclear power such as ourselves.
Mr Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
I join my right hon. Friend in applauding the speech from the shadow Defence Secretary, but does he share my disappointment that she did not take any interventions? She may have been able to explain the fundamental flaw in Labour’s Front-Bench position, which is that we cannot have an effective deterrent if we have committed never to use it, as the shadow Chancellor and the Leader of the Opposition have done.
Dr Lewis
I accept the fact that Labour has a problem with certain key figures who have always been opposed in principle to the possession of a nuclear deterrent. However, today is not the day to have that debate. I know that the shadow Defence Secretary and every one of the Labour Back Benchers whom I see opposite are wholly committed to keeping this country safe and strong. If anyone can ensure that the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor are not allowed to undermine the sensible policy outlined from the Opposition Front Bench today, it is that cohort of people. I wish them the best of luck in that endeavour.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The right hon. Gentleman described a situation in which we would be able to retaliate if we were attacked. I do not know about him, but if I had been obliterated by a nuclear weapon, I would not care a jot whether we obliterated somebody back.
Dr Lewis
I am sorry to have to explain to the hon. Lady that the whole point of our ability to retaliate is to ensure that we are not attacked in the first place. One really does not have to have had more than half a century of experience to realise that that is bound to be the case. I was not going to quote Professor Sir Henry Tizard, whom I have quoted in debates many times before, but it looks like it is necessary for me to do so.
Professor Tizard was the leading defence scientist in the second world war at the time when atomic weapons were being created. In 1945, with a committee of leading scientists, including Nobel prize winners, he was supposed to look forward to see what the future nature of warfare might be. His committee was not allowed to explore the atomic bomb project in detail, but he insisted on putting in this primary rationale for nuclear deterrence, which holds as firmly today as it did in June 1945. He explained that the only answer that those senior defence scientists, with all their experience of the second world war, could see to the advent of the atomic bomb was the preparedness to use it in retaliation, thus preventing an attack in the first place. I am sorry to inflict this on the House again, but he said:
“A knowledge that we were prepared, in the last resort, to do this”—
to retaliate—
“might well deter an aggressive nation. Duelling was a recognised method of settling quarrels between men of high social standing so long as the duellists stood twenty paces apart and fired at each other with pistols of a primitive type. If the rule had been that they should stand a yard apart with pistols at each other’s hearts, we doubt whether it would long have remained a recognised method of settling affairs of honour.”
In other words, if someone knows that they are going to die, for a certainty, if they launch an attack against somebody else, they are not going to launch that attack in the first place.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State for actually taking interventions. Anyone who knows the history of the continuous nuclear deterrent knows that it is heavily reliant upon a relationship with the United States. With the present occupant of the White House being such a transactional individual, and with the United Kingdom about to enter into trade negotiations with the US, how confident is the right hon. Gentleman that his Government’s negotiators will not, say, trade chlorinated chicken and access to the NHS—[Interruption.] I am talking technically. How confident is he that that would be not be traded for the United States role in the nuclear deterrent? Although he knows that I fully oppose it, of course.
Dr Lewis
The hon. Gentleman is an admirable member of the Defence Committee, and we greatly value his contributions, but I do not think that that was his most stellar contribution—[Laughter.] Sometimes people say, “Well, what if the Americans wanted to have some sort of veto or to stop us using the nuclear deterrent?”—I mean using it in the sense of firing it rather than of using it in the sense that it is used all day long every day of the year to prevent nuclear conflict. The first point is that this nuclear system is totally under our own control. It would gradually wither on the vine over a long period of time only if the United States decided for some reason that it no longer wanted there to be a second centre of nuclear decision making within the NATO alliance. At any time now, as it has been for the last 50 years, it is entirely independently controlled by us.
The second point is about why an American president would ever not want there to be a second centre of nuclear decision making in NATO, because that reduces any temptation of an aggressor against NATO to think that it could pick off this country without America responding.
Richard Benyon
Looking forward, does my right hon. Friend agree that renewing the fleet with the new Dreadnought class is the most important decision? In doing so, we have decided that we cannot predict what is going to happen in 20, 30 or 40 years. Those who want us to get rid of the deterrent and not renew our fleet are taking a terrible gamble in a dangerous world, because we cannot foresee the enemies that we may face in the decades ahead.
Dr Lewis
I pay tribute to the people who work at Aldermaston in my right hon. Friend’s constituency for all that they contribute to the maintenance of our nuclear deterrent capability. Not only do I agree with him, but he has led me nicely back to the central theme of my narrative, which was to try to set out for the House the five main military arguments in favour of retaining our independent deterrent, the first of which is precisely the point that he has just made. Future military threats and conflicts will be no more predictable than those that engulfed us throughout the 20th century. That is the overriding justification for preserving armed forces in peacetime as a national insurance policy. No one knows what enemies might confront us during the next 30 to 50 years, but it is highly probable that at least some of them will be armed with mass-destruction weapons.
The second argument is that it is not the weapons themselves that we have to fear but the nature of the regimes that possess them. Whereas democracies are generally reluctant to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear dictatorships—although they did use them against Japan in 1945—the reverse is not true. Think, for example, what the situation would have been in 1982 if a non-nuclear Britain had faced an Argentina in possession of even a few tactical nuclear bombs and the means of delivering them. There would have been no question of our being able to retake the Falkland Islands in that conflict.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
This is such an important point. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, when we speak about freedom, our independent at-sea deterrent has been one of the most important factors in securing freedom and democracy around the world?
Dr Lewis
Absolutely. If we get into a situation where the United States and the NATO alliance are paralysed in the face of dictatorships armed even with a few mass-destruction weapons that cannot be neutralised by the threat of retaliation, there would be no prospect of our mounting a defence of any country under attack, anywhere in the world, no matter how deserving it might be of our military intervention.
The third argument is that the United Kingdom has traditionally played a more important and decisive role in preserving freedom than other medium-sized states have been able or willing to play. Democratic countries without nuclear weapons have little choice but to declare themselves neutral and hope for the best or, alternatively, to rely upon the nuclear umbrella of powerful allies. The United Kingdom is already a nuclear power and is also much harder to defeat by conventional means because of our physical separation from the continent.
The fourth argument is that our prominence as the principal ally of the United States, our strategic geographical position and the fact that we are obviously the junior partner might tempt an aggressor to think of attacking us separately. Given the difficulty of overrunning the United Kingdom with conventional forces, by contrast to our more vulnerable allies on the continent, an aggressor could be tempted to use one or more mass-destruction weapons against us on the assumption that the United States might not reply on our behalf. Even if that assumption were false, the attacker would find out his mistake when, and only when, it was too late for all concerned. An independently controlled British nuclear deterrent massively reduces the prospect of such a fatal miscalculation.
The final military argument is that no quantity of conventional forces can compensate for the military disadvantage that faces a non-nuclear country in a war against a nuclear-armed enemy. The atomic bombing of Japan is especially instructive not only because the Emperor was forced to surrender but because of the reverse scenario. Imagine if Japan had developed atomic bombs in the summer of 1945 and the allies had not. An invasion to end the war would then have been completely impossible.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
Quite a few colleagues in the House have served in the British Army of the Rhine—I served there three times. When we, as conventional forces, practised deploying against an enemy, we were much sustained by the knowledge that there was a nuclear back-up in our armoury. That raised our morale. We thought that people would not dare attack us when we had a nuclear device in our hand. It would be mad to get rid of it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. To help Members, I will be aiming for 10 minutes each from Back Benchers.
Dr Lewis
I will endeavour to finish quickly, Mr Deputy Speaker.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) was right to think in those terms when he wore that uniform. What is more, hon. Members on both sides of the House, in very large numbers, think in similar terms.
To bring my remarks speedily to a conclusion, I will draw out five lessons that have impressed themselves on me in such debates over the past 35 years, since we replaced the first-generation Polaris submarine fleet with the second-generation Vanguard submarine fleet.
The first lesson is that the concepts of unilateralism and multilateralism are mutually incompatible. One requires the unconditional abandonment of our nuclear weapons and nuclear alliances, whereas the other would consider nuclear renunciation only if our potential enemies carry it out at the same time.
The second lesson is that a nuclear-free world is not necessarily a more peaceful world. Abolition of the nuclear balance of terror would be a curse and not a blessing if it made the world once again safe for all-out conventional conflict between the superpowers. In military terms, Russia remains a superpower, regardless of complacent western analyses of the weakness of her economy.
The third lesson is the fundamental divide—which we see in today’s debate—between those people in western societies who believe that wars result mainly from groundless mutual fear and suspicion, and those who believe that only the prospect of retaliation in kind prevents adventurist states from acting aggressively.
The fourth lesson is the validity of the hackneyed but nevertheless accurate concept of the silent majority. Although individual polling questions can be devised to produce apparent majorities against deploying particular nuclear systems, whenever the fundamental issue of deterrence has been posed the result is always decisive. Two thirds of the British people want us to continue to possess nuclear weapons as long as other countries have them, and only one quarter want us to give them up unconditionally.
The final lesson is that since fewer than 10% of our people have been undecided in poll after poll on this fundamental issue, it does not make political sense to try to appease either that small group or the much larger number of highly committed unilateralists such as my friends in the Scottish National party. The strategic task for the Government, and for the Opposition, is to reinforce the views of the two thirds who believe in what may be termed peace through strength and deterrence, rather than peace through disarmament, so the issue will be in the forefront of people’s minds, as it was in the general elections of 1983 and 1987, when this was a very prominent topic in the election debate.
None of this would be possible but for the dedication and, indeed, heroism of those people who, month after month, patrol the seas and are not seen and not heard—they are meant to be not seen and not heard—in order silently to spread over us an umbrella of nuclear protection. Long may they continue to do so.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
When I rose to make my maiden speech on 1 July 2015, I touched on the Trident programme, because it is close to my heart. In fact, it is very close to my constituency. At the time, I mentioned that Trident seemed to be a bit of an abstract concept. People know it is out there, but they do not know what it is, how much it costs, how much it cannot be used and what it is actually doing as a deterrent.
If people stand on the shore of my constituency, they will often see Vanguard class submarines moving silently through the deep waters. They catch the sunlight, which shimmers along their long, sleek, black bodies as they cut through the surface of the water. Their colour may suggest giant eels, but they lack the elegance. They are, however, engineering marvels. It takes some doing to fire a missile from beneath the water’s surface, project it through the water until it breaks free, and manage two controlled explosions that project the missile to a pre-defined target where ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads are released and either explode on impact or are exploded automatically at the required height to cause maximum death and destruction. Mankind has never lacked ingenuity when it comes to inventing ways of killing each other. I cannot help but wonder what else we could have achieved with all that time, effort, ingenuity and money.
The issue we have is that successive Governments of the United Kingdom have supported and expanded the nuclear weapons programme at eye-watering cost. Why? When I sit in the House of Commons, I talk to many Members who support Trident. I can tell them that these weapons can kill tens of millions of people. But they know that. I can tell them that the watershed will be poisoned, crops will fail and many more will die in the most degrading ways from famine, pestilence and plague. But they know that. I can share stories of survivors, such as Setsuko Thurlow, who told me of people falling to the ground, bellies extended and bursting as they hit the ground, of people trying to carry their own eyes that had fallen out of their heads, and of people with their flesh falling off their bones as they died in agony.
I can also tell Members that WMD have not stopped wars across the globe from Vietnam to Afghanistan. But they know that. I can tell them that WMD are no protection from terrorism. But they know that. I can tell them that the £205 billion could be spent on health, education, housing, transport or even financing our conventional armed forces. But they know that, too.
The majority of supporters of WMD are just like me with one vital difference. They believe that WMD are a deterrent. They believe their existence has kept us safe. As those weapons have existed during a period in which we have avoided wars on the scale of the first and second world wars, I can see where they are coming from. If people believe that keeping their guard up is keeping them safe, then lowering their guard is a frightening thing to do. In this case, they are so frightened that they are prepared to carry out the greatest atrocity humankind has ever perpetrated, and have it done in their name. Well, not in my name. Not all countries believe that nuclear warfare is required. Maybe as many as nine countries feel the need to have nuclear weapons, out of 200.
Dr Julian Lewis
I make one point for the hon. Gentleman’s consideration—one could say exactly the same thing about poison gas, which was used in the first world war and not in the second. It was not used in the second because of fear of overwhelming retaliation. The British warned that we had those stocks and that we would retaliate not only on our own behalf but on behalf of our allies such as Russia. The question is, which keeps the peace?
Ronnie Cowan
We could say that about almost any weapon that we have managed to invent. The threat escalates because such weapons exist. We sit in this Chamber to debate all sorts of subjects, which we sometimes try to do in a fairly amicable manner. If that escalated and went beyond debate, it could turn to violence—but it does not, because we respect each other, we back off and we discuss it. We say to kids in the streets, “Don’t carry knives. If you are carrying one and I’m carrying one, someone will get stabbed.” We talk to those kids, saying, “Don’t carry those weapons,” yet here in this place our attitude towards ending war is to escalate the weapons that people can carry.
Caroline Lucas
If the right hon. Gentleman really thinks that 122 countries around the world are engaging in gesture politics, I would suggest to him that it is perhaps more a gesture from him than it is from them. I believe in Britain taking a leadership role. Perhaps he does not. The constant sitting back and waiting for something else to happen—doing the wrong thing—would frankly be unconscionable.
It is very easy to characterise those of us who are against nuclear weapons as somehow not living in the real world, so perhaps I could just remind the House that there are plenty of people within the military world who do not think that nuclear weapons are a useful tool going forward. Back in 2014, senior political and diplomatic figures—including people such as the former Conservative Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Defence Secretary Des Browne and former Foreign Secretary Lord Owen—came together with very high-ranking military personnel to say that they believe that the risks posed by nuclear weapons and the international dynamics that could lead to nuclear weapons being used are being underestimated and that those risks are insufficiently understood by world leaders.
The Government’s main argument for replacing Trident appears to be that it is the ultimate insurance in an uncertain world. I argue that they fail to acknowledge that it is our very possession of nuclear weapons that is making that world more uncertain. Nor have the advocates of nuclear weapons ever explained why, if Trident is so vital to protecting us, that is not also the case for every other country in the world. The Secretary of State did not answer me at the beginning of this debate—it seems a long time ago now—when I put it to him that we have no moral arguments to put to other countries to ask them not to acquire nuclear weapons if we ourselves are not only keeping them but upgrading them. I put it to him again that a world in which every country is striving for, and potentially achieving, nuclear weapons would be an awful lot more dangerous than the world we have today.
Dr Julian Lewis
Let me try this question again. If we were to give up our nuclear weapons, which other countries that possess nuclear weapons would follow suit? Does the hon. Lady know how many nuclear warheads have been reduced as a result of us reducing our nuclear warhead totals unilaterally? The answer is a big fat zero.
Caroline Lucas
That is why one needs international processes such as the UN treaty that I have described, which is supported by 122 countries, to make that happen. Although I am personally in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament, that is not the case that I am making this afternoon. I am moving one step towards people such as hon. Members like himself—or right hon. Members like himself, perhaps, I cannot really remember—who I completely understand are never going to be persuaded by unilateral nuclear disarmament, but who I hope might be willing to engage in a serious argument about multilateral nuclear disarmament.
So far there has been very little recognition in this debate of the fact that nuclear weapons systems are themselves fallible. According to a shocking report by Chatham House, there have been 13 incidents since 1962 in which nuclear weapons have very nearly been launched. One of the most dramatic, in 1983, was when Stanislav Petrov, the duty officer in a Soviet nuclear war early-warning centre, found his system warning of the launch of five US missiles. After a few moments of agonising, he judged it, thankfully and correctly, to be a false alarm. If he had reached a different conclusion and passed the information up the control chain, that could have triggered the firing of nuclear missiles from Russia.
Mr Speaker
Oh, very well. Let us have a point of order from Dr Julian Lewis—the good doctor.
Dr Lewis
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is there any way within the rules of order that I can point out that the nuclear deterrent has been supported on this occasion by a ratio of 7:1, which is even greater than the normal ratio whenever public opinion is tested on this very important matter?