Trident Renewal

Debate between Julian Lewis and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I begin by saying a word in defence of the Labour party. Scottish National party Members seem to regard anyone who disagrees with them as trivialising the subject and anyone who agrees with them as taking it seriously. I personally greatly value the bipartisan approach taken by successive Labour and Conservative Governments to the maintenance of the nuclear deterrent. It is true that for a few years in the 1980s, the Labour party was captured by its left wing and went down the unilateralist road, but after two massive election defeats in 1983 and 1987, when the nuclear deterrent issue was central to the campaigns, the Labour party changed back to its bipartisan policy of nuclear deterrence.

We saw that reflected the last time we had a vote on this subject, as far as I can recall, which was on 14 March 2007. Tony Blair was still Prime Minister and he was proposing the approval of the renewal of the nuclear deterrent—the first stages of the process which should have got to maingate during this Parliament but are now due to get there in the next one. In that debate, we saw something interesting: almost all the Conservative MPs voted in favour of renewing the nuclear deterrent and keeping it in existence for the next generation; a considerable majority of Labour MPs were also in favour, but a sizeable minority of about 90 were opposed—they were the CND supporters who have been consistent in their principled opposition to nuclear weapons throughout their political lifetime; and also in the “against” camp were the Liberal Democrats and the nationalists. The result of that vote came about because of an agreement between the Front-Bench teams, with the motion being carried by 409 votes to 161.

That vote represented something more than a decision taken in this House; it also represented, quite fairly, the general spread of opinion consistently in this country throughout the cold war and in the years afterwards. When the fundamental question is asked in poll after poll, “Do you think that Britain should continue to have nuclear weapons as long as other countries have them?”, almost exactly two thirds of the population say yes and almost exactly one quarter say no, with single figures or thereabouts, if my arithmetic is correct, for the undecided. It is indeed a very divisive issue and it is one on which it is difficult to have a foot in both camps, although, as we have seen today, our friends the Liberal Democrats are doing their best to do that.

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman will probably know that the last time this was debated was in 2007—and there was a vote—the majority of Scottish MPs voted against—we had an example of English votes for Scottish bombs.

[Dr Lewis]

I was generous in giving way to the hon. Gentleman so soon after he has made his own contribution. All I would say is that I know there was a vote on that day—that is what I just said—and if he tells me that a majority of Scottish MPs may have voted the other way, I accept that; but Scotland is, by choice, part of the United Kingdom and decisions on issues such as this are decisions for the United Kingdom as a whole. I do not believe even the SNP thinks that devo-max ought to include defence policy. If it does, we are in an even worse situation than I anticipated.

We heard from the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), who is a friend of mine, about moving away from the cold war. What one moves away from, one can move back to, and more quickly than one anticipates—particularly if, as the Chairman of the Defence Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), said in his excellent speech, one’s enemies or potential enemies have good reason to doubt one’s will and determination to stand up for the agreements one has made and to use the deterrent power one has to prevent war from breaking out in the first place. I was very surprised that the hon. Member for North Devon did not think that the events in Ukraine had any bearing on our discussions today. I think the events in Ukraine are highly relevant, particularly as NATO has a rather strange open-door policy to membership, which it should not have. It should not grant membership to any country that we are not prepared to go to war for if it is invaded.