Keith Simpson
Main Page: Keith Simpson (Conservative - Broadland)Department Debates - View all Keith Simpson's debates with the Ministry of Defence
Trident: Test Firing
Keith Simpson Excerpts(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Michael Fallon
Let me be very clear about this: our Trident nuclear deterrent is completely operationally independent of the United States. In our country, only the Prime Minister can authorise the firing of these weapons, even if they are employed as part of an overall NATO response.
Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the approach he has taken on this issue? The whole area of our independent nuclear deterrent is of crucial importance, and the arguments he has made very strongly about not being as open as he might perhaps at times like to be on the operational side is absolutely correct.
Sir Michael Fallon
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Earlier Governments in different situations—indeed, in more benevolent times—might have taken different decisions about how much information they were prepared to reveal about demonstration and operations. These are not, of course, such benevolent times, and the decision we took was not to release any information about the testing of all the systems and sub-systems involved in the return to the operational cycle of HMS Vengeance.