Defence: Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, back in the mid-1970s, when we had such people in government, I was the Minister responsible for the Navy. I should like to take the opportunity of this debate to put on record how, even then, in the much earlier years of nuclear submarines, I formed the highest respect for the professionalism and dedication of those who were manning those submarines. When we remember the ensuing years, we owe those people a great tribute.

The noble Lord, Lord King, reminded us that we have just been commemorating the Battle of the Somme. We have also just been remembering Hiroshima and what it meant in terms of human destruction and suffering. At that time, those who took their challenges seriously—as with the challenges of 1945—saw for the first time the evidence of the concentration camps in Europe. That is why they dedicated themselves to building institutions which would enable us to have a world in which those things could never happen again. The United Nations was one, NATO was another—look what it has achieved on our own doorstep over all those years—and there were others as well. A few years later, we began to realise that if we were to have a peaceful world, we would need to take our contribution to that world seriously, which is why we began to build into our system of government overseas development as a priority. The Government deserve congratulations on the way they have pursued that with rigour and determination.

I admire President Obama for many things, but one of them is that he keeps reminding us that we must not stop dreaming of a world without nuclear weapons. In this kind of debate I always worry a little that we are settling almost as an end in itself for a way of managing the realities of the situation we have rather than saying, “How can we still, in spite of all the difficulties, keep striving for a different kind of world?”. Historians 100 or 200 years hence may have a lot to say about a time when we settled for saying that the only way we could keep existing with any self-assurance was by mutual threat of mutual annihilation. That is not a very satisfactory comment on the advance of human society. However, that is the case, and we have to live with the reality that the United States has been a great partner with us in our enterprises, but Russia is there—and in a form we would prefer it were not—as is North Korea. China is becoming increasingly powerful, and there are others.

We cannot push these things away—they are there. Therefore, in the future that confronts us we have to have a means by which it becomes unthinkable for Governments of other countries to consider deploying nuclear weapons because of the consequences for them. I am not happy about that—I am extremely unhappy that we have to settle for this situation, but that is the reality of the situation which confronts us.

Finally, I am glad that one of the things that has been raised in this debate—would that it had not been necessary to do so—is the issue of terrorism. That is another reality with which we will have to live for a long time. We have to be absolutely certain that with our defence system and defence budget we produce systems that are relevant to the threat of terrorism. I am concerned in this situation in which such a high proportion of the defence budget is spent on the renewal of the deterrent when we know—Chilcot said it—that our forces are overstretched and are not properly equipped in the real situations which we meet every day. The issue of renewing our deterrent therefore raises immense questions about how far we are properly financing the rest of the defence budget. However, it also means that we have to be very certain that the deterrent in the form in which we are pursuing it will be the most effective protection in the years ahead.

That is why my noble friend Lord Robertson was absolutely right: it is disgraceful that we are having this debate late in the evening, with six minutes—I am afraid that I am already on seven—to speak on an issue which the Minister himself thinks is profoundly important. There are masses of implications involved in this decision. We should have had a White Paper and proper evidence put before us. How far have the Government really thought through the dangers for our nuclear maritime defence future, because a lot of serious people are questioning whether it will be quite as secure and immune as it should be? Those arguments may well be being answered but not with proper information made available as well as evidence of the Government’s consideration. It really is disgraceful that we are having this debate in this form tonight.

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[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am going to wind up for the Liberal Democrats and will probably give the only—dare I say it—authentic and official Liberal Democrat position on continuous at-sea deterrence. I will say in advance that I am speaking as briefed according to our party policy. I speak as vice-chair of our Federal Policy Committee and as the person who has the dubious distinction of chairing our last defence working group. We produced an excellent defence policy paper, most of which I would be very happy to advocate to your Lordships. The bit that achieved most publicity and notoriety at the time was our policy on the nuclear deterrent. I am tasked this evening with advocating that again, so I think I will be the only Member of your Lordships’ House this evening not saying that I support the Government.

I will say in advance that, while I am speaking officially in terms of the party line, my own view is very much as a multilateralist. Certainly, anything that I am saying should not be taken as suggesting in any way that I am advocating a unilateralist position, nor indeed that my party is advocating a unilateralist position. I will explain shortly because I can see quizzical faces.

There have been suggestions from various Members of your Lordships’ House that this is a snap decision, and it has been asked why we are making it now. We are not making a snap decision this evening. We have been talking about this for at least 10 years. The Liberal Democrats are now on, I think, our fourth review of what we think our policy should be. Back in 2006-07, the policy review was led by the late Lord Roper and the person responsible for drafting the then policy was the late Lord Garden, both of whom reviewed and took this issue extremely seriously. I was on that working group. At the time, a decade ago, we were reviewing whether it made sense to have an independent nuclear deterrent. The words of Sir Michael Quinlan, which have been mentioned by various noble Lords this evening, were important. Was it still the appropriate measure to have after the end of the Cold War, in a world where the threats seemed to be changing and the threat of Russia was perhaps less significant than it had been?

Clearly, the situation now is very different. Russia now poses a threat, and the only nuclear threat that seems to have abated in the past decade is that of Iran. The geopolitical situation a decade on is such that those of us who had questioned whether a nuclear deterrent that arose during the Cold War was still appropriate in the 21st century have begun to change our minds.

The position that my party took in 2007 was to say very clearly that the decision on a replacement for Trident did not need to be taken then. The main-gate decision did not need to be taken until the 2010-15 Parliament. For reasons that we do not need to rehearse now, that decision was not taken until 2016. The Liberal Democrat position is that we believe we should retain a nuclear capability. We believe the threats are such that the United Kingdom and her European allies need to have a nuclear deterrent, but we do not believe in like-for-like replacement. The noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, might suggest that we are closet unilateralists.

The party’s position was debated at great length over the years and agreed in 2013: that we believed in retaining a nuclear deterrent but we were not persuaded that it was essential to keep a four-boat solution. While I understand that that is not going to work—were we to have a vote this evening, I would be in a minority, possibly of two, because I note that my Chief Whip has appeared and would support this line as well. But the position that the Liberal Democrats took, after a prolonged debate, eschewed the unilateralist perspective that many in my party, like the leader of the Labour Party—his position was outlined earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe—would have preferred.

My party was willing to accept the retention of nuclear weapons and the replacement of Trident, but not like-for-like replacement, on the understanding that we would seek to take a step down the nuclear ladder, and that giving up nuclear weapons in a unilateralist way—saying simply, “We no longer wish to retain nuclear weapons”—would not give us any leverage in non-proliferation discussions. Keeping a seat at the table was important, and having a non-like-for-like replacement would at least ensure that we were still building submarines, retaining the skills that, as we have heard, are so important for our economy but also for the country’s nuclear capability. Therefore, while moving away from continuous at-sea deterrence might strike some of your Lordships as leaving us vulnerable, it would also mean that we have not lost such capability and that we keep many options open, in a way that a step to unilateralism would not. The official Liberal Democrat position is that we do not support the like-for-like replacement of Trident but we do support the retention of nuclear capabilities and believe that stepping down the nuclear ladder would pave the way for further discussions on non-proliferation.

I will conclude with two questions for the Minister. First, in light of questions about non-proliferation, can he explain how the Government intend to contribute further to non-proliferation discussions once a decision on the four-boat solution is voted on next Monday? We have five-yearly reviews of the non-proliferation treaty. They tend to coincide with general election years, which perhaps has meant that the United Kingdom has not played as significant a role in the discussions as it might have. What scope might there be in 2020 for a key British role—

[Lord Judd]

I thank the noble Baroness for giving way during a short debate. I am very interested in what she is saying. She has been very candid about the Liberal Democrats’ position—in favour of retaining a nuclear capability, but not supporting this particular move. In what form would they retain a nuclear capability?

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

I am most grateful for the opportunity to clarify the non-continuous at-sea deterrence policy. It was outlined clearly in 2013 during the debate following the Trident alternatives review. We will have fewer than four boats, which is understood to be two or three boats. Since the Trident alternatives review did not explore a two-boat solution, I believe that must mean a three-boat solution, but, technically, our policy is for fewer than four boats. Not having a continuous at-sea deterrent means that the boats can be in or out of operation according to a timetable decided by whoever runs our defence policy at the time.

My final point goes back to the issue of costs. On Monday, after the Minister repeated the then Prime Minister’s Statement following the NATO summit, I asked a question about defence expenditure and some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and other Members this evening. My understanding, from reading the report of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, is that it shares the concern I raised on Monday. It was outlined on Monday—this was repeated by the noble Lord—that there has been a 0.5% increase in real terms in defence expenditure, but that was predicated on a budgetary forecast made before the decision to leave the European Union, which may mean that the defence budget is smaller than initially assumed. In that case, will the Minister reflect on what the implications are for the defence budget of taking this decision and ensuring that our defence capabilities are secure?