Trident Missile Test

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord King of Bridgwater]

I apologise to my noble friend. I understood from the clerk that in an Urgent Question we go backwards and forwards across the House.

I do not think I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who was extremely disappointed by the line taken by the noble Lord, whom I thought normally rather a responsible spokesman on defence for the other side. I think it was a disappointment to many of us.

I think the Prime Minister was rather overzealous in her interview to preserve in this case the long-standing principle of not commenting in detail on our nuclear activities. As the Secretary of State for Defence in another place has made clear, he and the Prime Minister are kept regularly informed, as I was in my time, about the progress and activities of our critical nuclear deterrent.

The current situation is why we have tests. There have been problems before. As was made clear in the Statement, problems arise and are dealt with. The important thing is to maintain at all times the credibility of our deterrent, and anyone who seeks to undermine it or suggest that it is not working does great damage to our country. No one would be more interested in a running commentary on the activity of our deterrent tests at present than the Kremlin, Pyongyang and maybe Daesh. We need to maintain our last line of defence and its credibility. I strongly support the Statement that my noble friend has repeated here today.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend, who has immense experience of these matters. I say again that this was a successful operation. There are very few matters that cannot be discussed openly in Parliament or outside it, but this is one of them. Noble Lords will, I hope, appreciate that it is appropriate and right for government to maintain secrecy on detailed matters relating to our nuclear deterrent.