Trident Alternatives Review

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Sometimes, we have to be blunt with the public and tell them what we are talking about when it comes to the nuclear deterrent. We are talking about what stops war, and it is a question of unacceptable loss and reaching a point where the losses from fighting are so great that one cannot contemplate moving forward.

It is important and necessary for aggressors to believe that the UK has the capability and the resolve to deliver unacceptable losses in response to an imminent attack. We have thrown around lots of words tonight in this debate, but for me the most important has been credibility. Credibility is what the debate must be about. How credible are the threats out there that we face? How credible is our nuclear deterrent capability to our allies? How credible is our deterrent to our potential enemies?

We have been told that this has been a comprehensive review and analysis, but I cannot believe that. I have read the document and, like many right hon. and hon. Members, I found little in it of substance. The hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) said that the nature and scale of the threat are no longer the same as they were during the cold war. He also, I believe, said we were not facing a tier 1 threat, but the national security strategy highlights the risk of nuclear attack under two tiers: tier 1, which is international terrorism including a nuclear attack by terrorists; and tier 2, which is an attack by a state proxy using chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material.

We need to look at the credibility of the threat. On Iran, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said in his report to the board in June 2013:

“As my report on safeguards implementation in Iran shows, the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement. However, Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable us to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities. The Agency therefore cannot conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

Iran remains a credible threat.

Turning to Pakistan, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute confirmed in 2011 that Pakistan had increased its total number of warheads from between 70 and 90 in 2010 to between 90 and 110 in 2011. The risks of instability in its relationship with India and of the spread of its technology and expertise to other nations have to be a great concern.

North Korea is increasingly unstable. Earlier this year we saw an increase in tension and we cannot begin to contemplate what that Government would see as an acceptable thing to do.

Is there a credible threat of nuclear terrorist attack from non-state actors? According to Barack Obama in 2010:

“The single biggest threat to US security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organisation obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Last week my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and I were in Washington as part of a NATO delegation, meeting people from the Pentagon, the State Department and a number of think-tanks. I have also talked to NATO partners about the UK’s nuclear capability, and I asked them what their views would be if the UK removed, or failed to replace, its continuous-at-sea deterrent or CASD. With the exception of only one country, they reacted with horror. I cannot begin to contemplate what the US would think in terms of its pivot to Asia if Europe’s nuclear deterrent were downgraded. It is already concerned at Europe’s inability to meet the 2% budget commitment for support to NATO, yet in this report we are contemplating downgrading our nuclear deterrent. NATO is involved in collective defence and it is a nuclear alliance, yet here we are talking about removing some of that nuclear deterrent.

Finally, there is the issue of the credibility of the deterrent. None of the alternative systems and postures offered in this review offers the same degree of resilience as the current posture of CASD, nor could they guarantee a prompt response in all circumstances. We just cannot move away from that one statement. That says it all. The risk this review finds we would face is unacceptable. It has to be unacceptable in respect of the safety and security of this country, our role and responsibilities within NATO and our role and responsibility to work towards world peace through that nuclear alliance.

[Several hon. Members]

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