UK's Nuclear Deterrent

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. The whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to use it, unlike the suggestion that we could have a nuclear deterrent but not actually be willing to use it, which seemed to come from the Labour Front Bench.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I am sure the Prime Minister is aware that Russia has 10 times the amount of tactical nuclear weapons as the whole of the rest of NATO. On a recent Defence Committee visit to Russia, we were told by senior military leaders that they reserved the right to use nuclear weapons as a first strike. Should that not make us very afraid if we ever thought of giving up our nuclear weapons?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. As I pointed out earlier, Russia is also modernising its nuclear capability. It would be a dereliction of our duty, in terms of our responsibility for the safety and security of the British people, if we were to give up our nuclear deterrent.

We must send an unequivocal message to any adversary that the cost of an attack on our United Kingdom or our allies will always be far greater than anything it might hope to gain through such an attack. Only the retention of our own independent deterrent can do this. This Government will never endanger the security of our people and we will never hide behind the protection provided by others, while claiming the mistaken virtue of unilateral disarmament.

Let me turn to the question of our moral duty to lead nuclear disarmament. Stopping nuclear weapons being used globally is not achieved by giving them up unilaterally. It is achieved by working towards a multilateral process. That process is important and Britain could not be doing more to support this vital work. Britain is committed to creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in line with our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is right, and the speech by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) was also extremely powerful.

The redundancy proposition holds that advancing technology will make the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent redundant. It is supposed—despite all evidence to the contrary—that unmanned underwater vessels will appear and render our oceans transparent, but that is pure supposition. We cannot approach our defence on the basis of what might happen in the future. History is usually a guide in these matters, and this year we mark the centenary of the introduction of tanks into the battle space. We could have said then, “We must not develop this technology because of the possibility of sticky bombs and tank traps”, but we did not.

[Mrs Moon]

One lesson from history must be from Nye Bevan, who said as Foreign Secretary that he should not be sent

“naked into the conference chamber”.

What sort of emperor in new clothing would go into a conference chamber with President Putin, for example, and say, “I don’t have nuclear weapons—well, I have some nuclear-powered subs, but there are no weapons on them”?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Lady is right. I am enjoying the consensual nature of this debate—it is the House of Commons at its very best. In 1929, J. F. C. Fuller said that tanks would make infantry redundant. In a sense he was right, but his timeframe was completely wrong, and the infantry was adapted rather than abolished. The imminent end of manned fighters was confidently predicted in a 1957 Government White Paper. The important point, which the hon. Lady was trying to make, is that we cannot base our defence on what we imagine might happen.

The threat of cyber and of unmanned underwater vessels should invigorate our countermeasures and our attempts to detect and potentially disrupt aggressors. Nevertheless, just as the Lightning II joint strike fighter may have only half a life before it is rendered obsolescent, we must be open to the possibility that the Successor submarine may at some point over its long life be made obsolete. However, I do not think that a sufficient argument to deploy against the decision we will make today.

The second proposition that I want to touch on is that of reputation theory. The argument is that unilateralism will in some way raise our standing internationally, but that is hopelessly naive. Try saying that to people in Ukraine; try waving the Budapest memo at them. Many will say that had Ukraine not given up its share of the USSR’s nuclear armamentarium—about a third of it—when it became independent, its territory would now be assured and it would not have been invaded by Russia. I do not want to take that argument too far, because others will make counter arguments about the wisdom of Ukraine having nuclear weapons—personally, I am pleased it does not—but from the perspective of a state that is trying to face down an aggressor, that is a powerful argument.

Some say that if we cut our nuclear arsenal others will follow, but there is no evidence to suggest that that is the case. We have cut our arsenal dramatically in recent years, yet other states have increased theirs.

Finally, in this atmosphere of Brexit, when we are re-forging our links with other international organisations and operating in an outward-facing way that I find refreshing, we must think about our permanent membership of the UN Security Council. That membership is contingent on this country offering something. It may pain some right hon. and hon. Members to ponder this, but in large part our membership of that body is down to our continued possession of this terrible weapon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I am a proud member of both the GMB and Unite trade unions and I stand here today to make the case for our national security, both in terms of the role of the deterrent in an increasingly turbulent world, and for our domestic defence manufacturing capability.

Our country is at a crossroads. Just weeks ago we voted to leave the European Union and to forge our own destiny, but we must do this as part of the family of nations and the global community, embracing our responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and as a founder member of the NATO alliance, not running away from them. To be clear, I view the renewal of our continuous at-sea deterrent as a necessary evil. I, like all of us in the Chamber, would like to see a nuclear-free world, but this can be achieved only by international co-operation and be negotiated only from a position of strength.

To disarm ourselves unilaterally would not just be to abandon our responsibilities to our international allies, but would leave us at the mercy of other nuclear powers and would send us, in the words of Nye Bevan, so ably quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon),

“naked into the conference-chamber”.

At a time of unprecedented global turmoil, it would be utter recklessness to abandon a fundamental element of our national security in the name of some abstract ideological objection, however well meaning.

[Mrs Moon]

Should we not get this into some sort of perspective? By 2020 the UK’s stockpile of nuclear weapons will be no more than 180, with only 120 operationally available, whereas Russia, China and North Korea have between 6,500 and 8,500 between them.

[Ruth Smeeth]

My hon. Friend ably outlines the threat we really face.

The horrific attacks in Nice last week were just the latest reminder of the risks we face. We are living through a period of extraordinary global turmoil, with threats coming from not just international terrorist networks but a resurgence in tensions between state actors—not least Russia, as the Defence Committee outlined only this month. Not only should Russian actions in Crimea, Ukraine and the Arctic give us pause for thought, but the Russian nuclear doctrine has also changed radically, and for the worse, since the end of the cold war. Not since the fall of the Berlin wall has our deterrent been so critical to our national security. Russia, with its use of increasingly hostile rhetoric, is lowering its nuclear threshold. This is, therefore, no time for Britain to abandon our nuclear capabilities or our commitments to our friends and allies.

Our military is rightly widely admired as the best in the world, and we in this place owe it to the members of our military to ensure that they are provided with the resources and support they need to ensure that our country is prepared for any scenario. However, we must also look closer to home—to the security of our communities and our economy. On that basis, the argument for our deterrent is unquestionable. Tens of thousands of jobs depend on our commitment to the Successor programme.