Scottish Referendum (Trident)

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Davidson]

That almost brings on a song, but I will resist the temptation, Mr Bone—perhaps later.

The vessels are, therefore, in entirely the wrong position, with the longest possible sailing time to get to the areas where they would be required. All the military experts to whom we have spoken indicated that it would make sense to have the vessels on the east coast—in Rosyth, or perhaps up near Aberdeen, particularly if, like the Norwegian navy, there were 70 vessels. To be fair, some of those vessels in the Norwegian navy are very small, but it would make sense to have them close to areas that have, say, the oil rigs and so on. However, that cannot be done if the main driver of a policy is the need to guarantee as many jobs as possible in Faslane. It is not militarily rational to say that the entire Scottish navy, such as it would be, would be based in Faslane. That could mean the loss of any jobs concerned with naval matters in Rosyth, which is much easier for those in Faslane to accept than those in Rosyth. The statement that we had from the SNP shop steward and councillor about being willing to accept job losses possibly refers to Rosyth—that is how it has been interpreted in Rosyth.

We also need clarity from the Scottish Government and the SNP about the extent to which headquarters staff could be accommodated sensibly at Faslane. We have had meetings with people in the military who say that it does not make sense to have all the headquarters staff based far away from the seat of Government. We assume, in a separate Scotland, that Helensburgh would not be the seat of Government. It would be Edinburgh, and in those circumstances, it would be appropriate to have a substantial number of headquarters staff situated in Edinburgh, in the same way as the Ministry of Defence is very close to the seat of power here in Westminster. That would further reduce the number of jobs that might be available.

When we get to breaking up the armed forces of the United Kingdom, my understanding is that everyone presently would be given the opportunity to serve with either the Scottish navy, the Scottish air force or the Scottish army. The Scots Guards, for example, if it is to be brought back as a Scottish regiment, might have to be based somewhere. Some of those might be able to go into Faslane, but at present we do not have those answers, and we must seek them.

[Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)]

Surely serving members of the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force or the Army are committed to the Crown and would remain members of the UK armed forces. A Scottish army, navy or air force might be offering them a job, but it should not be assumed that the British Army, Navy or Air Force would automatically be ready to let them all go.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)]

I congratulate the Committee, both on its inquiry and its report and on the manner in which its Chairman introduced its report, in which the prospects of relocating the nuclear deterrent to another base somewhere else in the UK are referred to as

“highly problematic, very expensive, and fraught with political difficulties.”

If memory serves me correctly, that phrase was part of my brief when I gave evidence to the Committee. The civil service was on fine form that day in preparing that brief, giving such a masterly understatement of what this would entail.

Anyone who has visited Faslane—I guess that most hon. Members in this Chamber will have done so at some point—will see that if we were establishing facilities of the sort that we have there, nature could scarcely have provided a more perfect setting in which to do so. Indeed, anyone who goes there will be struck by the tranquillity of it all, which is, of course, the legacy of the nuclear deterrent’s having been there for 50 years and little other development having taken place. When we say cheerfully that there are alternatives to which we could now turn—

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I was making the point before the Division that Faslane is ideally suited to its purpose. Back in the 1950s, alternative sites were investigated, including Falmouth, which has one of the largest harbours in the world, and Milford Haven, but we cannot turn back the clock and consider how Falmouth and Milford Haven were 50 years ago. The fact is that a great deal of development has happened in both since, and some of it is completely incompatible with a nuclear facility.

If another site were chosen, the cost would not be simply the massive cost of making a nuclear installation. My colleague the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) also gave evidence to the Committee, pointing out that making a site meet the standards for nuclear safety and hardening it in defence terms would multiply costs far above the requirements of normal construction. On top of all that would be compensation, restoration and all sorts of other attendant costs from nearby facilities and developments.

That was what led me to tell the Committee that the costs would be gargantuan. I think that they are basically unquantifiable—in all honesty, I have no idea what they would be—but if we are going to spend about £25 billion on the capital costs of renewing Trident, I would not be in the least surprised to see the same sum spent all over again if anybody were seriously to undertake the fraught project of relocation to another site. In a practical sense, it is all quite unnecessary, and it would take an enormous length of time. I do not see anything incredible about the estimates of 20 years.

If it does come about, and if the United Kingdom elects a Government in 2015 who wish to go ahead with the nuclear deterrent for a further generation, it would be one of the biggest items—if not the single biggest—on the table in the negotiation that would have to take place between London and Edinburgh in the aftermath of a referendum vote for independence. The Scottish Government would likely take the view, “This will all have to be paid for by the United Kingdom Government.” I would not expect them to write cheques for it. However, if the residual UK Government found themselves facing a massive bill of many billions of pounds for relocating the nuclear deterrent, they would have that many billions fewer in their back pocket for discussing the rest of the things on the table.

That brings us to the critical point that we have not heard from the proposers of Scottish independence what the defence policy of an independent Scotland would be. The United Kingdom, even denuded of 8.5% of its population and taxpayers, would continue to have global interests, which its armed forces are there to defend. It would continue to have a broad spectrum of capability with which to defend those interests, and it would continue to have the critical mass necessary to sustain a variety of equipment fleets, but the defence force of an independent Scotland would have neither those global interests nor that global reach.

Most critically, Scotland would not have the sheer mass with which it could possibly hope to sustain fleets of warships or fighter jets. We have heard that Faslane would continue to host submarines. What on earth would an independent Scottish force want with submarines? The purpose of submarines is to protect the nuclear deterrent, the aircraft carriers and warships. If Scotland is not going to have any of those things, why the dickens would it need any submarines at all?

The truth of the matter is that an independent Scotland would need defence forces. It would be about homeland security. If Scotland was forward-leaning in its global interests, it would perhaps be willing, like the Republic of Ireland, to volunteer troops to international peacekeeping operations. However, that is very different from taking the existing United Kingdom armed forces and slicing 8.5% from them.

[Mr Robathan]

Does my hon. Friend therefore agree with John Swinney’s assumption in this not very secret document that the defence budget of an independent Scotland would have to be a great deal reduced in proportion to what it is now as a percentage of the UK defence budget?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am certain that the defence budget would be much smaller, given the other aspirations articulated for an independent Scotland, but I am absolutely clear that a force proportionate to the size of the population and the economy would not have fast jets; what on earth would it do with them? That will leave questions in a lot of mouths. It would not have warships. It would not have submarines. It would need offshore patrol vessels, some sort of aerial offshore patrol and helicopters, but it would not need the spectrum of things that the United Kingdom armed forces have. It would be a different beast altogether.

The fact of the matter is that Faslane, in its entirety, taking the nuclear deterrent, the non-nuclear submarines and the entire supply and support chain, is Scotland’s largest single employment site. As far as I can see, there would be virtually nothing there if we took the site away from Faslane. There would be a small requirement for a navy, but that would be a strange place to put it, as we heard earlier. The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) would therefore be looking at ruination. Work such as that on the future of Barrow and elsewhere would need to be done.

No one should be in any doubt that this issue is a massive part of the independence debate. The consequences for Scotland need to be assessed and analysed carefully, and the headache presented to a UK Government who wished to continue the nuclear deterrent would be immense. Finally, we should not assume that Scottish independence is to be equated with the SNP ruling for ever in Edinburgh. It might well be that an election would return a Scottish Government of a completely different political hue, and some of the issues would then start looking very different.