Falkland Islands Defence Review

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

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

May I welcome the statement and endorse the Government’s emphasis on prevention rather than cure, which is surely the right approach? The Secretary of State will be aware of a great deal of speculation about a renewed aerial threat from Argentina in the light of Russian involvement, as referred to by the shadow Defence Secretary. Is he confident that we have enough air defence assets, so that if that did begin to materialise as a tangible threat we would be able to sustain a higher level of air defence over the longer term?

[Michael Fallon]

I hope I can reassure my hon. Friend, who has served in the Ministry of Defence. Unlike the situation in 1982, we have the airfield, modern Typhoons are deployed there, anti-aircraft systems are in place and we are able, through the airfield, to deploy other aircraft relatively quickly, if necessary.

Defence Spending

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I start by apologising because, as I explained to Mr Speaker, a long-standing engagement elsewhere, and an almost as long-standing train reservation, mean that I will have to depart almost as soon as I have spoken, but I am grateful for the opportunity briefly to do so. This has been an excellent debate marked by contributions from colleagues who are leaving the House and will be deeply missed, not least my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff), who was a first-class colleague in the Ministry of Defence during some very tough times.

Before the last election, all three parties committed to a strategic defence and security review following the election. I had fondly imagined that that process would be allowed to take some 18 months or so, as had the 1998 review, and that it would be a deep and profound study of what we needed. What we actually found coming down the tracks at us was a brutal comprehensive spending review, and we had to make a very quick decision as to whether we were going to allow ourselves the luxury of the 18-month review or would do a quick and dirty review and try to equip ourselves with the arguments that might help us to increase the size of our cash envelope, to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife referred, recognising that more detailed work would have to take place afterwards. In the event, the cut of some 7.5% that was applied to the budget—or a little over 16% to the programme, which was at that time overheated—led us to make some very unpalatable decisions that none of us came into politics wishing to make. Decisions such as axing the Harrier were absolutely wretched and painful things that nobody wanted to make.

The painful decisions that were made in 2010 by Ministers and by defence chiefs were, as others have said, made against the background that the sunny uplands would follow and that for the period after 2015 the Ministry of Defence could at least look forward to a flat real budget supplemented, as came later, by a 1% real-terms increase in the equipment budget. If this year’s comprehensive spending review visits further cuts on the defence budget, bearing in mind that there have been a couple of mini-CSRs in the past couple of years that have already done some damage, it simply will not be affordable for us to come up with anything like Future Force 2020, which was articulated in 2010, let alone the wider and more ambitious prospectus that was outlined so lucidly by the Chairman of the Defence Committee. I would not demur from that in any significant way, although that would certainly have taken the budget way beyond the realms of 2% of GDP and rather, as the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said, nearer to 3% or even 4%.

Of course, it is right that we have another review now. I am a firm supporter of having a review at least every five years, because the world can change an awful lot in five years, as it has in the past five years. We would do well to try to break ourselves out of the unfortunate cycle where we propel ourselves into one of these reviews at the outset of a Parliament, when there is a comprehensive spending review looming over the whole thing. It would be better if it could be done at a later point in the Parliament so that we get out of this unfortunate cycle.

The significant changes in our security assessment since 2010 are the diminishing relationship with an increasingly aggressive Russia, the rise of Islamic State, and the ever-growing threat of global terrorism and cyber-attack. When one looks at some of the specific issues that will be on the table, with which Defence Ministers, whoever they are this summer, will have to grapple, it is clear that the painful decisions we thought we were taking in 2010 may be but nothing compared with some of the agonies that will be on the table from now on.

I think there is a general consensus that the nation will not find acceptable the 2010 conclusion that we would spend £7 billion on building two aircraft carriers, and then tie up the second one, and that we must in some way deploy the second. That will have a manpower implication which was not taken into account when cuts in naval headcount were made in 2010. We also have a general consensus that we must make good the pledge to go back into the realms of maritime patrol. We have to do that if we are going to embark a carrier fleet in Plymouth. That will have a resources implication and potentially even a manpower implication.

We do not know how many joint strike fighter aircraft we will be able to afford. We seem to have forgotten all about DPOC—deep persistent offensive capability—and the role that air-based joint strike fighters were supposed to have fulfilled. As the saga—I think it would be fair to call it that—of the F-35 rolls on and on, we still do not know what the unit cost of these aircraft will be or how many we will be able to afford. At the time when BAE got its work share, our commitment was meant to be 130. So far, as I understand it, we have bought four, and we are talking about sailing carriers with 12 on board. I have absolutely no idea where the number is going to end up. This is not just a shopping list; there are also manpower implications for how many of these things we have.

We are supposed to be having 13 frigates in order to get us back to the princely goal of a destroyer frigate fleet of 19, but one hears worrying rumours that some of the past mistakes are being repeated and that this is getting almost as big and expensive as the Type 45. I wonder how many we are really going to end up with. Again, that has manpower implications. On amphibious shipping—the ability to enter a theatre of war from the sea—HMS Ocean is due out of service in 2018. Is she going to be replaced? Albion remains tied up. What are we going to do about this? We will lose a serious capability if we do not resource that.

We need more ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance—assets. The lack of that capability inhibited what we were able to do in Afghanistan and was conspicuously a problem in Libya. We have not resolved the saga of Army vehicles. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) was extremely pertinent in his observations on that. We have all sorts of balls in the air relating to the future of remotely piloted aircraft—a matter of great importance to our future capability. Again, there are cost pressures there that are not even factored in. Chinook and Apache both need upgrading. I could go on; this is not an exhaustive list.

The existing budget as predicted cannot pay for all that, let alone withstand any cuts that might come this autumn. Let us remind ourselves of the gap. The RUSI paper, with which I entirely agree, and whose figures accord with what I recall from the last time I saw any, suggests that we will be at 1.95% spending next year—one might hide one’s blushes there with a bit of creative accounting—but that by year 2 there will be a gap of £3 billion and by year 4 a gap of £6 billion. That is if no cuts at all are made this summer; if any are made, the situation will get worse and worse.

We seem to have got to a situation where all three political parties recognise that Britain has global interests and have a genuine will that we ought to be part of international coalitions to protect those interests. All three parties agree, in principle, with the commitment that the Prime Minister gave, in principle, at Newport, that we ought to be spending at least 2% of our GDP on defence. Yet given those figures, with an extra £6 billion a year needed to do that by year 4 of this Parliament, it is small wonder that neither the Chancellor, the shadow Chancellor, nor—I am not trying to score a political point here—the Chief Secretary to the Treasury have exactly been on the front foot so far in explaining where £6 billion a year could possibly come from.

I would say to everyone who has taken part in this debate, because we are, by definition, defence enthusiasts, that whether or not this issue takes light during the election campaign, we will have to come back—those of us who manage to come back—to debate these things again and again through the rest of this year as we conduct an SDSR and a CSR and keep the pressure on our Treasury colleagues, of every colour, to honour the commitments given at Newport and the needs so powerfully outlined by the Chairman of the Defence Committee in describing where the shortfalls will occur.

Service Personnel (Ukraine)

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We have had a series of requests from the Ukrainian Government, including lists of equipment of all kinds. I do not want to give too many details, but we are looking at these shortfalls in their capacity and at what further training we might be able to provide in addition to the infantry training, logistics and medical and intelligence capacity-building training I described.

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

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. These are proportionate and sensibly judged measures for us to take. We are good at this sort of thing and as we have been asked to help it is only right that we should do so. Let us not exaggerate the scale of what we are doing, however. The idea that 75 trainers will lead to creep into a mission in an area the size of France is clearly far-fetched, but we should be willing to respond to anything more of a similar kind and we should do so on a pan-governmental basis to help the Ukrainian Government build up their capacity more widely.

[Michael Fallon]

I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend, another former Minister in the Ministry of Defence. He has got it exactly right. We should respond to requests. Ukraine is our friend, it is in need and we should respond to requests, whether they are for equipment or additional training. I want to assure the House that that is exactly what we will continue to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

The hon. Gentleman has raised that subject many times in this House. He knows full well from the answers that I have given him to parliamentary questions that, when our Tornado fleet has a traffic collision avoidance system installed, it will be the first combat jet fleet anywhere in the world to have such a system. Civil airline fleets have been provided with such systems with success, but introducing such a system into a combat jet environment is exceptionally complicated. I can confirm that currently eight aircraft have been fitted with a system. We are working to iron out some of the residual issues with that system as we install it across the Tornado fleet.

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

May I echo the warm welcome for the signing on Friday of the demonstration contract on Type 26? But are the original assumptions from the 2010 strategic defence and security review still valid, or has anything significant changed?

[Mr Dunne]

As my hon. Friend is well aware, we are anticipating that a strategic defence and security review will take place following the general election later this summer, so all the planning assumptions that were introduced in the 2010 review will be reconsidered in 2015. As I mentioned earlier, as far as the frigate contract is concerned, the current planning assumption is for a like-for-like replacement of the Type 23 class.

Armed Forces (Service Complaints and Financial Assistance) Bill

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I shall not detain the House for more than a few minutes. I welcome and support the Bill so far as it goes, but, like others who have spoken, I believe it could go further.

I welcome the work of the Service Complaints Commissioner for the Armed Forces in recent years and applaud what she has done within the remit she has been given. I welcome the reports she has issued, and the Government are to be commended for listening to some of the points she has made and recognising, as the Defence Committee and others have said, that further progress needs to be made.

I recognise that a delicate balance has to be struck between the authority of the chain of command and the need for a light to be shone on the activities of the armed forces. We know from the sorts of cases that hon. and right hon. Members have referred to that that has not always happened. I agree with the characterisation of the evolution of the system given by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). When the idea of the commissioner was first mooted, it was claimed that the world would end because it was so revolutionary and it would drive a coach and horses through the traditional conceptions of military authority and discipline, but it has not. It has made some modest and worthwhile progress, but we now need to go further.

Ministers have been right to engage with other stakeholders and to recognise the need to amend the status quo, but their proposals err on the side of caution. I listened with interest to the Defence Committee Chairman describe the five characteristics of an ombudsman system, and my one particular misgiving is that we have not gone further in terms of scope. The Minister said that other ombudsmen restrict themselves to issues of maladministration. That is certainly true of some, but it is not by any means true of all. If one looks at the definitions of ombudsmen more generally, one will see that their purpose is to address the substance of a grievance or a complaint by an individual against an institution or bureaucracy. I do not believe that simply looking at the question of maladministration is an adequate way of doing that.

It is important that the new ombudsman should be able not simply to report on thematic issues to the Secretary of State, but to institute investigations and make reports and recommendations for everybody to see. They should also be able to get at the substance of a complaint. Of course, the chain of command should always get the first go at that. As the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) has said, we cannot compare the relationship between an armed serviceman and the forces in any way to ordinary employment because of the depth of the relationship, which affects housing, families, welfare and service discipline. It is precisely because that relationship is so much more comprehensive that it is important that there should be external scrutiny and a light shone on it. The police, the health service and every other part of our public life has to accept external scrutiny, and I do not believe that the armed forces should be any different.

I shall follow with interest how the debate unfolds in Committee, but it is my belief that the Bill does not go as far as it might and that we are missing an opportunity to take more comprehensive action to improve the way in which complaints are dealt with in the armed forces.

Trident Renewal

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Angus Robertson]

As I have outlined, there are a number of reports that the through-life costs are nearly £100 billion. There is an issue as to how much one is spending year on year on the existing Trident fleet and then the construction costs, which will peak, I think, between 2019 and 2030.

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

indicated assent.

[Angus Robertson]

The former Armed Forces Minister is, I think, concurring with that. It is billions and billions of pounds every year that could be saved and reprioritised. Given all the debates that we are currently having on austerity, the growth of food banks and many other issues—no doubt there are great supporters of the MOD who would wish to see increased spending within the MOD—there are alternatives. A significant amount of money could be saved were one to vote for the motion or if we were to ensure that, at the general election, as many Members as possible are returned to this place who share the views of those of us who wish to see Trident scrapped.

--- Later in debate ---

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

The decision to procure the existing Trident nuclear system was taken in 1980. My starting point is that the world has changed a very great deal since then. Back then, we were at the height of the cold war. We had a known nuclear adversary that had the capability to strike us and had stated its willingness, if provoked, to do so. We, in turn, felt that it was absolutely essential that we had the ability to respond at a moment’s notice. Thus it was that we concluded that we needed an inter-continental ballistic missile capable of being launched at a moment’s notice, and that because we did not know when our adversary would attack, we would sustain a patrol 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. There was logic in that position.

But, as I say, the world has changed. The cold war is over. The iron curtain has come down. The Soviet Union, which was our known adversary, no longer exists. In 1994, Britain and Russia de-targeted each other and changed their policy to say that we were not nuclear adversaries of each other. Yet nothing changed: since that time, we have continued with 24/7 patrolling. I join the Secretary of State in saluting those who have been involved in sustaining that for all that time. The Royal Navy and all those at the Faslane base and in the supply and support chains have mounted a gargantuan effort to keep continuous at-sea deterrence going, and they deserve great praise for that. It has been at considerable human cost and very substantial financial cost, but it is very much harder to discern quite what practical utility it is fulfilling in 2015 when we do not have a known nuclear adversary.

[Pete Wishart]

I am loth to interrupt the hon. Gentleman because he is making a very good case, but does not he agree that Trident is a weapons system designed for the Brezhnevs of the world, not the bin Ladens and the current threat?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nick Harvey]

As I have said, it was something that we calibrated to be our need in 1980. If one casts one’s mind back to 1980, one will see that our conventional defences were very much greater than they are today. The scale of the nuclear deterrent that we mounted at that time was a relatively small proportion of a large defence, but what we are considering now, as we look forward to the next 30 or 40 years, is a much greater proportion of a much smaller defence because of the succession of cuts that have been made since then.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman says that we can look forward in anticipation of certain types of dangers but that there is no known nuclear threat. May I remind him of how suddenly the crisis in Ukraine blew up; if it were to develop, as it could, into all-out war that then spilled over into Lithuania or Poland, which are NATO members, nuclear deterrents might become very relevant indeed, very quickly.

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I will come on to talk about the implications and the consequences of using nuclear weapons, but—although the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the security situation in and around Ukraine deteriorated rapidly—I do not accept for one moment that anything that has happened there makes the prospect of nuclear conflict between ourselves and Russia any more likely than it was before all that started.

[Mr Jenkin]

I remind the hon. Gentleman of the following words:

“I admit to some miscalculations about Russia. I did not calculate how the collective mood of Russia was so ready to respond to a dominant and ruthless leadership…Nor did I expect that the perestroika and glasnost that we welcomed so enthusiastically in this country and elsewhere would become so despised at home in Russia.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 670.]

Those were the words of his colleague, the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell). Why is the hon. Gentleman so confident that he can predict the future when the right hon. and learned Gentleman has admitted that he was wrong?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am making absolutely no attempt to predict the future; I am talking about the threat that I believe we face now at this point in time. For another nation sate to be taken seriously as a nuclear adversary, it needs a combination of capability and intent. Although it is certainly the case that the Russians and many others have the capability to strike us with a nuclear weapon, I do not believe for one moment that they have the intent to do so. If things should deteriorate in the future, that is a different position, but I do not believe that we face such a threat.

[Bob Stewart]

rose—

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am going to make some progress and I will take another intervention in a little while.

Our defences have seen round after round of cuts as the financial situation has deteriorated, and later this year we face the gloomy prospect of the whole thing happening all over again. Whatever the outcome of the election, there will be a strategic defence and security review this summer and a comprehensive spending review this autumn.

The Secretary of State dismissed the cost figures offered by the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), who opened the debate for the SNP, but I readily recognise those figures. It is a fact that if we go ahead and build four submarines, they will cost us between £25 billion and £30 billion. It is a fact that running the nuclear deterrent currently costs us £2.9 billion a year, and if we do that for another 30 or 40 years the cost will multiply. Whatever the outcome, at some point we will have to decommission it all at the end, so I would have thought that £100 billion is the very least it would cost. I would take a private guess that the quantum would in fact be well in excess of that figure, but I certainly recognise it as a starting point.

[John Woodcock]

On the basic maths, if the figure of £2.9 billion is right and, as CND’s own estimates say, the £100 billion figure is stretched over the whole lifetime of 50-plus years, could the hon. Gentleman tell me what is £2.9 billion times 50?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I was taking the lifetime of the submarines as being more like 25 to 30 years. If we operate them for 25 years at almost £3 billion, that would take us into the realms of £75 billion plus the building and decommissioning costs, which would certainly take us over £100 billion very quickly indeed. I would have thought that, in reality, it will cost a great deal more than that.

We know that the national deficit remains a serious problem and we do not hear from any of the political parties—mine or anybody else’s—that defence will be insulated or protected from a tough comprehensive spending review later this year. If defence were to face another cut comparable to that which it took in 2010, which seems entirely possible, the proportion of our gross domestic product that we spend on defence, which is already destined to go below 2% next year, will make rapid headway down towards 1.5%.

We know, however, that on the table for discussion in this summer’s SDSR is a whole series of big procurement projects. The two new aircraft carriers are due to have joint strike fighter craft flying off them—we do not know how much their unit cost will be or how many of them we will be able to afford. The Type 26 frigate is due to be built in the next few years, but it is very difficult to know how much that will cost. We need more helicopters and more intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance assets. We need another generation of remotely piloted aircraft. The existing amphibious shipping is due to become redundant in the latter part of this decade and will need replacing if we are going to sustain that capability. The Army’s vehicle crisis remains unresolved after the collapse of most of the future rapid effect system programme.

All those things will be on the table and wrestled over in agony this summer. In addition, paper exercises are already being done looking at what an Army of just 60,000 would look like, because of the financial crunch that the Department will face. Yet, for some reason, keeping a nuclear deterrent going at the level we thought necessary at the height of the cold war in 1980 gets an automatic bye and is assumed to be beyond debate. Nobody even wants to put it on the table and debate it alongside those other things that are there to mitigate the dangers that our own security assessment said in 2010 are first-league threats that we face here and now.

[Rory Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken fluently about the kit, but I still do not understand the strategic vision. What threats does he think we face? Why does he think that the frigates are important and that nuclear weapons are not for deterring that threat? What kind of intent does he think Russia has? What kind of obligations does he believe we have for NATO, and why are nuclear weapons irrelevant to that obligation?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

The 2010 national security strategy identified the primary threats faced by the United Kingdom. Personally, I think it was correct in identifying the threat from international terrorism, cyber-attack, international crime, the security consequences of the sudden mass migrations of peoples, and pandemics as a result of climate change. All those are very real threats that we face, and they are probably greater than the threat we face from direct state-on-state warfare. We see every day that our armed forces—through, for example, the work they perform off the African coast countering piracy and in the Caribbean countering narcotics—are very flexible and capable of dealing with this wide and diverse range of threats. It is actually maintaining a broad spectrum of capabilities to deal with such diverse situations and the willingness to use them that secures us our place at the United Nations Security Council, not the fact that we happen to be a nuclear state. In any case, we can change the composition of the United Nations Security Council only by unanimity, and there is no reason why the UK should agree to give up its seat.

[Paul Flynn]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that representatives from NATO came to my constituency last year? I was very happy to welcome them. Of the 28 countries, 25 are non-nuclear states, and they found no difficulty walking with their heads held high.

[Sir Nick Harvey]

It is certainly true that very few NATO states possess nuclear weapons, although a few have them on their soil. Other Members have spoken about the nuclear umbrella, but none of us knows how real it is, and let us hope that it is never pushed to the test.

We are asked to focus our minds on whether we should proceed with a replacement programme in 2016. It is not of course the Trident missile that needs replacing, but, as other hon. Members have said, the submarines. I believe that we should be willing to build some more submarines at this time, but I shall add some riders in a moment.

[Oliver Colvile]

The hon. Gentleman is being very good speaking his mind, but I am somewhat confused. Will he vote for or against the motion?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I shall do my best to explain my position and where I am coming from.

I profoundly agree that we should not allow the Barrow submarine-building capability to fall apart—if we do not place such orders at that shipyard in the next few years, it will be necessary to give it other contracts—but I do not support the construction of submarines whose sole purpose and capability is to carry a nuclear weapon, thus committing us to a £30 billion investment programme with but one purpose and forcing us to be a nuclear power for the next 30 and 40 years unless we are prepared to write off a capital investment of that scale.

The United States has used some of its Ohio class submarines for quite different purposes. The US has developed a means of firing conventional weapons through their missile tubes, and it has used those submarines in a tactical role and in support of special forces operations. To my mind, it is certainly the case that if we are to build new submarines—I think we should, for the reasons I have given—we must ensure that they are capable of performing other functions, as the United States has done with its large submarines.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is being terribly generous in giving way. The fact is that his party’s policy, strange though it is, is to build another two Trident submarines, however they are deployed. Does it not follow logically, given the terms of the motion, that the hon. Gentleman and his party should vote with us against it?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

No, because that would imply that we were in favour of a full-scale, like-for-like replacement of the Trident programme. [Interruption.] If one is going to be pedantic, the motion refers to a missile system that is not due for replacement for some years. In fact, what needs to be decided in the next year or so is whether we shall build new submarines. I think we should, but if we make such an investment, it is essential that the submarines are capable of performing other functions. I do not believe that it makes any sense whatever for us to sail the high seas 24/7, waving weapons of mass destruction at the rest of the world, because we thought it was necessary in 1980 or because we would be left looking embarrassed if we did not make that £30 billion investment.

The Defence Secretary seemed to suggest that to adopt any deployment posture other than continuous at-sea deterrence was somehow risible and laughable, but many sensible studies by serious people have looked at a ladder of different postures for the UK to take. My belief is that we should for the time being retain the components of a nuclear deterrent—the warhead, and the ability to look after it; the missile, and the arrangement with the Americans; and the submarines capable of firing a nuclear weapon—and maintain a highly skilled work force who are regularly exercised in how to put back together the deterrent’s components. NATO air-based nuclear systems in eastern Europe operate on the same basis of a well-exercised drill to put the pieces of the deterrent together if it is thought necessary.

[Bob Stewart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, as I said I would.

In this day and age, it does not make sense for us to go out to sea armed with nuclear weapons and on patrol when we do not believe, on our own assessment, that we face a primary threat. I do not believe that we have a nuclear adversary at this time, but in future we might reach a different conclusion and believe that the international security situation had so deteriorated that we faced a nuclear adversary. For that purpose, it seems to me to make sense to keep the component parts of the nuclear deterrent and the ability to put them together again should we ever need it.

I do not at all accept that that would be a part-time deterrent. I do not believe that the Royal Air Force—or the Army or the Navy for that matter—represents a deterrent to a potential enemy only when on patrol. The fact that it is known to have the capabilities it has is in itself a deterrent. If one wanted to be pedantic and to cling to the belief that it has a deterrent effect only when on patrol, let me make it perfectly clear that I am proposing patrols not for part of the time but for none of the time. I propose that we simply retain nuclear capability as a contingency against a future situation where we made an assessment that we needed to operate a patrol.

[Bob Stewart]

When I studied the strategy of deterrence, it was predicated on the fact that a country deters by being ready to strike back, and that deterrence therefore works. We cannot deter by saying, “Well, in a couple of weeks’ time, we might actually fire something at you,” or whatever. The whole point of deterrence is that we do not want anything to happen, and it works because everyone is frightened to do anything.

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I do not think that I have made my point quite clear to the hon. Gentleman. I do not believe that we have a nuclear adversary, but I am saying that we should keep the component parts of the deterrent for the time being so that if in future we concluded that we did have such an adversary, we could resume patrols. I am absolutely with him in saying that for something to have a deterrent effect, it needs to be mobilised and deployed in a timely matter, but I simply do not accept his proposition that—out of the blue, out of nowhere—an adversary will pop up who wishes to do us irreparable harm and to take the global consequences of doing so.

[Mrs Moon]

The hon. Gentleman is very kind to give way. He was a Minister at the time of the strategic defence and security review, and he signed up to it. I did not agree with many parts of that review, but it made it very plain that this country has nuclear opponents and that there is a nuclear threat. Has his opinion therefore changed not just since the 1980s but since 2010, because that is what he is saying?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I remind the hon. Lady that the national security strategy identified such a nuclear attack as a second level threat. I believe that we have potential nuclear adversaries, but I do not believe that we have actual nuclear adversaries at the moment. To be an actual adversary requires a combination of capability and intent. I can see plenty of countries with the capability but none with the intent, and countries that may have an intent to launch a nuclear weapon at us in future are still a considerable way away from having such a capability. If any of that should change, and if any future Government should arrive at a different calculation and believe there was an enemy with both capability and intent, they would need to revisit our posture.

Trident should be retained on a flexible basis that can be ramped up or down according to our reading of the security situation, which is exactly how we approach all our other military capability. The rest of our military capability is not kept on constant patrol on the basis that that is the only point at which it has any deterrent effect; it is kept at different levels of readiness, according to our assessment of the particular threat that it is designed to mitigate.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the one scenario in which there could be an instant attack, without the build-up and norms of international discussions or whatever, would be a terrorist nuclear attack, not state sponsored but by something like ISIS? In those circumstances, does he agree that our nuclear weapons system is completely useless and does not deter?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

The right hon. Lady makes a good point. If a threat emerges from nowhere, it will be either at the hands of terrorists or a by rogue state sponsored by terrorists, against which a conventional state-on-state nuclear deterrent of the sort that we have would have absolutely no value or purpose. It is important to remember that we have moral and legal obligations to try to bring about global nuclear disarmament, and with one notable exception I hope that all Members of the House believe that that is a desirable objective.

In 1968 the non-proliferation treaty was in effect a pact between the nuclear states that were going to use their best endeavours to negotiate away their weapons and the rest of the world that agreed not to develop nuclear programmes. In terms of non-proliferation the treaty has been moderately successful, but it has made astonishingly little progress on disarmament. Very few signatories to that treaty can have imagined that by 2015 so little progress would have been made. Things are stirring and changing, and the British Government need to wake up to that. More than 150 nation states have attended international conferences and considered in detail and depth the humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time, but his remarks are taking Liberal Democrat policy into a new out-of-body, out-of-mind, out-of-space dimension. Some points are unclear from his remarks, and I would be grateful if he would be clear about them before he concludes his speech. I think he said that his party’s policy now is to have all the components and capability delivery of a nuclear system but with none of them joined up, and therefore with none capable of being trained and exercised in a way that—as he will know from his time as Minister for the armed forces—takes months if not years to deliver. There would therefore be no deterrent capability at all: not a part-time deterrent, but no deterrent. How will he vote tonight?

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I invite the Minister to look at how the NATO air-based nuclear capability in eastern Europe operates, because what I am describing is a precise replica of what goes on there. That capability is not on constant patrol or constantly armed; it exists in its component parts, and there is a well-rehearsed exercise for mobilising it and putting it together. Does that have a deterrent impact? I believe it does. If anybody intends to strike faster than that capability can be put together again perhaps it would not, but who is going to do that?

This brings us to the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, which I think are singularly under-perceived in this country and many others, although that is changing fast. The participation of many Governments at conferences—the first in Oslo, the second in Mexico, and the most recent in Vienna—is bringing a far greater degree of awareness around the globe of the impact of using nuclear weapons. I do not believe that the public who have come of age since 1983—the last time we had a meaningful national debate about our nuclear deterrent—understand what the consequences of unleashing the payload of one of our Vanguard submarines, armed with Trident missiles, would constitute.

If one of our submarines were to unleash its payload against, for instance, Moscow—those were the traditional criteria on which we based our capability—I think that some people in this country, possibly even in the House, labour under the misapprehension that the consequences would be pretty grim for people in Moscow and perhaps not very clever for those a few hundred miles around. In reality, if we were to unleash the payload of one of our submarines, the consequences would be global and felt for at least a decade, and at least a billion people would be at risk of dying. The more widely that is understood, the more inconceivable it is that any sane person could ever push the button, and the more widely that is understood, the less deterrent effect the possession of this great paraphernalia comes to have.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that although the British deterrent is used all the time to deter, the only scenario in which it is conceivable that it would be fired would be in retaliation for someone having fired a nuclear salvo against us? Therefore, all the consequences that he mentions would already have happened, and the only question would be whether it would be worthwhile replying under those terrible circumstances. The purpose is to prevent anyone firing the weapons in the first place, and that is how we avoid the environmental consequences.

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I am surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman make that case, because I believe he is right. After such a volley had been unleashed against us, no earthly good could possibly be done by firing one back in retaliation, and the more we think our way through that, the more pointless the whole exercise becomes. Indeed, it is not simply pointless, but the rest of the world is becoming increasingly irate about the complacency of those who continue to have these weapons while saying to everybody else, “You’ve got no right to them, but we’re all right, Jack. We’re going to have them.” That situation is not sustainable for much longer, and it was regrettable that the P5 boycotted the first two conferences. It is much to be welcomed that there was British, American and even Chinese attendance at the most recent conference, because I predict an increasing clamour from other countries around the globe for the nuclear states to begin taking steps down the nuclear ladder. Traditionally that has been done by reducing the stockpile of warheads, but today I have attempted to explain that there are other ways of doing that, and the posture we strike and the way we use our capabilities has an important part to play. It is not 1980 and we do not face the threats we thought we faced then; it is a very different world and there is a way for us to begin climbing down the nuclear ladder. We have the opportunity to do that, and we should take that opportunity and get on with it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Nick Harvey]

I feel I must correct the historical record. In the summer of 2010, a value-for-money study on the successor programme concluded that savings could be made by slipping the time scale slightly. This was not something the Liberal Democrats demanded, although it was something we welcomed. It had the happy consequence of moving maingate into the next Parliament, but it was not something we sought, demanded or—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman spoke for 31 minutes, and very long interventions will not help those Members who want to speak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I confirm to my hon. Friend and to the House that the main-gate decision is scheduled for 2016. I will not speculate on the possibility of a hung Parliament, except to note that I know the Liberal Democrats would favour some kind of part-time deterrent, although it is pretty obvious to me that our enemies are not part time.

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

Given that RUSI is predicting that by the early 2020s the replacement of the nuclear deterrent will account for some 35% of the defence procurement budget, and given that this summer, whatever the outcome of the election, Ministers at the Ministry of Defence will be struggling to make limited resources pay for a long list of major procurements, could it possibly make sense to exclude from a comprehensive review the biggest single procurement?

[Michael Fallon]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend, who has some experience of these matters, does not attach the importance to continuing the deterrent that we do. Of course, the costs of the deterrent are spread over a number of years. As I have said, successive Governments in office have, every time they have re-examined the need for the deterrent, committed to continuing it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is well aware that the strategic defence and security review 2010 is looking at the number of ships for the Royal Navy, to include up to 19 destroyers and frigates.

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

The Minister said that we will learn lessons from previous programmes. Can he assure me that the mistakes of the Type 45, which set out wishing to be an international project with a big export market, but ended up as a magnificent but very expensive ship, will not be repeated? Will the Type 26 be kept affordable in the global market?

[Mr Dunne]

This is part of the rigorous work that we are doing at the moment to ensure that the Type 26 design is modular to allow for regular upgrading as systems improvements take place over the decades to come. As my hon. Friend knows from his work in the Ministry of Defence, we have had a number of engagements with other international navies to see whether they might be interested. While it is likely that the interest will be more in systems than in platforms, we are taking that work forward continuously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry]

We have a new Secretary of State, and he, I, and other Ministers, continue to consider that issue. Notwithstanding how much sympathy—perhaps that is not the right word—but support we might have for the argument made, there is a real legal problem and difficulty with retrospection, and that also occupies our minds when deciding what to do.

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

What can the Minister for reserves tell us about the future of the Barnstaple Territorial Army centre? He knows that the existing unit does not want to relocate more than an hour’s drive to Exeter, so can they stay where they are?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Julian Brazier)]

I was with the Royal Wessex Yeomanry on Saturday, and in the gentlest possible way may I remind my hon. Friend—of whom I am extremely fond—that he promised me a short written brief on the subject? I look forward to discussing that with him and seeing what can be done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Francois]

I am glad to be able to say to the hon. Gentleman, whom I know in view of his past service takes a close interest in these matters, that we have reduced some of the bureaucracy in the process—we have simplified the forms and some of the medical procedures—and we launched a new recruitment campaign in January, the benefits of which are beginning to feed through. The process was too bureaucratic; it is less so now, and it is beginning to work.

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

May I urge the Minister, when considering the move of The Rifles from Truro to Barnstaple, to recognise that the Army Reserve centre in Barnstaple is the only opportunity for people to participate in the Army Reserve, covering an area from west Somerset down to North Cornwall? If we are to achieve the targets we set ourselves nationally for increasing the size of the reserves, it is very important that people in all communities, however rural, have a realistic opportunity to participate in the reserves.

[Mr Francois]

I understand the point being made by the hon. Gentleman, a predecessor of mine in this job. We are looking to grow the Army Reserve in Cornwall and in Devon, and indeed across the whole United Kingdom.

Nuclear Submarines

Nick Harvey Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman asks sensible questions, but he is verging into speculative matters at this stage. This is a very tiny flaw in a reactor that has been hammered at maximum output over a long time. It is premature to suggest that when we examine the core we will find some systemic need to refuel all other reactors of a similar type. That is not the expectation. However, as he would expect, we will plan for every contingency, and the measures that I have announced will allow us to preserve the option of refuelling further Vanguard and Astute submarines should that be deemed expedient in the future.

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

I thank the Defence Secretary for his statement and commend him on his actions. He has acted, rightly, on the precautionary principle—and, God willing, he is acting more cautiously than is necessary. The UK has the highest nuclear standards, but one can never be too cautious on nuclear safety. If the decision has been taken to refuel Vanguard, which had not been anticipated or expected, and possibly others, what implications will that have, not for the operation of Astute but for the timeline of its production at Barrow?

[Mr Hammond]

That is, again, a good question. I am assured that the investment I have announced today to expand capacity at Raynesway, coupled with the buffer already in the supply line—reactors for future Astute class submarines are built ahead of the need to install them in the submarines—means that we can take a core, which was built with the intention of being installed in Astute, to refuel Vanguard. We will have been able to catch up on the production of cores before we get to a point where there would be any impact on the Astute programme. End result: there will be no impact on the timeline of Astute.