UK's Nuclear Deterrent

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The case against renewing Trident is quite simple and plain to us on the SNP Benches and to the vast majority of the people of Scotland, the Scottish Parliament, Scotland’s MPs and MSPs, and Scotland’s churches and civic society. Despite that, the Government and most of those in the Labour party, as it thrashes about in its death throes, are willing to press ahead with these grotesque plans. To spend up to £205 billion on the lifetime cost of replacement is simply immoral.

When we look around us, we see families struggling to make ends meet, even when the parents are working full time. We see women who have had the opportunity to retire cruelly snatched away from them, leaving them to work up to an extra six years to access the pension to which they contributed all their working lives. We see austerity biting into Scotland’s budget and budgets across the UK, as local services creak under the weight of cuts, cuts and more cuts. We see a new Prime Minister who, as her first priority, is apparently seeking to renew Trident at a time of austerity and real economic uncertainty following the Brexit vote. These weapons of mass destruction will cost billions of pounds. The people of Scotland and the people of the UK do not want them, do not need them and could never use them. The context of this decision is that debt, deficit and borrowing levels are forecast to get worse after Brexit, with more than £40 billion to be cut from public services by 2020. This is an absolute disgrace.

Let us look at the so-called security argument for Trident. It protects us from our enemies by providing a deterrent, we are told. Which enemies? Do we have any enemies that pose such a threat to us that we would destroy an entire continent to punish them? It makes us feel safe, we are told. Really? Tell that to Israel, which has nuclear weapons. Does anyone believe that those living in Israel feel secure? The biggest threat to our security is from terrorism. Trident does not protect us from that; in fact, it makes us a target. Does anyone seriously think that terrorists who are willing to wrap themselves in explosives and walk into a restaurant to detonate them will be deterred by Trident? That is the most likely and, most worryingly, the most common threat that we face in the new world order.

It is time for the UK Government to stop trying to strut around the world measuring the size of its warheads against the size of other countries’ warheads. As for the argument that we need to renew Trident because of jobs, perhaps the trade union baron Len McCluskey should take that matter up with his counterparts in the Scottish Trades Union Congress. A report has shown that many of the skills used by Scottish workers could be transferred. To argue that Trident is important because of jobs is like saying that we should not find a cure for cancer for fear that cancer surgeons may be unemployed. We need to get a moral grip. Trident cannot be justified morally, financially or economically. That is why its supporters cannot win in Scotland.

[Several hon. Members rose—]