Nuclear Deterrent

Debate between Pete Wishart and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I have three minutes to put the case for a peaceful, non-nuclear Scotland liberated from the menace of Trident.

When we secure the levers of power and we have the responsibility for defence, we will not have Trident in Scotland. That is not just the view of the Scottish National party but the desired will of the Scottish people. Opinion poll after opinion poll has found that the Scottish people do not want this menace. The Churches do not want it, the Scottish Trades Union Conference does not want it, and the overwhelming majority of Members of the Scottish Parliament do not want it, as they said when tested in a vote in 2007. Scotland is not going to have it—with independence we will shove it out of our country and it will not be in our waters.

Trident is emerging as an iconic issue in the Scottish independence referendum; in fact, it is probably one of the main issues. Is it not therefore sad and depressing that not one Labour Back Bencher has spoken in this debate? It took an hour to find one to come and inhabit those Benches. Is that not an absolute and utter disgrace?

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

I cannot give way; the Whips told me not to.

This is not just about retaining these abhorrent weapons, as the UK is the only country in the world that is indulging in unilateral nuclear rearmament. The hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) rightly pointed out that Trident will cost, over its lifetime, £100 billion—an almost incomprehensible figure. It is a weapon designed for another age. It is designed to take on not the Bin Ladens of this world but the Brezhnevs. Yes, there are new threats in the world, as we are now seeing in Algeria and in Mali, but nothing would delight those insurgents more than our threatening them with nuclear weapons. While Trident is perhaps the least equipped weapon possible to deal with the challenges of the modern world, we are in the middle of a triple-dip recession. We are told that we have to ensure years and years of Tory austerity and that household incomes are going down month by month, yet we have to spend billions and billions of pounds on a weapon that we hope will never be used, and that is a moral abomination.

We will get rid of these weapons. An independent Scotland will make decisions that reflect Scotland’s interests and values. We will use our share of the cost of Trident to create jobs that meet the defence, economic and public service priorities of an independent Scotland. Our percentage share of the cost of running Trident is £163 million per year. Let us imagine what we could do with that money in rebuilding our public services and creating the conventional defence force that Scotland needs. [Interruption.] Here we go—every time we get to our feet we are heckled by Scottish Labour Members, and this is another example. They just cannot keep quiet—it is so typical. [Interruption.] They are still at it. I do not know if the cameras can pick it up, but it is always the same in these debates.

The Scottish people have a great opportunity to rid themselves of this evil weapon: if they want Trident out, they can vote yes for Scottish independence. The case for Scottish independence is compelling, and being able to rid Scotland of these evil weapons of mass destruction just helps that case.

Fuel Duty

Debate between Pete Wishart and Sheila Gilmore

Monday 12th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

Does the hon. Lady think that Scottish Labour’s cuts commission’s plans to do away with free personal care and free bus passes for the elderly, and to introduce tuition fees, would lower the cost of living for Scottish people, who are suffering in the very conditions that she describes?

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has made those comments in an intervention, because I heard him say that earlier from a sedentary position.

Cuts have been made in Scotland—the hon. Gentleman should be absolutely clear about that. They have been made to social care in Scotland, partly because of the council tax freeze. I heard the Economic Secretary boast about that freeze, but it is an extremely regressive policy. For people who do not pay council tax because they receive council tax benefit, that policy has not benefited them by one penny. In Scotland, those people have not benefited for five years. Indeed, it gives a far greater benefit to people who pay the highest level of tax.

As a result of the council tax freeze, councils in Scotland have suffered a great deal, as councils in England are now suffering. A service that has suffered is social care. I will not take lessons from the hon. Gentleman, because cuts have already been made in Scotland as a result of his Government’s policies. Those things will happen in England too. I would not be as proud as the Economic Secretary of the council tax freeze, because it has a severe downside for many people who depend heavily on the services that councils provide, which are important for their living standards. We must not forget that.

As my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) mentioned, people who work in social care are not only on low wages but they are told by their employers, who often have outsourced contracts from councils that are trying desperately to make savings, to use their own car to travel to do the job. They are not usually paid for travel time, and they are not refunded if they have to park somewhere and pay parking charges. They are on the lowest income levels, they are working hard in a hugely important service, and they deserve much more attention from us. They are suffering from the increases in fuel tax.

The Minister said yet again all this stuff about all the jobs that the Government claim have been created. As I have said before, if we say that there have been 1 million new jobs since the election and that that is a huge improvement, we should remember that, at the beginning of 2011, only eight months after the Government came to power, they said that they had created 500,000 jobs. I contend that those jobs were created as a result of the economic stimulus from the previous Government. In the following 22 months, another 500,000 jobs were created at a slower rate of growth. Many of those jobs are part time, which has increased spending on welfare benefits, thus increasing the problems that the Government face in trying to balance their financial books. People with part-time jobs claim housing benefit—98% of new housing benefit claimants are people in employment—and they claim more tax credits, because their hours of work have decreased. That is not a stable basis on which to proceed. If the Government want to scrap the proposed fuel increase in January, perhaps they should simply tell the nation that today.