Nuclear Deterrent

Peter Tapsell Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

This has always been at the heart of the deterrent argument. The whole point is that there is uncertainty about the circumstances in which the United Kingdom would respond, and the system therefore acts as a proper deterrent. We would hope that such weapons would never have to be used, because they would deter any threat against us. That is the principle and the core of the issue, and it is something that the unilateralists never understood.

[Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

Without, obviously, asking the Secretary of State to go into any sort of detail, will he make absolutely certain that the phasing out of Nimrod will not make our submarines more vulnerable to counter-attack?

[Dr Fox]

We have a number of ways of ensuring the protection of our deterrent and, as my hon. Friend says, he would not expect me to go into detail. As for the Nimrod MRA4 programme, to which he might be referring, I must remind him that that capability was not available to us because the programme was already nine years late and the aircraft had not flown other than in one test that was abandoned for safety reasons. I am afraid that the failure of procurement over a number of years made that capability unavailable today.