Nuclear Deterrent

Debate between Peter Tapsell and Liam Fox

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Tapsell and Liam Fox

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The Prime Minister made it clear on his visit to Afghanistan, as the Chief of the Defence Staff and I have done, that if conditions allow, we may be able to see a reduction in 2011 of some UK forces. We may also decide to use UK forces in a different way, particular in more of a training mission, but that will depend on what happens on the ground next year.

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

May I ask my right hon. Friend, the sixth successive Defence Minister to whom I have pointed out the utter folly of our current intervention in Afghanistan—four of the quintet before him have wisely fled the House, and the first has just been banned from the Tea Room for five years—to whom he thinks the Afghan security force, which has been recruited from various tribes who have been bitterly hostile to each other for centuries, will owe their allegiance? Alternatively, does he expect a military dictator to emerge from their ranks to impose order?

Defence Treaties (France)

Debate between Peter Tapsell and Liam Fox

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. You may be the only person ever to have described me as modest in any way, shape or form.

I welcome the general tone of the shadow Defence Secretary’s remarks. There is much common ground. There are three reasons why we should support the general approach. There is the political approach, to bring France ever more closely into the heart of NATO which, as I think we all agree, is good for NATO, good for France and good for Britain; there is the military reason, for better interoperability and maximising our capability; and there is the economic case for getting value for money for both sets of taxpayers where that is possible. I can confirm to him that the treaty in no way provides any limitation on our ability to deploy forces when either nation believes that it is in its national interest to do so. We are trying to provide for better co-operation when we wish to act together in our mutual interest. Those are two very different concepts.

I shall not be able to get through all the specific points that the right hon. Gentleman made, but I shall write to him on any that, for reasons of time, I am unable to deal with. In terms of the carriers, the question of interoperability was key, and as he knows, when we came through the strategic defence review, the design of our carriers was changed to put in a catapult and trap system to give us better interoperability with our allies—not just France, but the United States. That would not have been possible, given the previous design, and that was a major consideration.

Clearly, if each nation operates a single carrier, when carriers are in for a major refit, a process that accounts for about three years out of every seven or eight, there will be an advantage in being able to train on carriers where we have much greater interoperability. There is also a chance of always having, for NATO purposes, one carrier free. Would that mean that we were able to force the French to do something against their will during that period, or vice versa? Of course it would not. We would hope that we would be able to act together, but there would be no means of coercing them to do so, and that is consistent with us behaving as sovereign, individual nations.

The ratification of the treaty will proceed in the normal way, and on nuclear co-operation, I was very grateful for the question about the 1958 agreement with the United States, which is key to the strength of our relationship. In my discussions with Secretary Gates, ahead of the defence review and afterwards, the agreement was one of the four elements about which the United States was most concerned. Our commitments under the 1958 treaty are in no way jeopardised, and the United States was fully consulted before and after the moves that we are discussing were made.

We must also remember that France itself co-operates very closely on nuclear issues with the United States. The United States, France and the United Kingdom form the nuclear capability of NATO, and, standing one step back, I must say that the fact that we are able to maintain the safety and predictability of our nuclear stockpiles without having to undertake nuclear tests is something for which the whole world should be grateful.

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

As I am married to a French woman, I have some experience of the unpredictability of Anglo-French relations, so may I take the Secretary of State back to the run-up to the Iraq war, when President Bush and Mr Tony Blair were hellbent on invading Iraq but President Chirac took a different view—actually, the correct view? If, in the future, there are diversions in British and French policy on military or foreign policy matters, who then gets the helicopters and the fighters on to the aircraft carrier?

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. For a moment, I thought we were going to hear how “cordiale” in his private life the entente can actually be.

One of the big changes in French politics has been the emergence of President Sarkozy and the willingness of the French Government to put themselves at the heart of NATO.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Tapsell and Liam Fox

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that the total target set by the Afghan Government for the Afghan national security forces has been exceeded, that the number of recruits to the Afghan national army is more than two months ahead of schedule, and that the number of people entering the Afghan national police is increasing.

I can also tell the hon. Gentleman that there is a particularly positive trend in the Afghan national police as a result of a change of policy in Kabul. The pay for those entering the national police is now the same as the amount paid to the army, which has helped to increase recruitment. Moreover, literacy lessons are now provided for those joining the Afghan national police. In a country in which literacy levels are barely above 20%, that makes a major difference to recruitment to the security forces.

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

Why did British Ministers choose to ignore the advice given to them on Afghanistan by our exceptionally distinguished former ambassador to Kabul, as a result of which he has asked to be transferred to other duties?

[Dr Fox]

The Government take advice from a wide range of sources; we are not in Afghanistan on a unilateral basis, but as part of an international coalition. Decisions are taken jointly with those in the international community. We listen to a wide range of experience but are not always able to satisfy every opinion.