Sheryll Murray
Main Page: Sheryll Murray (Conservative - South East Cornwall)Department Debates - View all Sheryll Murray's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(9 years ago)
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Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that Trident should not be renewed.
It is a pleasure to move the motion that stands in my name and the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru and the Green party.
The SNP was elected to this place in such numbers in May on a promise to do three things: first, to argue that the maximum possible powers be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, via the full delivery of the vow; secondly, to fight tooth and nail against the failed and divisive policies of austerity, and to protect the poorest and most vulnerable in our society from the worst excesses of this Government; and thirdly, to oppose Trident. By bringing this matter to the Floor of the House today, the SNP can say that within the first six months of being here, we have done exactly what we promised to do. Of course, there is much more that we need to do on all those issues, but no one will ever be able to accuse us of not doing what we said we would do.
In recent months, Trident and the UK’s nuclear—
Brendan O'Hara
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will make some progress.
No one could deny that Trident and the nuclear deterrent have been at the forefront of public debate for many years, not only because this is the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but because the United Kingdom will soon decide whether to commit to spending £167,000,000,000 over the lifetime of the Trident programme.
We had high hopes that we would not be a lone voice. When the rank and file of the British Labour party elected the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), an avowed unilateralist, as its leader, SNP Members hoped that there would be serious opposition to Trident. Of course, the mere thought of that caused palpitations among both the red and blue shades of the British establishment. I genuinely wish the right hon. Gentleman well in continuing his robust opposition to Trident.
Mrs Murray
While the hon. Gentleman is outlining the reasons behind the motion, will he explain the SNP’s apparent incoherence during the Scottish referendum campaign, when it pledged to scrap Trident on the one hand and to seek to join NATO, a nuclear alliance, on the other?
Michael Fallon
I accept what the hon. Lady says, and of course if she is married to one of them, she will know better than anybody in the House, but I have met some of the crews and I have yet to meet a submariner who does not have faith in the job he is doing—but there we are.
The decision that Parliament has to take next year, which hon. Members just asked about, is not whether to replace the Trident missile or renew the warheads, but whether to replace the Vanguard submarines that need to be replaced by the early 2030s.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
What might the future of Faslane be without nuclear submarines and how many jobs, at the largest industrial employment site in Scotland, would be lost if nuclear submarines were banned?
Michael Fallon
There would obviously be significant implications for Faslane if the nuclear deterrent was no longer there, as was pointed out yesterday by GMB Scotland, which said:
“The commitment in the SDSR to multilateralism and to the successor programme going ahead is welcome as it is crucial to jobs”
in Scotland.
The Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to replace the Vanguard submarines, and it takes over a decade to build and trial a nuclear submarine, so we have to take that decision in 2016. Design work is already far advanced, and in yesterday’s review we announced further investment of £600 million, which takes the assessment phase cost from £3.3 billion to £3.9 billion.
I want to make three basic points about why renewal is vital. First, this is about realism. We are of course committed to creating the conditions where nuclear weapons will no longer be necessary. We have reduced our nuclear forces by well over half since the height of the cold war; this very year, I cut the number of deployed warheads on each submarine from 48 to 40, and by the mid-2020s, we will have reduced our overall stockpile of nuclear weapons to no more than 180 warheads. Unfortunately, those actions have not been matched by any other nuclear nation or stopped unstable nations seeking to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Members will know of my special interest in the Royal Navy, as the mother of a serving Royal Navy warfare officer, although I am absolutely sure that my daughter would want to stick to surface ships rather than serving on one of the four Vanguard class submarines. I am really pleased that the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) has joined the family of people in this House who have a connection with the Royal Navy, and I hope that she will make many contributions to these debates.
It is now more than 70 years since these bombs were used in anger. We must remember that this is not new technology, and that the threat is real. That is why we must have a credible nuclear deterrent that others believe we will use if we are attacked. A continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is essential, because the deterrent has to be credible. It gives the UK the ability to respond instantly from a moveable location; that assists in providing security against any possible threats. Throughout my life, under Labour and Conservative Governments, we have had a credible deterrent, because we had the leadership to back it up.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The hon. Lady and many of her colleagues have criticised the Leader of the Opposition for saying that he would never fire Trident, presumably because it is not a deterrent if we promise not to use it. Will she tell us in what circumstances she would have it on her conscience to launch an attack that would annihilate tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of innocent, unarmed civilians?
Mrs Murray
Having the deterrent and leading people to think we can use it is what the deterrent is about. It is no good publicising the fact that it will never be fired; that is a useless deterrent.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Let me try to put it in simpler terms, for those who struggle to understand what a deterrent is, by using the analogy of a burglar alarm. We have a burglar alarm at home that we turn on when we go out, because we hope it will put people off breaking in; and we have a nuclear deterrent, which is there when we go to bed, to keep our country safe.
Mrs Murray
We also need to remember that the UK’s nuclear deterrent contributes to our collective security as part of NATO. If the UK did not have an at-sea deterrent, NATO’s collective security would be weakened, leaving the UK dependent on others. That seems to be what the Scottish National party is determined that it wants.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
On the message of deterrence, does not having nuclear weapons mean that we are the most direct threat to other states that have them? Rather than the weapons being a deterrent, do they not make us a key target in this family of nations?
Mrs Murray
A deterrent is extremely important, and that is precisely what this is; it is not there to use in anger. I remind the hon. Gentleman of the words I started with: the last time these bombs were used in anger was 70 years ago. I am speaking today not just because I believe in a credible nuclear deterrent—I do—but because of the importance it has in my constituency. Trident has provided a massive amount of employment for my constituents, in the same way that Faslane and Coulport provide a massive amount of employment north of the border.
Mrs Murray
I am sorry, but I have used up my time. The repair, refuelling and refit of the Vanguard class submarines is carried out in the D154 submarine support facilities at Devonport, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile). Devonport’s expertise and experience should be used in any future programme. As a local county councillor at the time, I will never forget standing by the banks of the River Tamar in Mount Edgcumbe park, watching the first Vanguard submarine edge her way around Drake’s island and into Devonport dockyard for its refit. Continuing to refuel and refit these submarines at Devonport is likely to safeguard up to 2,000 jobs. I fully support the Government in their goal of having successor submarines replace the Vanguard class ones, and having a credible nuclear deterrent to protect this nation for decades.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I was concerned to read that the motion for this debate has only one sentence:
“That this House believes that Trident should not be renewed.”
There is not much substance behind that, and as the debate goes on it worries me more and more. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) has questioned the legality of Trident. That is a matter for legal debate, but the fact is that it and nuclear weapons exist.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
Given that so many nations have nuclear deterrents, does my hon. Friend agree that someone would have looked into that? Perhaps the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) should admit that she is wrong or that her argument is based on a personal interpretation.
Alec Shelbrooke
As my hon. Friend makes clear, a lot of legal advice on issues such as this is a matter of interpretation. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and say that we will not be involved in something that exists. The fact is that a nuclear threat exists.
About three years ago, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who is no longer in his place, and I went to Ukraine, to Kiev. This was after the Russian intervention in that area. As was mentioned earlier, the Budapest agreement of 1994 made it clear that, in return for unilateral disarmament, Ukraine’s borders would be protected by the United States, the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation. Yet, when the Russian Federation walked in, nothing could be done. As I mentioned in Foreign Office questions earlier today, the world’s attention may have shifted to the situation in the middle east and Syria, but there is a live war going on today in Ukraine. I hold the United States partly responsible for that, because a weak foreign policy by what I consider to be one of the worst Presidents of the United States has allowed Russia to take strategic decisions and walk into countries such as Ukraine, knowing that there was no deterrent. Deterrence is what this debate is about. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) said, no one has a burglar alarm because they want people to burgle their house; they have one as a deterrent. It is incredible that in a world that is so dangerous and becoming more so, we have a debate whose purpose is to try to disarm us as if the rest of the world would then fall into line.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to take part in a very important debate on a subject to which the House has not given sufficient time recently, although we have known for some years that we would have to address it. For the benefit of Government business managers, may I say that I think the House would be better served by a more substantial motion in Government time, which might allow wider consideration of the challenges that face us?
We are dealing today with an Opposition day debate. I listened with great care to the speech of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara). It was remarkable that it focused on the position of the Labour party as much as it focused on the Government. That is a novel position for an Opposition day debate. In fairness, I am not entirely without sympathy for the approach, given the current difficulties in the Labour party. It is not that Labour lacks a clear position—in fact, I would suggest that Labour has too many clear positions and it is difficult to reconcile them all within the one party.
I have sympathy with the review that Labour is undertaking. I wish it well, but I have severe misgivings when I hear that Ken Livingstone has been put in charge of it. Putting Ken Livingstone in charge of a review of nuclear weaponry is a bit like putting King Herod in charge of the nursery.
I commend the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) for his contribution to the debate and the manner in which he made it. The review could do an awful lot worse than to take as its starting point the Trident alternatives review that was carried out at the behest of my party in the previous Government, which looked at various alternatives and different ways in which the question could be approached.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
Can the right hon. Gentleman clarify the stance of his own party? A member who represents his party in my constituency claimed that we did not need a nuclear deterrent because we did not use it in the Falklands. Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify his party’s policy, please?
Mr Carmichael
I am not responsible for every contribution from every member of my party in every constituency, any more, I suspect, than the hon. Lady would want to be for her own party. I will come to my party’s position in a moment, because I think it is central to the debate and I want to put it on record. The hon. Lady has the advantage of being able to consider the terms of the amendment that was tabled but unfortunately was not selected for Division today.
It is worth remembering that we are having this debate only because the maingate decision, which was to have been taken in the previous Parliament, was delayed until this Parliament. When the Minister responds to the debate, I invite him to accept that although his party wanted to take that maingate decision in the last Parliament, events vindicate the decision that was made and this is the right point in the cycle to take it.
We live in an ever-changing and uncertain world. As the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), I think, said earlier, we cannot ignore the fact that nuclear weapons exist. I wish they could be uninvented, but they cannot. That is the basis on which we should approach this debate. It is not just about whether the position should be reviewed or not: it is about what the United Kingdom, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, can do to take a lead in the international community and among the nuclear powers to ensure that there is a serious movement towards multilateral nuclear disarmament.
This was a formative debate in my early political years, as it probably was for you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in the 1987 general election, but the world was a very different place in 1987. The cold war was still at its height and the Soviet Union still existed. We have seen enormous change since that time, but the change has not all been in one direction. We have only to look at the situation in Ukraine and Crimea to realise that such old enmities never die. It is not pertinent to say what is a tier 1 or a tier 2 risk at this point. The question is what the situation will be in the future.
Having said all that, I would still say that the Government’s determination to pursue a like-for-like replacement for Trident ignores the different world in which we now live and misses the opportunity that we have as a force for multilateral nuclear disarmament to take a different approach—to take a step down the nuclear ladder—and as a nuclear power to meet our obligations under the various nuclear non-proliferation treaties.
When the Secretary of State addressed the House, he spoke of what he has done to reduce the number of nuclear warheads currently available for deployment. I commend him for that. He lamented the fact that this has elicited little response from other nuclear or nuclear-aspirant countries. I suspect that that is because despite the reduction in the number of warheads, the Government continue to cleave to the notion of continuous at-sea deterrence. The time has now come for a very long and serious look at whether that remains an appropriate approach. My party has reached the conclusion that it is no longer necessary or appropriate. We would like to see an end to continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence, while of course maintaining our deterrence capability. That would allow us to take something of a lead in taking the step down—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) wishes to intervene, I will take an intervention, but I will not take sedentary chuntering.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for permission to speak in this debate. I apologise to the House for the fact that because I was chairing a public sitting of the Defence Committee I could not be here for the opening speeches. For that reason, too, I have deliberately refrained from making any interventions.
Although the issue of strategic nuclear deterrence is very divisive, we can all agree that the calibre of the speeches on both sides of the House—and on both sides of the argument—has been very high indeed. If the Chairman of the Defence Committee had to mirror the views of its members, I would probably spend just over 90% of my time arguing passionately in favour of the nuclear deterrent and just under 10% of it arguing equally passionately against it, because we have, and are delighted to have, on the Committee the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman), who is a consistent and thoughtful opponent of Trident.
Fortunately, however, I do not have to mirror those views. The views I am expected to put forward are clearly marked as my own, and they have been pretty much the same for 35 years, half of them outside this House and the remainder inside this House. On my having been elected to chair the Defence Committee, something may have come as a bit of a surprise to people who looked at the list of the five hon. Members from the Labour Opposition who were kind enough to nominate me to that role. One was the shadow Armed Forces Minister, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), and that is hardly a surprise. However, at the other end of the spectrum, I was fortunate enough to enjoy the support of the current Leader of the Opposition. The reason was that we both agree on one thing. Even though our views on whether we should continue to have a nuclear deterrent are diametrically opposed, we both agree that both sides of the case have a good argument to make, and that when we make it on the Floor of the House, everybody learns something.
With the support of the now Leader of the Opposition, I managed to secure, on 17 January 2013, the first full debate on the whole issue of Trident and deterrence in the main Chamber since the vote on 14 March 2007 when the initial gate was approved. Anybody who really wants to see both sides of the intellectual argument at their best could do no better than to get a copy of that debate, from which I shall repeat my five main military arguments.
I fear that I will not have enough time to deal with the point about cyber-vulnerability, so I commend to the House the article in The Guardian today in which Franklin Miller, a leading expert for 20 years on the American nuclear systems and, indeed, the holder of an honorary knighthood from this country, explains why there is no question of the nuclear deterrent being connected in any way to the internet and being in any way vulnerable in that regard. Similarly, on the question of tiers, I merely say that tier 2 threats are often more dangerous than tier 1 threats, and that is why the Defence Committee has just published a report in which we challenge the utility of ranking threats in this way.
Let me now stick to reciting my few arguments. There is not much time for any detail unless someone is kind enough to intervene on me. The first of the military arguments is the most important of all: that future military threats and conflicts will be no more predictable than those that engulfed us throughout the 20th century. That is the overriding justification for preserving armed forces in peacetime as a national insurance policy.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
Does my right hon. Friend agree that deterrence is probably our best defence?
Kirsten Oswald
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I have nothing to add.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield’s characterisation of the debate as a stunt was particularly unedifying and unhelpful. Our position on Trident could not be clearer or more consistent, and it was both reasonable and appropriate that we sought a debate on it. The only stunts are the mental acrobatics of anyone trying to get their head around the ever-changing Labour position. The position of all hon. Members on Trident is important —this is a vital discussion—so I would have sincerely welcomed their full participation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara), who opened the debate, represents the constituency that houses our nuclear weapons. All hon. Members should read his logical, detailed and powerful speech. He pointed out the astonishing and rocketing costs of Trident. Anyone watching the television yesterday would have felt that the cost was going up with each news bulletin. This must surely concern us all. I must also commend my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) for his passionate and well-made points about nuclear safety.
Clearly, some Members, including Conservative Members, are very sincere in their belief in the merits of weapons of mass destruction. Although I disagree with the Secretary of State for Defence, I appreciated the measured and considered way in which he made his contribution. I support his positive comments about how hard our service personnel work. However, I cannot agree with his assertion that nuclear weapons are a means of defending ourselves against today’s threats.
My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) usefully pointed out the futility of nuclear weapons against threats such as those we currently face from Daesh. Although I did not agree with the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), I was pleased to hear her say—I think—that she would not push the button, and I appreciated her thoughtful tone and manner.
Mrs Sheryll Murray
Let me put it on the record that I did not say I would not push the button.
Kirsten Oswald
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention, but I am no clearer about her position on that issue. The measured approach in her earlier contribution contrasted with that of her colleague the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), who compared Trident to a burglar alarm. I disagreed, too, with the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) and the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies). Again, though, I thought their contributions were sincere and interesting, and I thank them for the tone they brought to the debate.
I was disappointed by the Labour Member who suggested that opposition to Trident was a narrow nationalist issue. I must disagree, as this issue concerns every one of us. Frankly, I was appalled at the comments and the tone of the name-calling contribution from the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock). His contribution added absolutely nothing constructive to today. On the other hand, I thank the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who made a useful and constructive speech, making his principled objections to Trident clearly understood. I commend, too, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) for her compelling and insightful speech, and her thoughts on the legality of the use of Trident. I was also pleased to hear the knowledgeable and insightful contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan).
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) correctly pointed out that it is important that this debate is taking place now, as we rapidly approach main gate. I cannot support his call for a deterrent in another form, but it was positive to hear another Scottish representative participating in today’s debate, and it is unfortunate that neither the Secretary of State for Scotland nor the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) were in their places for today’s debate.
I was struck by the powerful remarks of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who focused on the dangers inherent in nuclear weapons, and by those of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), who rightly questioned the independence of the nuclear weapons we hold.
I have recently met both the Hibakusha—Japanese atom bomb survivors—and the mayor of Hiroshima. The message that these people who were so directly affected by these terrible nuclear weapons bring was clear. I dearly wish that the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling and the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) had been able to join me to hear directly from them what the impact of nuclear weapons on real people really is.
The point made in the powerful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan)—that no one can win a nuclear war—was well made, and I can only applaud those sentiments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Douglas Chapman) pointed out that if Trident ever gets through the main gate, it will become a steady drain on the defence budget. It will compete for resources with conventional equipment, which will get chopped and changed to suit the Government of the day’s political requirements rather than the needs of the armed forces. The irony of our not flinching at the astounding hike in an already indefensible cost was not lost on my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson). I have to wonder why this same logic was not applied to Nimrod, which the Government broke up when the price went up, leaving our huge Scottish coastline with absolutely no maritime patrol aircraft. As my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute said, that is a strange, worrying and very skewed logic.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green pointed out that the deterrent simply does not deal with our current threats and that it does not stack up. In the context of a capped defence budget, this does not make sense, as we saw from the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). As the implications of the SDSR become clearer, there is no doubt that we will see areas in which the Government expect our armed forces to do less.
I remind the Secretary of State for Defence again that people in Scotland are clear: there is determined national opposition to the renewal of Trident. I say that with 57 of 59 MPs in Scotland being SNP Members, and with the Churches, much of civic Scotland and the Scottish TUC all in opposition to renewal.
As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), this Conservative Government have no mandate to impose their immoral views on the people of Scotland. They show a wilful disregard of the people of Scotland and of the message that was sent here from the ballot box.