Nuclear Deterrent

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: The Fourth Report from the Scottish Affairs Committee, on The Referendum on Separation for Scotland: Terminating Trident-Days or Decades?, HC 676, and the Government response, HC 86.]

[Mr Speaker]

Interest in this debate has led me again to impose a six-minute limit on each Back-Bench contribution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am looking to each of the two Front-Bench speakers to take no longer than 10 minutes —20 minutes in total—if we are to accommodate Back-Bench Members who wish to speak. I am afraid that for them, the time limit will have to be reduced to four minutes from now on. My apologies to colleagues, but I am keen to get people in and I know the Front Benchers will want to take account of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Some time ago, I imposed a limit of four minutes on Back-Bench speeches. I am about to call the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), and if all nine hon. Members who wish to speak are to get in, nearer to three minutes is what is required. I am in the hands of the House and I know that the House will try to help itself.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to make a very short contribution to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) not only on having secured it, which is a triumph in itself, but on how he argued the case for Britain’s independent nuclear submarine-based deterrent. It was the strongest series of arguments that I have heard made in one place for the renewal of the Trident platform. I do not agree with those arguments, but they were strongly made and the hon. Gentleman drew together all the different points that can be made.

Let me make two points back to the hon. Gentleman. First, we are purchasing something we cannot use, and secondly, we are doing it with money we have not got. They seem to me to be two pretty strong arguments to weigh in the balance. The hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) referred to the cost and the impact on the defence budget. Frankly, we should think about the impact on the public finances more generally. We are in danger of sleepwalking into a commitment of some £80 billion to £100 billion, with a deployment cost of £1 billion a year, without properly discussing it in this place, so I congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest East on having secured this short discussion.

I ask all hon. Members in what conceivable circumstances in the world today they could envisage the United Kingdom taking the decision unilaterally to use nuclear weapons against another nation. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to envisage such circumstances. An independent nuclear deterrent does not address the security demands or the realities of international instability which the United Kingdom faces. This is not to argue that we do not face international threats in the 21st century. Of course we do. What I am arguing is that they are more complex and sophisticated and require a more intelligent response than a big 20th century bomb—a weapon of the cold war whose time, if it ever existed, has most certainly passed.

International terrorism is not combated or deterred by an independent deterrent. Trident does not counter the ever increasing number of cyber attacks on our nation’s digital infrastructure. It does not address political, socio-economic or environmental injustices that lead to global instability. These are the pressing issues that the United Kingdom faces and we hamper our ability to deal with them by focusing our defence priorities and spending on a cold war weapons system.

I am in favour of our membership of NATO. We make a strong contribution to the alliance and we should trust it and rely upon its possession collectively of a strategic deterrent, if there is an argument for the strategic deterrent at all.

In summary, this is a weapons system that we cannot use. The cost is disproportionate to the hard-to-identify benefits and it makes no sense in terms of our alliance with other friendly nations, of our international obligations or even as a response to the security threats faced by the United Kingdom.

[Mr Speaker]

A model of pithiness, which I know the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) will want to emulate or better.