Trident Renewal — House of Commons, 2015-01-20
Topic: Defense
Madeleine Moon (Labour, Centre-left): It is an old adage in Parliament that there are no votes in defence. Perhaps today has blown that out of the water. As I sat here, I was wondering whether the party political stuff should enter into this debate on a crucial defence and security issue. I have come to the view that it is helpful. I think the public need to know where the parties stand and the consequences of the votes they will be casting in May I was disappointed that the Secretary of State chose to refer to the Labour party as "the shower opposite". Personally, I found that offensive and it was beneath the dignity of his office. I therefore feel free to point out that he was wrong to suggest that the Labour party is in any way lacking a total commitment to "a minimum credible independent, nuclear deterrent, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent" I will point out to the Conservative party that the one thing on which I have agreed with the Scottish National party is that its decision—in front of the Defence Committee, the Secretary of State seemed not to understand or know about it—to remove the capability offered by the Nimrod maritime reconnaissance and attack aircraft, the MRA4, would, as the National Audit Office has said, have an adverse effect on the protection of the strategic nuclear deterrent The Secretary of State told the Committee that the planes were not available and had never flown. Later in the evidence session, however, we were told by a senior officer in the RAF that he had actually flown the MRA4. Let us get our act together. Let us get our facts accurate. The Labour party is for a continuous at-sea deterrent and is committed to the defence and security of the United Kingdom I am pleased that we have a red line regarding some of the coalitions being talked about. The public need to understand that it will be impossible for Labour to enter a coalition with the Scottish nationalists, the Green party and Plaid Cymru, because of their red line on removing the nuclear deterrent. That is fine; at least we know where we stand. The public also know where the Liberal Democrats stand: they want to buy nuclear submarines but park them somewhere. It is like saying, "We’ll have a burglar alarm on our house but we’ll never turn it on, because we don’t believe there are any burglars out there." The party political thing has gone too far but it has been helpful, in that at least the public now know where the parties stand Those opposed to the nuclear deterrent like to take the moral high ground, as if opposition to mass slaughter and a desire to protect this green and pleasant land were more in their blood than in the blood of we who believe that a nuclear deterrent is essential to the protection of the UK. I used to be a paid-up member of CND. When I was first elected to the House 10 years ago—new Members arrive with nothing, no office, no computer, no staff—the first letter that came across my desk was from a Mrs Hopkins in Bridgend, asking where I stood on the nuclear deterrent. I thought I knew where I stood, but I wanted to be the best MP that Bridgend could have, and I was not just going to tell her what my opinion was. I did my research and I spent a lot of time in the Library, and she was shocked by the letter she got back, because it was not what she had expected, and neither was it what I had expected to write. Having done the research and looked at all the risks and arguments, I realised that the nuclear deterrent was critical to Britain’s defence and security There has been lots of talk about finances and how much of the defence budget we should be comfortable with spending. We are told it is 5% or 6% at the moment, but some ask, "What if it rose to 10%?" Quite honestly, I would be worried about what the Government were spending the money on, and whether they were spending across the board and taking the security of the UK seriously, if the majority of our defence budget was going on the nuclear deterrent. It is part of a package. It is not the only thing; it is part of the thing. Yes, there are new risks and threats to this country—there always are—but just because there are new ones coming does not mean that the old ones have disappeared, because they have not; they are still there, and they are serious. I am a member of the Defence Committee and of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, so I talk a lot with other Governments about defence issues and where Britain stands in the world of defence. I have been to the Pentagon and the State Department, and I have asked them how critical is Britain’s nuclear deterrent. They see it not as an add-on, a joke, an irrelevance, but as essential to NATO. How do they think the American people would feel if we said, "We can’t afford to spend this, so you fess up. You pay for Britain and the rest of NATO’s nuclear capability"? That is not going to happen—let’s be real. America should not and cannot pay for the whole of the defence of NATO. It already pays too much, which is why Britain, at the NATO conference, was urging NATO allies to step up to the 2%. It is why we were so vociferous about it I have not just talked to the Americans; I have talked to countries in eastern Europe who face the nuclear threat and know the reality of Russia. They are terrified of that nuclear threat from Russia. It is something we need to take seriously. I have talked to the Afghans and the Pakistanis. I have repeatedly asked questions and the thing that comes out clearly is that nobody in the world would feel safer if we stepped back from our responsibilities to maintain our nuclear deterrence This debate is timely and important. I am aware, Mr Speaker, that you want others to speak, but may I briefly say that if Members still have any doubts, they should look at the Trident commission, which was cross-party and reported in July 2014? It said: "If there is more than a negligible chance that the possession of nuclear weapons might play a decisive future role in the defence of the United Kingdom and its allies in preventing nuclear blackmail or in affecting the wider security context with which the UK sits, then they should be retained." They were cross-party speakers—key individuals in the history of this House. That was their finding; it should be ours too.