House of Commons Hansard Debates for 22 Nov 1991

Mr. Franks : I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me an opportunity to remind the House of the Cumbria support scheme, which was mentioned on 13 June. Instead of my taking up the time of the House, he should look at the record. About £50 million of Government and private money is going to the local economy.

Mr. Corbyn : But £20 billion is being spent on Trident.

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Mr. Franks : You have asked a direct question ; I am giving a direct answer. If you do not want to listen--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Do not bring me into this.

Mr. Franks : I am sorry. If the hon. Member does not wish to listen, he should read the record.

To the Labour party, Barrow would be totally dispensable. It is not interested in Barrow, the Trident programme or nuclear-powered submarines. It is not even interested in defence.

No single issue can affect my constituency more than the fourth Trident submarine. The words of the hon. Member for Clackmannan will have been noted in my constituency. I fear for the future of my constituents if the Labour party gets its hands on the levers of power.

Several Hon. Members rose--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Unless speeches are briefer, some hon. Members will be disappointed. Long speeches are made at the expense of other hon. Members' rights.

12.25 pm

Mr. Menzies Campbell (Fife, North-East) : I shall do my best to observe what I understand to be an exhortation.

Since the foundation of NATO, nuclear weapons have been central to its strategy, but the doctrines under which those weapons have been deployed have changed in response to military and political change. The original doctrine of extended deterrence was replaced by flexible response. The recognition that nuclear weapons should be weapons of last resort has most recently been replaced by the doctrine of minimum deterrence. Minimum deterrence means deployment at a level which, if activated, would inflict unacceptable damage on an adversary. These are somewhat prosaic words to describe the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, but I believe that the House will know what they are meant to convey.

Minimum deterrence should be no less and no more than is necessary. It must be constant, in the sense that a potential adversary is forced always to take into account the existence of the deterrent. On one view, a part-time deterrent or an ineffective deterrent could be regarded as worse than no deterrent because it may persuade an adversary that he can take an unjustified risk. It may even tempt a potential adversary to take such a risk. It will create a climate of uncertainty about the effectiveness of the deterrent.

Those who say that the United Kingdom can and should have a minimum nuclear deterrent that is constant in the perception of an adversary, with only three submarines, must show, contrary to what appears to be the large mass of informed opinion, that three submarines can be so deployed that one is likely to be on station at all times. I do not regard such arguments as sufficiently convincing. It is not sufficient to say that a submarine could be put to sea in a period of tension, because nothing could be more calculated to raise tension than that very act.

I believe that four nuclear submarines are necessary to keep a constant deterrent, but there is a distinction to be drawn between a deterrent which is constant and the level of that deterrence. The word "minimum" can be used to describe the level of deterrence, but should not be used to justify anything other than a deterrent which is constant.

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The essence of deterrence is uncertainty. Therefore, no one with any responsiblity for such matters should ever seek to answer the question, "In what circumstances would you be prepared to use nuclear weapons?" First, deterrence is created by uncertainty. Secondly, to say in what circumstances one might be prepared to use nuclear weapons is to invite a potential adversary to take advantage up to that point. As the essence of deterrence is uncertainty, statements or apparent commitments to no first use are, in effect, meaningless. It is theoretically an unenforceable contract, it is practically not binding and it could never be relied upon.

If one is concerned to reduce the possibility of nuclear exchange it would be far more effective to negotiate substantial reductions so that deterrence on all sides is truly at a minimum. In considering such matters one should not disregard the possibility of unilateral reductions. President Bush's initiative in the summer was precisely such a step. NATO's commitment to 80 per cent. reductions in sub-strategic weapons in Europe might be described similarly, but there is an important distinction between unilateral reduction in nuclear weapons and unilateral renunciation. It is clear--as much as anything is clear following the break-up of what we used to know as the Soviet Union--that there is so far little enthusiasm for unilateral renunciation on the part of Russia, Kazakhstan or the Ukraine.

What should the United Kingdom's attitude be to those issued against the background of the astonishing changes of recent times? First, as long as other nations hold nuclear weapons the United Kingdom will require the protection of a nuclear deterrent. That deterrent should be at a minimum level for the reasons that I have outlined. I also believe that if that deterrent is to be carried by submarines, we shall require sufficient boats to make it constant and, on the evidence available to me, I believe that four boats are necessary.

I am not persuaded by the case made by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Franks) about employment. If the argument against four boats was compelling, one might have to accept the employment consequences which he fears so much. However, I have no doubt that the military and strategic justification is beyond question. There may be what he would regard as a favourable consequence as a result of a decision that the fourth boat should be built, but he cannot realistically expect that the employment reasons alone would be sufficient justification for proceeding with the fourth boat. If the level of warheads on the existing Polaris system is currently providing a minimum deterrent, the D5 Trident system when deployed needs no more warheads than those on Polaris, which it is to replace. We could make that, at the point of deployment, our unilateral reduction. It would not prejudice our safety and would make a contribution to the belief--generally accepted by all parties--that there is a move among the major nuclear powers to an overall reduction in nuclear weapons.

At this point I part company in a substantial way with the Secretary of State. I see no justification--I choose my words with care--for the United Kingdom to deploy the tactical air-to-surface missile with a nuclear warhead. There might be a NATO case for it, but it is difficult to understand what is said to be the British case. The NATO

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case requires constant review. If flexible response has truly been abandoned, it is increasingly difficult to justify the tactical air-to-surface missile.

Questions must be asked following the dissolution of the Warsaw pact. For example, does there remain a need for such a system? Is not such a weapon, by being deployed on aircraft, vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike? With the conventional superiority of the Warsaw pact gone, is it necessary to deploy a tactical nuclear system to break up Soviet tank divisions that no longer constitute a threat? Following the experience in the Gulf, we should ask ourselves this : is not the destructive power of conventional weapons so incredible that the need to use tactical nuclear weapons has been obviated? Those are questions in relation to a NATO deployment.

Three or four weeks ago I listened, as a member of the North Atlantic Assembly, together with the hon. Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart), to a senior Russian civilian official addressing the defence committee in Madrid. He said that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that disaffected members of the Soviet military might be persuaded to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists. That is a staggering possibility and a consequence of the extraordinary collapse in the morale of Soviet forces and the extraordinary and difficult circumstances which have arisen because of the reduction--almost removal--of central control in the Soviet Union. That risk, above all, argues for the need at the earliest possible stage to seek to eliminate nuclear weapon systems, such as strategic systems, by negotiation. The longer they exist, the more likely is the chilling possibility that someone disaffected in the Soviet military may seek to sell such weapons to some terrorist or terrorist group.

We in the United Kingdom know that the deployment of this system would have a large impact on the defence budget. Estimates vary between £1 billion and £3 billion. If we remain part of NATO, which is the policy of all parties in the House--

Mr. Douglas : No.

Mr. Campbell : With the possible exception of the Scottish National party. It will undoubtedly want to tell us why, in its new internationalism, it wishes to withdraw from NATO.

On the assumption that most parties in the House wish to remain in NATO, why is it necessary for the United Kingdom to have a capability of this kind, in addition to the United States capability? If there is to be more defence co-operation in Europe, why is it necessary for Britain to have its own capability, in addition to that of France? It is notable that in recent weeks distinguished former senior military commanders in the United Kingdom have questioned the need for the deployment of TASM. I am thinking of General Sir John MacMillan and my distinguished constituent, General Sir David Young, with whom the Secretary of State has had many contacts in his present and previous responsibilities. It may be argued that they had a particular point to make about regiments and an anxiety to see funds spent not in one direction, but another. Nevertheless, the fact that senior commanders of such stature feel it possible to question something which, until now, has been an unchallenged assumption, should give the Government cause for concern.

I shall now say a word or two about what we should do, not just nationally, but internationally. We should do our

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best to extend nuclear arms reduction beyond the United States and the Soviet Union. We need a more comprehensive strategic arms reduction programme. We need a programme that involves all five permanent members of the Security Council and those Russian republics to which the Secretary of State rightly referred in his opening remarks.

It is absolutely essential to ensure that, so long as the possibility of control or influence over the Russian republics remains, steps are taken to bring about a strategic arms reduction. One has only to envisage circumstances in which all those upon whose territory strategic arms are stationed are required to come to the negotiating table to consider such a proposition to realise how much more difficult it would be if all, rather than a limited number, were participating.

We must also pursue a comprehensive test ban treaty. We should respond favourably to Mr. Gorbachev's proposals for a moratorium on testing. There seems to be a notable division of opinion in the United States. The State Department appears to be in favour of that proposition, whereas the Defence Department is against it. Meanwhile, in Congress, a number of Democrats have introduced a nuclear testing moratorium Bill. I believe that it is in the interests not only of the United Kingdom but of the whole world that we should seek to pursue much more vigorously the possibility of a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing.

We must also pursue nuclear non-proliferation as vigorously as we can. Reference has already been made to the alarming evidence obtained by United Nations investigators in Iraq. The Secretary of State put before us a whole catalogue of countries that have ballistic missile capability, and a substantial number of them appear to have embarked on a nuclear weapons programme. All that argues for the vigorous pursuit of nuclear non- proliferation. It would be a strange irony indeed if, as Europe left behind it the threat of nuclear war, that threat were found to be arising elsewhere in the world.

In Europe, we want to create circumstances in which nuclear deterrence becomes less and less significant as the principles of common security are accepted and applied. Equally, however, it is in our interests to persuade the rest of the world that it does not need to acquire nuclear weapons to achieve peace. We shall best persuade it by the example that we set ourselves.

12.41 pm

Mr. David Atkinson (Bournemouth, East) : The debate is timely for two reasons. First, it enables us to take stock of the further dramatic proposals to reduce the nuclear threat between east and west since the START agreement in July. Secondly, it enables us to take account of the knowledge that, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, had Saddam Hussein not allowed his greed to overcome his stealth by invading Kuwait last year, he would almost certainly have developed a nuclear weapon by the end of 1993. Our priority must now be to consider anew not only the proliferation of nuclear weapons but how we can reverse that trend, which is so at odds with the end of the cold war.

Since 1987, the litany of successful treaties and agreements between east and west has been impressive. In addition, precipitated by the failure of the Kremlin coup, the Bush Administration, fully supported by my right hon.

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Friend the Prime Minister, have made significant additional unilateral reductions, all of which have been met by similar unilateral cuts by President Gorbachev and accompanied by the promise of further bilateral reductions to come. In Rome last month, the NATO summit agreed that the possibility of a nuclear war was now so remote that further substantial reductions in nuclear stockpiles can now be embarked upon.

The logical conclusion of all this is that there can no longer be a justification for the massive nuclear arsenals held by both sides, that only the absolute minimum of nuclear defence is required and that, because President Yeltsin, too, now has his finger on the nuclear button, we should now be doing business with him on this issue as on so many others.

As long as nuclear weapons exist, European security will not be complete, for any country, nuclear or otherwise, without the most foolproof means of defence against their delivery. That is why it is essential that we should continue to develop the space-based defence, which was once called the strategic defence initiative or SDI and is now referred to as "brilliant pebbles". President Reagan's 1983 offer to share SDI technology with the Soviet Union contained great foresight. It should now be renewed, perhaps within NATO's proposed North Atlantic Co-operation Council, with central and eastern Europe and what is now the Union of Sovereign States--formerly the Soviet Union. It would develop a Europewide shield to protect against attack from within and without as an essential piece of confidence building on our continent.

Although a nuclear threat seems inconceivable in this post-Communist, new world order of today, Saddam Hussein reminds us that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) said in the United States last week, human nature does not change. Thus, it remains essential to maintain adequate defences against such dictators and to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear arms. That is why I support the call of several hon. Members who have taken part in this debate for new consideration of how to make the 1968 nuclear non-proliferation treaty more effective. For nearly half a century, the world has learnt to live with the bomb. While the secret lay within the grasp of a few, there was never a great danger of a nuclear exchange--except for an accidental one. Both super-powers shared the instinct for self-preservation and negotiated continuously in search of credible systems of nuclear deterrents. Therefore, multilateral negotiations commenced to prevent the proliferation of non-civilian nuclear technology, and the culmination of those negotiations was the NPT.

The reality is that the NPT is not working. In addition to the five nations that admitted, under the treaty, to the possession of nuclear weapons, no fewer than 10 others have developed or are developing the bomb, and five of those are signatories to the NPT.

Since the exposure of Iraq as having consistently, to quote United Nations' reports, "obstructed and cheated on" divulging information on its nuclear programme, North Korea is now giving rise to the greatest concern, as the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) said. As an NPT signatory, North Korea continues to violate flagrantly the IAEA safeguards by repeatedly denying inspectors access to its nuclear facilities. Recently, a

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high-ranking defector from North Korea informed western intelligence that his country is a mere 12 months away from producing a functional nuclear weapon.

Despite the imminent withdrawal of American nuclear weapons from South Korea, which fulfils the principal North Korean demand for the unobstructed inspection of its facilities, North Korea appears to remain committed to developing a weapon of its own. In so doing, it threatens to ignite a nuclear arms race in Asia that could prompt South Korea, Taiwan and Japan to develop nuclear arsenals. It was reported in yesterday's press, however, that North Korea has now agreed to the principle of the nuclear-free Korean peninsula, although it has yet to confirm that it will open up its nuclear installations at Yongbyon and any underground sites to inspection. The deputy Foreign Minister of Iran recently went to Paris to negotiate the transfer of enriched uranium from France. The Iranian Government--a signatory to the treaty--also seeks to acquire illegally nuclear technology from China. This month it was reported that Chinese officials and technicians are equipping an Iranian nuclear facility near the southern Iran-Iraq border in Khuzestan, with uranium-enriching technology.

While there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that Syria has been attempting to develop nuclear devices, it continues to purchase large quantities of heavy weapons and missiles from China and has illegally proscribed certain areas in Syria from IAEA inspection. Other nations, which are not signatories to the treaty, are understood to be developing nuclear weapons. Therefore, they remain outside the treaty's remit and safeguards, weak though they may be. India and Pakistan continue to develop their non-civilian nuclear capabilities, ignoring calls for their signatures to the NPT. India, which tested a weapon in 1974, continues to receive substantial foreign aid and has recently negotiated a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Perhaps western Governments should take a lead from the United States of America, which terminated its aid programme to Pakistan on the ground that it refuses to desist from non-civilian nuclear development.

Israel's nuclear policy poses a major dilemma for the process of non- proliferation. Because Israel did not detonate a weapon prior to 1967, but currently possesses nuclear weapons, it would be in violation of the treaty if it were a signatory to it and would be legally obliged to destroy its stockpile and to end its nuclear programme. Without selective disincentives such as the termination of foreign aid and trade concessions, Israel will not sign the NPT. Such disincentives should be applied if Israel's position does not change. To allow it to maintain the 300 nuclear weapons that it is currently estimated to hold--including 100 tactical weapons--can only provoke and encourage the Arab states' determination to obtain nuclear arsenals. For many years the People's Republic of China has been one of the world's leading conventional arms and nuclear technology exporters. It has proliferated nuclear weapon technologies and heavy weaponry to Algeria,

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Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and now to Iran. However, China has recently pledged to accede to the NPT and that must represent a welcome breakthrough, if it is serious.

Another welcome breakthrough is France's decision to sign the NPT last June. The Mitterrand Government also announced their plans for worldwide disarmament initiatives covering nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. However, France continues to conduct above-ground nuclear testing in the Pacific and remains the only nation to do so. That behaviour can no longer be acceptable.

The failure of IAEA safeguards, including twice-yearly inspections in Iraq for the pasts 15 years, must lead to the conclusion that the NPT has acted like a cloak of respectability to certain nations which have signed it. Instead of preventing proliferation, it has promoted it by allowing nations to protest innocence while violating the treaty's inadequate provisions. There can be no alternative now but to press for guaranteed and unrestricted verifications, backed up by tougher international penalties against violators and greater pressure on all nations to accede to the treaty.

There is probably a case for a fundamental review of the IAEA, with a change of venue from its Vienna headquarters. Perhaps the most appropriate nation that we could ask to accept the new headquarters of a strengthened and reformed IAEA is Japan, the one nation to have experienced a wartime nuclear attack.

Such an initiative would complement the United Nations arms register called for by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and such an international responsibility is one that I believe Japan would willingly accept, which is why I commend it to my right hon. and hon. Friends.

12.54 pm

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : I shall be brief, because many hon. Members want to join in the debate.

It was interesting yesterday, listening to the debate on the EEC, to hear many Conservative Members talking about eastern European countries joining the EEC, even though those Members belong to a party that is pointing missiles at those selfsame countries. It seems strange to extend the hand of friendship and economic co-operation to the same countries that we are threatening with mass extermination. The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Franks) in the course of an extremely lengthy spech did not answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) about fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Trident nuclear submarines, which only points up the fact that this nation needs a programme of conversion from arms manufacture to material for peaceful purposes. The Secretary of State helpfully reminded us of the enormous changes and potential changes in the Soviet Union. I only wish that the House had listened to the present Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) 10 years ago when, in March 1981, in a highly prophetic speech against the views of his Tory colleagues, he said that far from being strong and a threat to the world, the Soviet Union was in the process of retreat and disintegration. It is a pity that I cannot read out that speech because time is so short.

If the hon. Gentleman's attitude had been noted and acted on, we should not have got on the treadmill of

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nuclear arms escalation for the following 10 years. We could have reduced nuclear weaponry then, had we seen the Soviet Union in those terms. The Secretary of State's worries about the control of Soviet nuclear weapons, given the potential breakdown of the Soviet Union, would not then have been based on such mind-boggling perceived dangers.

During 1991 and after 10 years of negotiations, the START treaty was signed, and in itself it is indeed only a start as it still leaves enormous stockpiles of delivery systems and nuclear warheads, enough to reduce most of our planet to a radioactive cinder heap. So we cannot become complacent or leave START to do the job alone, because it is not enough by itself.

The Secretary of State mentioned that the number of sub-strategic nuclear weapons--START is concerned only with strategic nuclear weapons--are being reduced by NATO. That is a good step as we emerge from the cold war, but it is not enough. We must move on towards eradication.

The Secretary of State said that Trident was the ultimate guarantee of our security. It is worth remembering that only one boat in the tottering Polaris fleet is working ; serious cracks in the cooling systems of the other boats are necessitating a great deal of expenditure and causing much anxiety to the Ministry of Defence. None the less, each Polaris boat carries more fire power than was used by both sides in the 1939-45 war. That shows how much damage could be wrought on parts of the planet.

The Secretary of State repeated several times that we need such a scale of weaponry to provide what he calls a credible deterrent. Whether Polaris is credible is a moot point, but we are now going ahead with the expenditure of £10,000 million on Trident. I am one of those in the Labour party-- I do not know whether I am in the majority in the parliamentary Labour party--who believe in unilateral disarmament. When the Secretary of State was enjoying himself for about 10 minutes claiming that a large number of us supported CND, he offered some rays of hope and sunshine that I had not seen for some months. I enjoyed that bit of his speech best of all, although I am not sure that that was what the right hon. Gentleman intended.

My views have not changed and I shall continue to attempt to persuade the majority of the Labour party to reassert its policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. I know that some of my hon. Friends here are pleased at the policy change and, if it were changed back, they would use the democratic channels of the Labour party to argue their case.

The Labour party is a democratic one and I shall exert my influence, such as it is, to maintain the case that we do not need Trident. However, against the demagoguery of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness, it is important for us to make it clear that we do not intend creating unemployment through a change of policy, which means a more peaceful role for our Government. We are not the Government who have put 2 million people on the dole from our manufacturing industries in the past 10 years. We shall develop a phased and planned programme for the conversion of the means of war manufacture to peaceful production. It will mean changing swords into ploughshares. We will use the enormous reservoir of equipment and talent to provide the goods and services that the

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people of the world need and want. One thing is absolutely certain--no one needs the Trident system to be put into use. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) referred to the United Nations non-proliferation treaty. The Labour party strongly endorses that treaty. The Government are a signatory and supporter of that treaty, as will be the next Labour Government. That means that if they continue with Trident they, too, would be in breach of clauses 1 and 6 of that treaty.

Some signatories have breached that contract, one notorious example is Iraq. Everyone is extremely pleased at the scrupulous way in which inspection is being carried out in Iraq to reveal the scale of the investment in nuclear weapons. No one dissents from the purpose of that inspection.

At several review conferences the 138 non-nuclear signatories to the UN non -proliferation treaty have always made the point that the nuclear signatories, particularly the United Kingdom, are in breach of that treaty. They tell us that we should not manufacture and deploy nuclear weapons. We have signed a treaty to agree to that, but we have not just retained Polaris, with its enormous fire-power ; we have now decided to go on to Trident that has even greater firepower than Polaris.

It is hardly surprising that a tiny minority of the signatories are now beginning to say, "We will not do what the treaty calls upon us to do ; we will do what the United Kingdom does." We pay lip service to that treaty and breach it by spending £10,000 million on Trident nuclear submarines that carry nuclear weapons. It is difficult for the Government to criticise those signatories.

I hope that the verification procedures under the UN

non-proliferation treaty will be improved so that inspectors will come here and point out how the United Kingdom Government are breaching that treaty. We should be told that we must stop the Trident programme, because that is the proper way of doing things. Only yesterday a delegation from the Manufacturing Science Finance Union, MSF, came to the House to express its concern about big organisations, such as GEC, which have significant defence contracts. My hon Friend for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) was there. The shop stewards said that, as a result of the rundown in defence expenditure, they were concerned that there would be redundancies under the Government's existing programme. That re-emphasises the fact that we cannot simply talk about cancelling Trident. We are not talking only about Trident, but about a whole range of defence activities that are being curtailed and on which expenditure is being cut. We must have a planned programme of conversion.

The Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Sutton, is present on the Treasury Bench. I am reminded that when I suggested that the £7 billion of expenditure on the European fighter aircraft might be better spent--it seems dodgy anyhow--or used for civilian aircraft, his contribution to planned change was to suggest that nobody wants single- seater civilian aircraft flying at 750 mph. A few Tory Members laughed heartily at the right hon. Gentleman's contribution to our understanding, but the reality is that if the European fighter aircraft programme falls through, there will be redundancies

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among the most skilled sector of our manufacturing work force. The Government must face that reality. A planned conversion programme is vital.

Finally, behind all the arguments about tactics and the programme for the deployment of Trident lies the issue of the morality of the possession of nuclear weapons. Mercifully, the vast majority of the world's nations have said no to nuclear weapons. In so doing, they have decided not to spend massive resources on the production of those weapons of fearsome levels of extermination. The Brandt commission "Programme for Survival--North versus South" produced figures in 1980 showing that just half a day's military expenditure would suffice to finance the World Health Organisation's malaria eradication programme. Even less money would be needed to counter river blindness, which is still the scourge of millions. The cost of one jet fighter, which was then $20 million would set up about 40,000 village pharmacists. One half of 1 per cent. of one year's world military expenditure would pay for all the farm equipment needed to increase food production and to approach self-sufficiency in the food-deficit, low-income countries by 1990. That opportunity has passed. The figures are out of date, but the example is telling. We should be using the £10,000 million that is spent on Trident to create jobs in the United Kingdom and to improve our national health service. However, we could also improve the lives of the people of the poorest countries where life expectancy is only 25 to 40 years. Morally, that is a vastly superior case to the one produced by the Government--and, alas, supported to some degree by the Opposition Front Bench--who say that we should fritter our resources so massively on something that we could never use. Indeed, if we were to use it, we would destroy our planet. We should note the example of the vast majority of nations, including Canada, which has a Conservative regime, but which has said no to nuclear weapons. Why can we not go down the same road?

1.8 pm

Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South) : I am delighted to participate in today's debate on nuclear weapons policy, but am saddened to see that the so-called "party of defence", the party of government, can muster only one noble Member to speak. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Atkinson) must have stumbled into the debate without having been nobbled by his Whips, because he gave a reasonable, rational and consensus-seeking speech, unlike the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Franks), who gave the House his next election address for 37 minutes, but then proceeded to disappear, as though he is the only hon. Member with a constituency outside central London. Many hon. Members who are now in the Chamber have longer distances to travel.

As I said, it is a pleasure to speak in the debate, despite the rhetoric and the attempt to whip up the masses outside the House by saying that the Labour party comprises anti-patriotic pacifists. No doubt one could find some of that ilk in the Labour party, but I am sorry to tell Ministers, who greatly outnumber their indians seated

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behind them, that defence will not figure prominently in the next general election. Labour is not presenting itself for slaughter, as it did in 1983 and to a lesser extent in 1987.

Those drawers in Conservative party headquarters marked "Labour and defence" will be opened and their contents taken out to try to undermine Labour at the next general election, but such aspirations will remain unrealised. Labour has learnt the lessons of the past. They are that the public expect Britain to be defended and want Labour to be what it has been for most of its history--a party prepared to provide resources commensurate with defending this country.

When Clement Attlee became Prime Minister in 1945, he was no enthusiast of atomic weapons, but that programme proceeded. When Harold Wilson came to office, one Polaris submarine was cancelled, but the programme continued and Labour sought a consensus with other political parties and played an enormous role in NATO.

Between 1980 and 1987-88, there was a rapid flight from consensus to the outer shores of realism, but it has still prevailed--not just for electoral purposes, but because the world has changed. Most of the people responsible for Labour's policies acknowledge that those which may have been relevant in the 1980s were disastrous and should be consigned to the rubbish heap.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) said that he is in the minority. I was once in that position, together with my former colleague the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas), who is now a member of the Scottish National party. In those days he earnestly supported nuclear weapons. The people who were once a minority in the Labour party now represent the views of the majority.

The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness did not answer my question about what would be left to build in Barrow if the fourth Trident submarine were taken away. Perhaps he will tell his constituents and Government that the submarine-building programme is near to collapse.

An innocent bystander listening to the speeches of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness and others might imagine that the Conservatives are the exponents of the Royal Navy. I have with me the defence White Paper produced by the Labour Government in 1979. The section on frigates and destroyers put their number at 65. The present Government promised about 50, which we all took to mean 46 or 47. A year ago, we were told that the number would be 40, which we all know meant 36 or 37 frigates and destroyers, or even fewer. How can the Conservatives make such eloquent speeches about the Royal Navy when, in their 13 years in office, they have, according to their own planning, halved that part of its fleet?

Government Members argue that today's Royal Navy is more modern than in 1978 or 1979. A recent parliamentary answer that drew on the Government's own resources revealed that the Royal Navy was more modern in 1979 than it is in 1991. We should dispel the myth that the Conservative party is the party of defence and that Labour is the party of surrender--as shown on a brilliant poster in the 1987 general election campaign which depicted Labour's defence policy as a soldier with his hands in the air in surrender.

There is no need for Labour to be ashamed of its defence record, although the Conservative document "Britain's Defence : Unsafe in Labour's hands" gives the impression that a Labour Government would destroy the

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Navy, devastate the Army and demolish the Royal Air Force. As reports from the Select Committee on Defence have made clear over the past few years, defence cuts are proceeding at such a pace that, if a future Labour Government continued in the same way, we would be left with Securicor and Group 4 to defend our shores and a steamship company to provide us with a substitute for the Royal Navy. This scurrilous Tory document--approved by the Secretary of State--talks of Labour's contempt for defence, and its

"inherent aversion to strong defence".

What have the ghosts of the Labour party of 1914 to say about that--the men who joined the wartime coalition? Men who, weeks before the invasion of Belgium, might have joined a peace rally signed up immediately after it. With the exception of Ramsay MacDonald, Keir Hardie and one or two others who opposed it honourably, the Labour party overwhelmingly endorsed the war effort.

In July 1914. Keir Hardie told the House, "They may not listen to me here, but they will listen to me in my constituency." He was mortified by the singing of English patriotic songs, led by a Labour Member of Parliament. When he went back to his constituency he was shouted down at a meeting, because the majority of Labour voters found his pacifism unacceptable. The chairman of the meeting told a journalist, "I am a Britisher first and a socialist second." That epitomises Labour's attitude. So Labour is inherently opposed to defence : tell that to the ghosts of Ernie Bevin, Clement Attlee and the Labour Members who joined the coalition in 1940 and sustained our defence after the second world war. It is both impertinent and immoral to portray the party in such a light. The speech delivered a year ago to the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition constituted the strongest defence of NATO that I have heard for many years--much stronger than that presented by the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, who seems to think that NATO has passed its sell-date and should be supplanted by some other arrangement.

We have heard today that a Labour Government would have signed up to all the NATO documentation. That removes yet another plank of the Tories' failing policy--their castigation of Labour for being unpatriotic. Profound changes have, of course, been made, but this is the party which, a year ago, succeeded not only in dumping its leader but in expunging her from its collective memory ; the party that abandoned the poll tax, the flagship of its 1987 election campaign ; the party that is flip-flopping on Europe. It is a bit rich for a party that has performed such cartwheels to accuse Labour of ambiguity.

Let me now raise a matter that I had not intended to raise until the Secretary of State introduced a knockabout element to the debate. It is best not to compare the present Government with the Labour Opposition of 1980-87 : the result of that would be game, set and match. One can compare the Government's proposals with the Labour party's proposals and, better still, the Government's record with that of the Labour Government between 1974 and 1979. In 1979-80, 4.5 per cent. of gross domestic product was devoted to defence. In 1991-92, 3.8 per cent. of GDP is devoted to defence. In 1993-94 that will go down to 3.4 per cent.

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People may say, "Circumstances have changed", but one could return to the time before the cold war ended and see that the Treasury had got hold of the throats of Defence Ministers even before Gorbachev came along and rescued the Government and the Treasury from their policies. The Government abandoned their commitment to increase defence expenditure by 3 per cent. a long time before the cold war ended. The Government's defence expenditure record is not very good. According to NATO statistics, defence expenditure, as a percentage of gross domestic product, was 4.9 per cent. between 1975 and 1979. It is now 4.6 per cent. The party of defence is spending much less on defence.

This scurrilous document talks about the Labour party scuppering the Army, but can we really be defended by 38 infantry battalions, half of which will be committed to Northern Ireland? If the IRA played it clever and exploited that fact, where should we find the troops for the much-vaunted rapid reaction corps? Half of them will be double hatted ; they will be committed to Northern Ireland. Conservatives will find little comfort from the Labour party's defence policies at the next election, which is not the sole criterion by which to judge them. We have signed up for the NATO summit. The Labour party is committed to maintaining nuclear weapons until other countries dispose of theirs. As a realist, I do not believe that that will happen fairly soon, or ever. I am anxious not about the defence policies of the Labour party but about the defence policies of the Conservative party. Shall we be able to sustain a viable defence posture if only just over 3 per cent. per annum is devoted to defence? Will the defence cuts be even deeper? The heat at the next election will be directed not at my party but at the Conservative party. Government supporters will be fighting for their lives.

Defence contractors, those who work in the defence sector, Territorial Army members whose numbers are going down and the men and women in the armed forces, with families and dependants, should be worried about the Conservative party's policies. The Secretary of State tries to point at us the finger of doubt, but I suspect that in the final analysis it will not be the Labour party's defence policy that will be seen to be wanting ; it will be the "party of defence's" policy. I cannot wait for the British public to reach a decision about that.

1.23 pm

Mr. Dick Douglas (Dunfermline, West) : I do not intend to echo what was said by the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), who is something of a military historian. I shall deal with matters historical, but not from the same viewpoint.

Reference has been made to speeches that I have made, both in the House and elsewhere. I was one of the 69 Members of Parliament who voted on 28 October 1971 for the White Paper presented by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) on behalf of the then Government. I was cast as a pro-European and suffered for my sins at the 1974 election by losing the constituency that is now represented by the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill). My pro-European stance pales into insignificance compared with that of the Labour party today. It will swallow almost anything that Europe has to offer.

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I challenge any hon. Member who has known me for more than five or 10 years to examine my political career and state when I did not make it clear exactly where I stood on major issues. I made it plain at the 1983 and 1987 elections exactly where I stood on defence. I remember attending a meeting before the 1987 election where the current leader of the Labour party suggested that Polaris might be decommissioned in a fortnight. I said that a good engineer would not suggest that.

The significant change relates to the obsolescence of Polaris. It offered the Government a unique opportunity to say, "We can no longer argue that we have an independent strategic nuclear deterrent." That was the time to stop our vain posturing on the international stage. The hon. Member for Clackmannan said that we should listen to our constituents. He and I represent Scottish constituencies. Some Labour Members say that they have a mandate from the Scottish people but the Tories do not--that the Labour party has a mandate to decommission Polaris and not to proceed with Trident. That is the hon. Gentleman's remit ; it is also mine.

I should like to consider the history not of the 1980s but of the 1940s. As a good Scottish Presbyterian should, I shall quote Bernard Brodie's work, "The Absolute Weapon" :

"Everything about the atomic bomb is overshadowed by the twin facts that it exists and its destructive power is fantastically great." Nuclear weapons are no longer in the possession of one nation. There are three options. One can recognise their destructive power and say that total war is absolute folly and that no one will embark on it. One can say, "We do not have adequate defences against it ; let us adopt a first strike capability." Thirdly, one can deny the efficacy of a first-strike capability and opt for intermediate battlefield weapons.

It is four and a half decades since the first atomic bomb was dropped. Nations have wanted to become strategic nuclear powers. The United Kingdom's ability to do so relies on the United States. There is no such thing as an independent United Kingdom strategic deterrent. I make that point forcefully, particularly to the Labour party, in relation to when Trident comes into service. It will not be in service until mid-1994. That would mean that a Labour Government coming into office in 1992 would have to take a decision in mid to late-1993 to sail the first Vanguard to King's Bay and say, "Please can we have our 16 D5s?" Is that credible? How will they manage that? I challenge Labour Members of Parliament who are honourable gentlemen--and I especially challenge Scottish Members of Parliament--if they are still members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and are still opposed to Trident to include that information in their election addresses and make it clear for what they are seeking a mandate. Otherwise, they should make it clear how they support contemporary Labour party policy. The Labour party's approach, if it won the next election, must be considered. It has been suggested--and not refuted--that Polaris is obsolescent, if not obsolete. There has been no refutation of the view that Polaris means having one boat in service at sea all the time. The problems of the reactors are well known.

I refer to what the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) said. We could argue about the number of

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