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7.35 pm
Mr. Llew Smith (Blaenau Gwent): During the annual Navy debate, it is usual to hear many hon. Members making speeches to maintain Royal Navy establishments in their constituencies or a special plea that the Royal Navy has already seen too many cuts. I intend to put a somewhat different case, and call for massive cuts in the Royal Navy's Trident nuclear programme.
I do so for a number of reasons. The total lifetime cost of Trident--including construction, deployment, repair and decommissioning--is about £50,000 million. That is somewhat different from the £11,500 million that the Government quote, but that is only in relation to construction costs. Even the low figure of £11,500 million is an obscene waste of money.
As I understand it, about £10,000 million has already been spent on Trident. That means that thousands of millions of pounds could be saved if we cancelled the Trident programme now. Much of that money could be reinvested in communities such as mine in Blaenau Gwent or other parts of the world where people are in desperate need of money.
The Attorney-General, when he recently gave evidence before the International Court of Justice, argued that nuclear weapons could be used legally
However, there is no defence. Once one has used those nuclear weapons, all the things and all the people one purports to be defending are destroyed by radiation and other consequences.
The Attorney-General argued that nuclear weapons could be used selectively without causing too much harm to civilians. The Minister of State for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames), would be wise to heed the warning that came from the recent anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: step back and learn from us. He could also learn from the tragic experiences of the veterans who were involved in atomic tests and who now, 30 or 40 years later, suffer the terrible effects of radiation exposure. The threat of a nuclear winter is also instructive.
Is it not ironic that this week not only the Attorney- General but all hon. Members have in one way or another debated how we can create a far richer and better world? In this debate on the Navy, the same politicians who are supporting Trident to ensure that our future is safe and secure are willing to put the future of the earth in jeopardy, destroying that which hon. Members want to improve. I do not think that we have a right to do that. It would be the gravest crime of all.
We are not only saying that we are willing to destroy people who are living, but, as someone once said, we are willing to cancel the lives of people who are not yet born. That is what is at stake when we debate nuclear weapons. It is not the dangerous nonsense extolled by the Attorney-General and other Members of the House.
The second reason for chopping the Trident budget is that the Trident programme distorts the entire defence budget, in particular the Navy budget. So Trident should be cancelled now, and we should cut our financial losses, in the knowledge that we must avoid potential disaster.
There is another financial reason for sinking Trident now. Rob Green, a retired nuclear submarine commander, argues that both Polaris and Trident are
He rightly recognises that, if we are to continue to go down the nuclear road, we cannot argue that other countries which are at present non-nuclear should not join us on that road. Indeed, by our very act of maintaining our nuclear weapons, we encourage those countries to follow us down that road.
Sir Henry Leech, the First Sea Lord, was the first to describe Trident as
meaning that Trident stole money from other parts of the Navy budget. Commander Green also points out that Richard Sharpe, then also a captain on the Royal Navy staff, later wrote in 1988-89:
Although I do not personally argue for the redistribution of savings made by cancelling Trident to other parts of the Navy's equipment programme, it is clear that some very senior naval officers have come to recognise that Trident has been funded at a serious cost to other parts of the Navy.
My third and last, but not least, reason for cutting the Trident budget is not based on saving finances. It is based on saving this beautiful green planet of ours from the threat of nuclear devastation. Let no one be in any doubt that Trident promotes nuclear proliferation, while the Government claim to combat it.
In the 1995 "Statement on the Defence Estimates", the Government stated:
I suppose that it is some kind of progress that a document produced by the Ministry of Defence even recognised the existence of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. One would not have thought that it existed from listening to a succession of Ministers at the Dispatch Box during Defence questions, defending our purchase and deployment of Trident. It has been demonstrated many times that Trident is a significant increase in our capability, and therefore a serious act of nuclear proliferation. Even if the number of warheads is kept similar to the number deployed on Polaris, the qualitative difference in targeting capacity and accuracy of the missile system makes it a much more potent weapon.
Last month, the United Kingdom began negotiations in Geneva to reach agreement on a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. The British Government were diplomatically dragged to the conference table, having spent years
constructing more and more exotic reasons for postponing the start of test ban talks. The delays were obviously intended to permit the completion of the design tests on Trident warheads. It does not take a genius to work that out.
It is counter-productive for the Government to back the French nuclear testing programme, which undermines the attempts to achieve a test ban treaty. Some of us warned not so many months ago, and it has now happened, that radioactive iodine would leak from the nuclear tests conducted at Mururoa. The French Government even admit that that has occurred. Yet we were informed by both the French and British Governments that there was no risk of such environmental contamination. So an apology from the Minister when he replies to the debate would not go amiss.
Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire):
I am tempted to begin by quoting the great--I use the word deliberately and advisedly--predecessor of thehon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) by saying, "Hands up who agrees with that lot."
Mr. Llew Smith:
My predecessor agreed.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Absolutely. I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) nodding in agreement. We have heard the authentic voice of old Labour articulated with a sincerity and passion that we all admire and which any true democrat respects, but which is light years away from the real world in which we live. I am delighted to see the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) nodding his head so vigorously. The speech of the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent moved him so literally that he left the Chamber as his hon. Friend began to extol the virtues of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament cause.
Dr. Reid:
Lest any discourtesy be implied, let me inform the hon. Gentleman that an urgent telephone call led me to leave. As for our position on the nuclear deterrent, despite the sincerity of my hon. Friend's view, I have made our position plain from the Front Bench. We do not agree with him.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
I am grateful for thehon. Gentleman's reassurance. Of course we all accept that he had to leave for a telephone call. It is a matter of some relief that the official policy of Her Majesty's Opposition is now more in tune with the realities of the world.
"in accordance with the right to self-defence as recognised by article 51 of the United Nations Charter."
"worse than useless, because they undermine our security by provoking the greater danger that we face."
"a cuckoo in the naval nest",
"Because funding for Trident has come mainly from the naval share of the defence budget it is having an increasingly detrimental effect on the equipment programme for the rest of the Fleet."
"Under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970, the United Kingdom is committed to work towards nuclear disarmament (and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control). Successive Governments have taken this commitment very seriously. The United Kingdom has only ever deployed the minimum deterrent necessary for security and has been at the forefront of international endeavours to develop the stability in international relations that is the essential step towards disarmament. And, with the end of the Cold War, the Government has made major reductions in the size of British nuclear forces."
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