Examination of witnesses (Questions 40-59)
MR MICHAEL
CODNER, DR
KATE HUDSON,
DR REBECCA
JOHNSON, MR
DAN PLESCH,
SIR MICHAEL
QUINLAN AND
DR LEE
WILLETT
14 MARCH 2006
Q40 Robert Key: Chairman, I am sure
everyone will have their own view on this. Could I start with
Sir Michael Quinlan. It is often said that the possession of nuclear
weapons by the United Kingdom gives us a seat at the top table.
If we did not have nuclear weapons, would we still be at the top
table or would it matter if we were not?
Sir Michael Quinlan: As I have
said, I do not myself find the top table argument very persuasive
or attractive. I think it is rather a pity that we have the confluence
between permanent membership of the Security Council and nuclear
weapons status, because that does not seem to me logical, necessary
or indeed politically desirable. What I think is more relevant
is that our possession of nuclear weapons in a very general way
gives us slightly greater confidence in the way we act around
the world, and since we are still among the countries which have
both the capability and the will to take on difficult missions
around the world, as we are seeing in one or two uncomfortable
places now, nuclear weapons have a certain relevance to that,
but the status/top of the table argument I do not myself believe
to be a great weight-bearing one.
Mr Plesch: I think all too often
we think that moral authority is not something that cuts any ice
in the real world, and I think we forget the history of the Second
World War, which while it was fought to the Nth degree in terms
of hard fighting, also the moral authority of the Allies against
the Axis was critical in providing the motivation of that generation
to fight that war, and I think that we lose sight of the power
of new ideas to save our world at our peril. I think this country
would be looked on much more favourably if it did not have nuclear
weapons. It would be regarded as being much more modern. If I
can just take a moment on the previous question, we I think forget,
again, at our peril, the enormous achievements in arms control
and disarmament made, really, one might say, in the forgotten
decade of 1987-96. There is a list of critical treaties all of
which had one thing in common: everyone thought they were impossible
before they were signed. Everyone thought it was impossible to
achieve them, yet we have them, and what we have not done is to
build upon them for the future and see how they can help secure
our future.
Dr Willett: I think the issue
is of status rather than a seat at any particular table, status
in the world as a whole and also in particular in Europe. What
we have with our capability is a political balance in Europe.
There is not much discussion of the French reducing their capability
or giving up nuclear weapons and one would have to ask what would
be the implications for Europe of us stepping away from this kind
of capability. Are we a balance against another state, for example,
Germany, looking to establish a capability, which maybe they might
be inclined to do if the UK were not there to offset the French
capability, as one example? It is a balance against global instability
as a whole and, as Sir Michael said, the ability to act with greater
confidence.
Mr Codner: I would reinforce the
point about Europe and France. This is a consideration as to whether
Europe should, in whatever form it takes in the future, have merely
one nuclear power. Sir Michael Quinlan in a paper a couple of
years ago made reference to Edward Heath's remarks about nuclear
weapons being held in trust for Europe, and I think that this
is certainly a consideration.
Ms Hudson: I think we should remember
that there is an overwhelming demand from the vast majority of
countries in the world for the nuclear weapons states to pursue
their disarmament obligations, and the status and prestige which
would associate with taking a step in that direction would be
quite extraordinarily large. I think that one has to ask really
whether one wants to be at a top table which is pursuing policies
which lead to proliferation and war.
Q41 Chairman: Why do so many countries
want it?
Dr Hudson: Looking back to the
late 1960s when the nuclear non-proliferation treaty was being
drawn up, it was primarily drawn up on the initiative of countries
from the developing world who wanted to see an agreement which
would prevent proliferation but which would also bring about disarmament,
and that was the basis of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty—a
kind of balance primarily between disarmament and non-proliferation,
and the non nuclear weapon states agreed not to proliferate and
get nuclear weapons in return for the nuclear weapons beginning
the process of disarmament, and that strong desire is still very
much there and is very strongly manifested at NPT preparatory
committees and review conferences, for example, and that demand
is still very strong in the world because many countries do not
want to see us sliding to nuclear use, nuclear war and so on.
Chairman: There will be a lot of answers
to this but I wonder if we could move into the independence issues
which we said we would get into, the independence of the nuclear
deterrent.
Q42 Mr Hancock: I just have one aside,
if I may, because I think the last comments that were made about
Europe and the French in particular lead me to the question would
it ever be politically acceptable for any government in this country
of any political persuasion to abandon the nuclear deterrent all
the time the French maintained one? That is just a one-answer
question along the panel.
Mr Plesch: Can I link into that
to the question the Chairman asked? The French view of 40 years
has been that we do not have it and that our dependence upon the
Americans makes us a vassal state, so for many continentals they
would not see the question that way at all. That is a choice we
made many years ago.
Q43 Mr Hancock: But the British people
would see the exact opposite, would they not?
Dr Willett: It is more a question
of the balance in Europe as a whole rather than a particular issue
with the French. It is the implications of—
Q44 Mr Hancock: No. My question is
would it be possible for any British government of any political
persuasion to be able to sell the idea of the abandonment of the
nuclear deterrent all the time the French maintain one? That is
a straight yes or no answer. That is not looking for the balance
in Europe: that is about the political question in the United
Kingdom.
Sir Michael Quinlan: It would
be very difficult.
Dr Hudson: I do not think it is
of particular interest to the majority of the British people.
They see nuclear threats in terms of the either the great super
powers or rogue states or something like that, but I think we
should be aware of the opinion poll which was conducted in the
autumn by Greenpeace and MORI which indicated that when those
polled knew that the Trident replacement could be extremely expensive
54% of them said we should not have it, and they were not given
any subtext about France or anything like that so I do not think
it is at the top of people's agenda.
Q45 Chairman: Sir Michael, you said
it would be very difficult. Wherein precisely would lie the difficulty?
Sir Michael Quinlan: I have to
say I think it is just national gut feeling. To leave the French
as the only people with this I think would twitch an awful lot
of very fundamental historical nerves. I am not arguing about
the logic of it; I just think it would be that gut feeling that
we cannot.
Q46 Chairman: But are you not there
putting exactly the status argument that you said did not apply?
Sir Michael Quinlan: I am not
commenting on the merit of the argument; I was asked what I thought
was the probability of its being made.
Dr Johnson: I completely accept
and I hear this argument a lot in the corridors of the FCO in
particular but what I find bizarre about it is this: imagine if
you were to say to the British public, "We need to spend
upwards of £25 billion for a nuclear weapon because the French
have one". I think you would be laughed out of court. That
is realism—
Q47 Mr Hancock: With the greatest
respect, I do not think the British government would pose the
question just in that way!
Dr Johnson: Of course they would
not but what that underpins is that is not about military considerations;
this is not about defence. Indeed, it is a political instrument—
Q48 Mr Hancock: That is what I am
trying to get at.
Dr Johnson: This is about politics
and not deterrence, and make that decision openly if that is the
decision you make.
Mr Codner: I wanted to make the
distinction that has come out of the discussion with Sir Michael
Quinlan between strong arguments over status and actually what
the British self-perception is, which I think is very important
to this for the reasons you have given, what the British electorate
would vote for if asked. I think we do not have as good an understanding,
perhaps you do but I do not as an analyst, of this business of
the electorate self-perception. I think the whole nuclear issue
is very important in that respect bearing in mind the outcomes
of a couple of previous general elections where the issue has
been of relevance, and I am not sure that has gone away.
Chairman: Can we now get back to the
independence question?
Q49 Mr Hancock: Absolutely, and this
leads very conveniently on to the idea of how the British people's
view is of the independent nuclear deterrent. Several of you have
spoken that you do not believe there is such a thing for the United
Kingdom; I would be grateful now if you could expand on the idea
of the British public believing we have an independent strategic
nuclear deterrent.
Sir Michael Quinlan: I have, in
fact, sent your clerk a note, rather belatedly so it may not have
got round to the Committee, about the matter of independence,[6]
but I think discussion on this is befogged by failing to distinguish
between two different kinds of independence which are different
levels of insurance policy with different costs. One is independence
of procurement, which the French for the most part have gone for
at high cost; the other is independence of operation. We have
gone for the latter which costs a great deal less. It means in
the last resort, when the chips are down and we are scared, worried
to the extreme, we can press the button and launch the missiles
whether the Americans say so or not. We have not got independence
for procurement and the result of that is that if, over a very
long period, we became deeply estranged from the Americans and
they decided to rat on their agreements, we would be in schtuk,
great difficulty, and I think one needs to distinguish between
those two different sorts of independence.
Mr Codner: I would like to follow,
agreeing very much with what Sir Michael Quinlan said. Independence
of operation means that in the context of a one-off, which if
it ever was used it would be likely to be, we would not have the
problem then of replenishment where we are, once again, independent.
The issue to my mind over independence is more to what extent
can we in the longer term guarantee not only the continuity of
an operating system but also of the procurement process over the
next twenty years, and whether it is actually in the United States'
interest for us to have an operationally independent system.
Dr Willett: A key aspect of the
independence argument obviously is the system we have and people
looking at the fact we have a Trident system and therefore arguing
we are tied in with the Americans. If we start at the front end
the question is why do you need this, first, and what do you need,
and when we got down to the question of what was the US option,
in partnership with the United Kingdom, it was the option that
presented the right requirement at the best cost. We did not have
an indigenous programme, and other options, for example doing
something with the French, would be in this current debate politically
difficult and potentially more costly, so it needs to be stated
that, of course, one of the key elements in this is that the American
option offered the best value for money option.
Mr Plesch: If I might, I think
Sir Michael makes a very useful distinction between procurement
and operation. Procurement though, as some documents one can find
from US presidential archives on the web show, does extend to
parts for nuclear weapons which, generally speaking, has been
not a view expressed by the Government and not the public understanding
of the British people, that we actually procure parts for the
weapons, but the question is how long before we are in schtuk.
Suez was a crisis that dragged out for some considerable period
of time; 1940 was a crisis that built over years, and in both
one could not rely upon the United States. If we look at the provision
of updated software for weather information, the condition of
the targeting, these sorts of things, the time lag is quite short.
Former naval officers have said to me that even in the 1980s the
time lag was between a year or two. That is not a very considerable
period of time in politics, I think. I have explored this in some
detail in my memorandum and, of course, we do have rather tighter
controls over information than the Americans, but if you look
at what has come out from memoires and letters, at the time when
these arrangements were made Macmillan's Permanent Secretary minuted
that this would put us in America's pocket for a decade and before
Nassau the head of Bomber Command said in a note to a colleague
that Macmillan was going to Nassau to defend what was already
a myth of independence. Similarly the then defence secretary and
his officials in 1962 said that the United Kingdom forces at the
time of the V Bomber Force did not operate independently and,
of course, the normal understanding from the American side and
the documents that Presidents sign is that they are assigned to
NATO which is, of course, an integrated command with the Americans.
Linda Gilroy: Sir Michael, you referred
to the difference between independence of operation and independence
of procurement and I am not sure if it was you or Mr Codner who
referred to the deterrent as an insurance policy. The proportion
of total managed expenditure represented by the defence budget
is 5.4% of what the Government spends on everything. What proportion
of that budget can anybody say is represented by the operation
of the Trident programme?
Chairman: I am sorry, Linda, but that
is a question I would like to come on to immediately after we
clear up the independence issues, because it is slightly different,
I think.
Q50 Linda Gilroy: The question was
in the context of recognising that there is a difference between
operating a system which is independently procured and independently
operated. We have an independently operated system, some would
argue with that, but what is the cost of that?
Sir Michael Quinlan: Could I explain
the point about insurance? What I said in the note which I made
available to your clerk is that the Americans have got tons and
tons of nuclear weapons. If the Americans are solidly with us,
nobody else needs anything; the size of their armoury is ample
for any conceivable use. For anybody else who is more or less
on the American side, as it were, to have them depends on a hypothesis
that either they are not available on the day because the Americans
do not agree with you about this particular crisis or they are
scared, and that points to having operational independence, the
ability to fire the weapon whether the Americans like it or not
on the day. The other hypothesis against which one might want
to insure is the possibility that we become deeply estranged from
the Americans, they have gone isolationist over a long period
of time, they have ratted on their agreements with us; if that
is what you are insuring against then you need what the French
have which is independence of procurement, and that costs you
at least three or four times as much. Within the defence budget,
and you would need to check this with the MoD currently, my impression
is that not more than 3% goes on our nuclear capability. The French
have been in the 15%, 20% and even more territory.
Chairman: You are quite right; it was
relevant to the question of independence.
Linda Gilroy: And it is 3% of 5% which
is nought point something% of what we spend for that deterrent.
Q51 Mr Hancock: So moving on to the
next generation, is it possible for the United Kingdom, if we
were to go down the line of procuring another version, an updated
version, of Trident and a submarine to launch it from, to maintain
an independence of operation? Do you think that is a capability
that we could have? What does it do for us politically in the
world, us being locked so closely to the Americans over and on
this issue, not just now but in the foreseeable future?
Mr Plesch: With respect to the
independence of operation I think we lose sight of the role of
American corporations in managing the operations of Aldermaston,
of AWE, and of the submarine refit facility as well. My point
is that if you look at any one point of the relationship you can
argue about how much operational independence there might be,
but in my memorandum[7]
I have endeavoured to provide the spectrum which covers operational
questions as well as procurement questions. One has to say if
we really want this then we should be prepared to pay for it.
I do not think when it comes to insurance policy that people want
something, or that your voters should believe they are buying
something, where when you get to the small print it says: "Well,
in this sort of situation we can use it, you can cash in your
insurance policy, but in these other situations, 1940, 1956, then
your insurance policy is valueless". That I think is a fraud
on the voters, and it is a fraud that has been perpetrated.
Sir Michael Quinlan: 1940 and
1945[8]
are not parallels.
Dr Johnson: For my sins I spend
quite a lot of my time among diplomats in New York and Geneva,
and I think your question raises a third level of independence
and that is independence of policy. I have to say that during
the run-up to the Iraq war there was really a lot of consternation
among diplomats about why Britain was so close to the Bush policy
on going to war in Iraq and why it was clearly flying in the face
of evidence, and a lot of those diplomats were making quite sarcastic
remarks about the fact that the Bush administration would tug
the nuclear lead and that Britain is dependent on the US for its
nuclear weapons. Now I am not necessarily saying that is a correct
depiction of the facts: I am saying that it is a correct depiction
of perceptions in quite a number of countries, including our allies,
that we do not have independence of policy as long as we are so
dependent on the US for procurement. The final point on that is
that I was in Washington in November and January talking to people
from the Department of Energy and the Pentagon and, indeed, up
in Congress and I asked them was there any guarantee that the
US would continue to supply either Trident D5 missiles, if our
option were to be a like-for-like replacement, or cruise missiles—either
of those delivery systems would be dependent on US missiles—and
while I was told that the expectation is that the United States
will continue to produce Trident D5 missiles to about the year
2042, there was no guarantee. Policy could change: there was no
guarantee. Also let me remind you that on at least three occasions
in the past, Blue Streak[9],
the upgrading of the C4 to the D5 Trident missile and, indeed,
the nuclear testing moratorium when Britain had a device down
the shaft at the Nevada test site when the US signed the nuclear
test moratorium, and though I was very pleased they signed that,
the truth of the matter is they left United Kingdom planning policy
high and dry with no consultation.
Dr Willett: We have to go back
to the point about the independence of use and the one boat. The
United Kingdom has a fleet of four submarines to put one on station
all the time. We are not talking about having four submarines
at sea to fire all their missiles. The United Kingdom requirement
is one boat that has on board up to 16 missiles with a set number
of warheads that is regarded as sufficient to do the deterrent
job. The point here is the independence of use that we have talked
about previously in that it is a British boat and a self-contained
missile, a self-contained guidance package, that does not rely
on the US for permission and cannot be stopped by the US and that
boat is there with sufficient capability on its own to do what
is regarded by the United Kingdom government as being sufficient
to deter that particular threat. As Michael Codner mentioned previously,
the independence issue then comes in the re-supply, but the United
Kingdom requirement for strategic deterrence is contained in that
one boat and that one boat at sea, and therefore the issue of
re-supply and the reliance is somewhat academic because, arguably,
we would have done the job. On the issue of reliance on America
companies—well, you have to buy it from somewhere, so we
can either build our own, which will cost more money than buying
it from the Americans; we can either go with the French, which
we believe will cost more money than buying it from the Americans;
or we can build our own, and what we have is the best system that
fits within our budget.
Q52 Mr Holloway: Sir Michael, you
state that the circumstances in which the United Kingdom would
use one of its missiles would be when American missiles were unavailable
or when we were in disagreement with them. Mr Plesch's paper makes
the point about manufacture and maintenance being very much tied
in with the Americans. Logically it would seem extraordinary to
me, whilst you assert that the United Kingdom deterrent is independent,
that the Americans would not have some means in the internal structure
of the missiles or the delivery system or, indeed, an external
means of preventing a successful detonation of one of our bombs.
What is the situation?
Sir Michael Quinlan: We believe
there is no such thing. Of course, you cannot prove that there
is no such thing, in the sense that the whole world is Jesuit
conspiracy, and the only reason you cannot find the evidence is
just how clever they are! And the question you are posing is of
that order.
Dr Hudson: Obviously CND would
take the position that whether it was independent or not we obviously
do not want it, but just thinking about the 1958 mutual defence
agreement between the US and the United Kingdom which gives us,
I think, what is probably the most extensive nuclear sharing agreement
in the world, and of course there are countries that have raised
its legality under Articles 1 and 2 of the MDC, but in that context
would we be able or allowed to use our nuclear weapons without
US approval and if, indeed, Parliament did decide over the next
couple of years that it did not want to replace the Trident system,
would we be allowed not to?
Chairman: I am now going to move on to
the timetable for decision-making.
Mr Havard: I would like to talk about
the decision-making process and the timetable for doing so. We
have already had announcements made about the AWE and money being
spent in order to provide current safety and current capability
so investment decisions have been made about that and have been
declared. What I really want to get to is what decisions have
to be made when, and what options are there within that decision-making
process that actually die away? When do they die away? So what
is the timeline for making decisions about a replacement of a
capability?
Q53 Chairman: Mr Codner, in your
memorandum[10]
you gave us some helpful stuff about this. Would you like to begin?
Mr Codner: I have to say that
it is all speculation based on when the last possible date that
the last submarine has to cease operating for safety reasons,
and working back looking at other modules of long procurements
and, indeed, Trident and Polaris before that, so the dates that
I use are very much speculation in that sense. But if one looks
at the last possible date of replacement of the last boat with
an extension of life for that boat then we are talking about 2024,
by which time another boat must be in service and operating, and
if one imposes on that these timelines, as I said, that implies
to me, using the language of smart acquisition which some of us
are familiar with, that there would need to be an initial gate
decision at the very latest in 2010. Many have said it has to
be a longer period than that which means that the first amount
of investment to reduce the options from a particular range of
courses to a particular option would need to be made on that particular
date with a view to a main gate decision in about 2014, and the
main gate decision for development and manufacture would be the
bulk of the expenditure. We are talking about 28 billion[11]
altogether, then a good 17, the final commitment, would be then.
This leads to the question: What is the decision to be made now?
Looking at the smart acquisition model we are talking here about
the concept phase, so that is reducing the numbers of options—quite
apart from the overall decision whether to go ahead which I will
come back to—from land base, air launch, continuing the
submarines, whether there is an upgrade of Trident, whether there
is an extension of the life of the hulls—all of these decision
are the ones that need to be made in this Parliament, and this
is the most optimistic in delaying model I can give. All I would
say is that because of the nature of those decisions they are
in themselves very diffuse and could all be made, as it were,
separately so the decisions to be made in this Parliament do not
necessarily have to be a "We will go ahead". What they
do involve is a certain amount of investment in studies, etc,
the Aldermaston upgrade, and possibly the work Dan has referred
to in the development of particular elements in this Parliament.
When one looks further ahead, of course, one could say that if
the Government does not want to undermine its deterrent strategy
at the moment one way ahead would be to make the "Yes"
decision now over these parts of the investment and, indeed, make
a "Yes" decision at initial gate committing, say, another
3 billion, but the final decision would then not need to be made
until 2014 when you make the big investment, so what you are doing
is making a considerable but partial investment in sustaining
our deterrent capability at the moment with a view to making the
big decision in someone else's Parliament.
Dr Willett: And Michael made the
point that the 2024 date was based on the assumption that the
life of the current hulls would be extended. That decision has
not been taken yet obviously, so the clock currently stops in
around 2019-20 when HMS VICTORIOUS comes out of service, HMS VICTORIOUS
being the second boat of the class, and the reason why HMS VICTORIOUS
is significant rather than HMS VANGUARD is that if the second
boat comes out of service the United Kingdom will no longer have
the minimum three boats it needs to do the continuous at-sea deterrent.
So it is very important to make the point that the clock still
stops at 2019 at the moment and, as Mike pointed out, one of the
key decisions for this Parliament is whether to extend the life
of the hulls. Now, they can be extended for up to five years but
beyond that there are United Kingdom safety regulations about
the reactor and the submarine; there are questions as to whether
or not it becomes cost effective to continue to run them any further,
and even in that five-year period the actual cost effectiveness
of maintaining the submarines will reduce, as will their availability.
One of the key points in this whole timeline debate is the issue
of the submarine. The submarine is the big platform, the big question,
in the replacement debate. The missile is under development already
in the US, the warhead is the same warhead—it is the platform
that is the big question, and there is the issue of maintaining
the skillset at Barrow, assuming it is a British-made submarine,
and just ensuring that you have the options open at all times
until you make that final decision.
Mr Plesch: My understanding from
colleagues in Washington is that the American successor SSBN is
currently a classified programme. I agree with the view taken
by the parliamentary research department that it is likely that
the United Kingdom will go with the American successor. That also,
I think, is the historical precedent and if one looks at the way
in which the discussion went on Polaris that was, first of all,
to be their Polaris missiles in new boats, then it was an adaptation
of the Polaris missile which turned out to be a dramatically new
capability missile, then it was Trident C4 and then Trident C5[12]—ultimately
the fourth iteration of what was discussed, all driven by what
was going on in the US. Secondly, very briefly, I think it all
depends on what you mean by "decided" because in many
respects, particularly with respect to warhead design, if not
actual development, decisions are very well advanced. Finally,
I think a good deal more attention needs to be put on the tactical
warhead that was developed and notified to Parliament under the
last Conservative government. In a sense why do we want yet another
new nuclear warhead if our last three nuclear tests were apparently
for a new tactical warhead, and in the 1993 defence estimates
the Government said this was going along very well and then it
was cancelled? Whatever happened to that?
Dr Johnson: I would like to address
this timing question from a different angle. We face a very tough
choice—no question. We can either sleepwalk into a much
more proliferated world by the 2020s or, if we want to maximise
our ability to strengthen the non-proliferation regime and influence
other states, then the earlier the announcement of a decision
not to procure a replacement nuclear weapon system for Trident
the better. The more leverage we have the better we can manage
the transition towards a non-nuclear defence-based policy. It
would allow us to reconfigure our policies and our infrastructure
while if necessary, if we have to cling to the voodoo blanket
for a few more years, we know we could still take a Trident out
on patrol, as we put our resources, our intelligence, Aldermaston,
the other facilities, towards creating the future in 2025, where
nuclear weapons are marginalised.
Dr Hudson: To put a gloss on that,
if I may, we have had a commitment since 1968 to pursue negotiations
in good faith. That was reinforced in the mid 1990s with the World
Court Judgement, and then in 2000 with the addition of the 13
practical steps to the NPT when we acquired the demand for an
unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of
our nuclear arsenal. So that is the strengthening of that. The
urgency also is absolutely added by the need to advance the non-proliferation
agenda, and many people have observed that if countries like Britain
go for new nuclear weapon systems, what kind of message is that
going to send to—
Q54 Mr Havard: So you would argue
the urgency is we should get on with making a declaration that
helps to get rid of them and the people involved with wanting
them would say, "We have to make a decision now if we have
to have them because the current process is dying on us and we
need to make long-term decisions about replacement"?
Dr Hudson: Yes.
Q55 Mr Havard: As I understand it,
the Ministry of Defence are not helping us with regard to this
inquiry, and you will understand that. At the moment they are
declaring no decisions are made, they are still studying it, the
Secretary of State has said all of that; we are trying to clear
the brushwork so we can have this discussion but, as I understand
it, there are projects taking place and you mention the replacement
of one particular platform, the submarines, and there could be
a capability gap in 2019 unless decisions are made quite clearly,
very soon, about whether or not you are going to replace the boat
as the platform. So I understand all of that and that is set against
projections about what Iran will be able to do and China and all
the rest of it. But what I would like to get to is what you said
at the start which is that maybe there are different options.
All the decision-making we have heard about so far is predicated
on one point which is a replacement of the platform for the interballistic
missile which is Trident and its integrity. Are there different
and other options that could be taken, and what are the timelines
for those? I understand what the procurement processes are.
Dr Willett: I have done a fair
deal of looking at what the options are and there are pros and
cons on all sides. It is worth pointing out that the Government
needs to continue with the answer being "Yes" until
it decides that it is "No", so until we come to decision
that we do not want it we must always plan and prepare for the
fact that it will be "Yes" and it will be looking to
retain and that is why the MoD as you suggest will be studying
all options. The options basically are the submarine-based deterrent
we already have and what you want with a deterrent is to ensure
that your adversary cannot deter you; you want a deterrent that
is survivable and that can guarantee that you can deliver the
effect that you wish to deliver when you want to deliver it where
you want to deliver it, and the only option in my view that delivers
that is a submarine-based capability. A land-based option would
involve a ballistic missile that would need to be deployed on
United Kingdom soil somewhere; that makes a rather large target
somewhere on the United Kingdom mainland as opposed to a submarine
that is continuously deployed at sea; there is the question that
of course we do not have our own ballistic missile and would have
to develop one either with the US or independently; there is the
question of air-launched options, air launched cruise missiles.
Well, we do not have a strategic bomber, we do not have short-range
aircraft so we do not have a platform with the range to be able
to give you the global coverage that a ballistic missile gives
you; the Americans are not developing a bomber programme that
would help us at this point—
Chairman: Can I stop you here because
these are all issues—
Q56 Mr Havard: Can I ask the question
the other way up? Some of us have said that the MoD's claim is
that nuclear capability is not for war-fighting because this is
a question of it being simply for deterrence and, Mr Codner, you
said this was "not a very meaningful notion" and that
largely this is about them having some war with the Treasury on
who might provide the money and that this was very interesting
in terms of how we might deploy nuclear capability in the future,
perhaps based on different platforms. So I am trying to explore
the question I asked earlier—that there are clearly other
alternatives. Are we in a situation where all these other combinations
are still in play in some fashion, or not, and how do they mix
into this question about when decisions have to be made. With
boats the decision is quite clear; it is 2007 for the concept
phase alone.
Mr Plesch: Very briefly, the new
chapter makes clear that the Government sees there are military
uses for nuclear weapons and, secondly, no attention is given
to the re-negotiation of the mutual defence agreement that took
place in 2004 managed by John Bolton's department in the State
Department—
Q57 Mr Havard: God help us!
Mr Plesch: Indeed—but are
we asked to believe, this is not a a question of conspiracy, that
there was no substantive political negotiation over the terms
under which that agreement was renewed and that it did not involve
issues concerning systems and political intent by the United Kingdom
for the period to 2014? I do not find that credible in my knowledge
of John Bolton and, indeed, of a realistic understanding of the
relationship between states and what we know about the British/American
relationship on these issues.
Chairman: Can I stop this point, please,
because we have three further issues that I want to discuss very
quickly.
Q58 Mr Borrow: I want to come back
because I think this timing of decisions is crucial from a democratic
point of view, and it is really Dr Johnson's point. Am I right
in assuming that if the United Kingdom Government now decided
not to go ahead with replacing the nuclear deterrent, then whatever
government was elected at the next election would be unable, within
the timeframe, to restart that programme and ensure that we could
replace Trident when it ran out? That is a crucial issue for democratic
politics in this country.
Sir Michael Quinlan: I do not
think it is as clear-cut as that. I suspect that if you leave
it right through to the end of this Parliament you may find that
some things are getting compressed, you may have to spend a bit
more, you may be at risk of doing things in a bit more of a hurry
than is prudent. I doubt if there is a clear cliff edge this side
of the next election.
Q59 Chairman: Mr Plesch?
Mr Plesch: The Government argues
in one breath that 35 countries could get nuclear weapons in the
blink of an eye and in another that if we did not do this immediately
we can never ever be a nuclear power again.
Chairman: Thank you. Now we have three
further questions about the impact of US decision-making, about
the prospects for Trident service life extension and about the
civil nuclear programme, and I want three snappy questions, please,
and a few snappy answers!
6 Ev 15. Back
7
Note: Ev 1. Back
8
Note by Witness: 1940 and 1956 are not parallels, not
1940 and 1945 as indicated. Back
9
Note by Witness: Dr Johnson in fact mean to refer to Skybolt
and not Blue Streak. Back
10
Note: Ev 16. Back
11
Note by Witness: The figure should in fact be £20
billion, not £28 billion. Back
12
Note by Witness: It is the Trident D5, not the Trident
C5. Back
|
