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Business of the House

I have great respect for the Religious Society of Friends, but with the best will in the world, it will not be possible to please everybody on all sides of the debate. I doubt whether, whatever we say, we will please most people from the Society of Friends. On the process, our intention, which we hope to achieve, is to publish a White Paper, hopefully before the end of this calendar year. Of course there will be a statement on the White Paper, whose purpose is to set out the Government’s judgments about the future of Trident, including, fundamentally, the issue of threat as we see it. Then, as I have already made clear on a number of occasions, there will be a debate in the House in Government time and a vote on the Government’s proposition.