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Defence in the United Kingdom

I am sorry that the Secretary of State is about to leave—ah, he has decided to return. It is not for me to give a man of his calibre advice, but having heard the shadow spokesman’s comments, I remind the Secretary of State to beware Greeks and Tories bearing gifts, even if they are only encomiums of praise. I do not know what it does for my right hon. Friend, but it makes me very uneasy when there is such a closeness between the Secretary of State and the other side. I had the pleasure of watching a drama on television last night about Siegfried Sassoon, who was a great poet. The drama was about his treatment in a hospital in Scotland, where one of his co-rehabilitees was another great war poet, Wilfred Owen. The immortal lines of Wilfred Owen’s greatest poem come to mind:"““dulce et decorum est pro patria mori””." No one wants to see the modern soldier reduced to the condition of soldiers in the first world war. It was interesting to hear Sir Ian Blair deliver the Dimbleby lecture and discuss the need for a great and open debate on policing in this country. His speech reminded me that the Secretary of State for Defence recently said that there should be a national debate about what replaces Trident, and I want to discuss the changed circumstances and whether we need to replace Trident. The strategic defence review reported in 1998. The House of Commons Library note on the review makes the valid remark that the SDR then was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. However, it did not face up in a radical way to many of the circumstances that it should have done, but continued the pre-existing policy. The one thing on which I will agree with the Government is that circumstances have changed dramatically since 9/11. We are told that it was year zero and that all the rules of the game have changed. If so, we need a proper review of our overall defensive strategy. Before the debate, I jotted down some of the things that have happened since 9/11 to change dramatically our stance, or implied stance, given our close relationship with the United States on a bilateral basis and through NATO. Our close allies, to whom, we are told, we are inextricably linked, are considering the weaponisation of space. Members on both sides of the House recently went to a briefing with the Washington-based Centre for Defence Studies on exactly how the air force is developing plans for that. The Americans have adopted the notion of full spectrum dominance, with the aspiration of dominating land, sea, air, space and cyberspace. They have taken up the notion of pre-emptive war, which we thought was unacceptable for the west. They have even started to moot, with some support from the previous Secretary of State for Defence, the idea that nuclear strikes on non-nuclear countries, even in a pre-emptive mode, would be feasible. There have been various withdrawals from treaties to which we all subscribed, and a failure to implement others, including those that have a direct impact on whether Trident is replaced. We are entering a time frame in which we are considering earmarking expenditure for Trident’s successor. There is ample evidence that a lot of money has been allocated in preparation for the new generation of warheads for it. Refitting has already taken place at Aldermaston. We are in a different world and about to embark on a new course. There is no more suitable time for a complete review of what our defence objectives, strategy and priorities should be.