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Trident

As the Prime Minister and the White Paper both make clear, a decision to replace Trident is a significant decision, with enormous financial, political and security implications. To be properly made, that decision must take account of the strategic environment or threat assessment, of cost and of our treaty obligations. The Prime Minister says that the decision is a matter of judgment, and he is right; but it is my judgment that we can give proper consideration to all those factors only by postponing a decision, perhaps until 2014, by cutting the number of warheads by half to 100, and by extending the life of the existing submarines. There are many estimates available other than those contained—[Interruption.] I remember the 1983 general election, when a large number of those people on the Labour Benches were arguing that there should be unilateral nuclear disarmament, that Britain should withdraw from NATO and that we should come out of the European Union. That just shows that if one waits long enough, one sees everything. The question in people’s minds is why is this decision being pushed through the Cabinet and Parliament just as the Prime Minister is about to leave Downing street. Is the decision about Britain’s interests or about his legacy? There are other estimates.