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Armed Forces: Nuclear Deterrent

My Lords, I cannot take too much time out of the limited amount allotted to me, but I shall address that matter right away. The evidence is that it is certainly not impossible to lay one’s hands on nuclear materials. The A. Q. Khan story shows just how dangerous that is. There have been a number of cautionary examples of terrorist groups attempting to get hold of nuclear materials. My point is very direct: we devote far less time, effort and resources to stopping access to these materials by various utterly irresponsible groups, including rogue states, than we do to addressing what one might describe above all as the traditional issue of assured nuclear deterrence, which I believe is no more relevant to modern warfare than the Maginot line was to the Second World War. Having talked briefly about the security of existing nuclear materials, one part of which has to be control over the enrichment process, which the IAEA has been so much involved in, I mention the issue of how we can distinguish between civil plutonium—of which there are now large amounts, some not properly secured, in Japan, this country and other countries—and the prospect of making available supplies of lowly enriched uranium, which cannot be turned into weapons-grade uranium by any rapid method that we know. Even that is not enough. There are the issues of securing nuclear materials and moving away from a hair-trigger warning. I do not accept the assertion by the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, that we should not make a major effort to sustain and strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It is the central legal structure on which the limitation of nuclear weapons and the attempt to stop proliferation have been based. To wash our hands of it is to court the planet’s destruction. If we see more and more proliferation, in more and more states, many of them without any obvious moral restraint on how they behave, the chances of our surviving through the next millennium seem extremely small. There are two crucial elements to how we could strengthen the NPT. First, we should begin to recognise that Article VI of the NPT bites on the nuclear states, not just the non-nuclear states. Many of us are fed up with the unending hypocrisy of lecturing the non-nuclear nations about the need for them not to have nuclear weapons, while happily retaining our own and not even seeking to reduce them. In this context, I must be fair to the Minister. The United Kingdom has made more efforts than most to reduce the scale of its nuclear deterrent, and I welcome that. But generally speaking, the nuclear powers have made very little effort to obey Article VI, and we still see in the United States, Russia and other countries attempts to develop new generations of various kinds of nuclear weapon, such as the bunker buster. Secondly, it is important for the nuclear powers to reduce their vastly unnecessary stocks of nuclear weapons, to give some encouragement to those being asked not to enter the nuclear league. My final point has already been strongly underlined by my Front Bench; it is the argument that we could extend the life of the existing nuclear fleet. Some of us will know the expert arguments; and the experts are very great indeed. The people who have come from the United States to give testimony here are among the outstanding league of scientists in this field, not just in the nuclear field but in submarine warfare. Yesterday, Dr Richard Garwin, speaking to some of us, said that the life of the US fleet had been extended to 45 years a few years ago, and he saw absolutely no reason why the UK fleet’s life could not be similarly extended. He went so far as to say that, in his view, the fact that the UK nuclear fleet is on station so much less of the time and is used so much less than the US fleet meant that the prospects of extending its life were very much better. When I asked him why he thought the White Paper said what it said, he replied: "““Industry doesn’t want to admit longer life expectancy””." A very great deal is at stake: finances, resources, including the resources available to other parts of our Armed Forces and, not least, the time available to really move forward on an effort to restrengthen the NPT and to ensure that we take our decisions against a less uncertain situation than at present. I cannot understand why we are pressing for an early decision. If it is part of the Prime Minister’s legacy, one can only say that it is utterly irresponsible not to wait a little longer until we have clearer facts, and above all until we know far more about the consequences for our resources of what we are trying to do. The White Paper does not yet carry consistency or confidence in this House, the other House or among the general population. I hope, therefore, that we will listen very carefully to what is emerging with increasing strength from this debate.