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Armed Forces: Nuclear Deterrent

My Lords, I start by taking this opportunity to remind the House of an incident in 1954, when the effects of Hiroshima still reverberated around the world, the memory of it still close, and the Cold War was becoming more fraught. Bertrand Russell contacted Albert Einstein, and through that contact initiated what became known as the Russell-Einstein manifesto. It was a call to scientists, whose discipline had created the nuclear bomb, to lead the way in preventing nuclear war. However, that call reached far beyond the scientific community. It was more than a commitment to abolish nuclear weapons. The manifesto recognised that the world was a dangerous place, with real potential for conflict around every corner. It recognised the tremendous destructive powers of these new weapons of mass destruction and the appalling and lasting effects of large amounts of radiation. It put the question, ““Shall we put an end to the human race or shall mankind renounce war?””. It was really an urgent call to the inhabitants of this globe of ours to recognise that this new capacity for destruction meant that war should become unthinkable. It was a call for a world based on law, consent and new multinational methods of conflict resolution. It was a call for the reinforcement of the new United Nations Security Council and for international treaties, and it is as relevant today as it was then. Recent events have shown that we are far from renouncing war. It still deeply shocks me, as we pore over the events that led up to the Iraq invasion, that even as we sought a second UN resolution, the Prime Minister’s aim was not to prevent war but to justify it. At the core of their manifesto, Russell and Einstein make the clear statement that, "““there can be no winners in a nuclear war””." I think that the world, in between times, has recognised that. Many distinguished international lawyers today take the view that the use of the Trident system—not the having of it—would breach customary international law, because it would infringe the intransgressable requirement that a distinction be drawn between combatants and non-combatants. What does that difficult word ““intransgressable”” mean in familiar language? The principle of distinction between combatants and civilians is central to certain international crimes. Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that, because of the very nature of the missiles involved, the effects will be visited disproportionately on innocent civilians and will mean the devastation of the natural environment as well as of whole cities, and that there could even be an impact on the well-being of neutral neighbouring nations, would be a serious violation of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict. It is also impossible to imagine that the use of nuclear weapons would meet the requirement of proportionality in accordance with the just war principles. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mentioned the International Court of Justice. He was wrong, I am afraid, because in 1996 that court stated very clearly: "““In view of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons … the use of such weapons in fact seems scarcely reconcilable with respect for””," just war principles. Trident nuclear warheads are 100 to 120 kilotonnes each. A low-yield Trident would reduce a whole town to rubble. Each warhead has at least eight times the explosive power of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and each submarine carries four to eight warheads. Let us think about that for a moment. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, said, conventional weapons are increasingly smart. They are certainly capable of greater discrimination than nuclear weapons. A nuclear warhead, by its very nature, creates devastation that cannot be contained. The long-term effects of radiation—cancers, birth defects and burns—have perhaps been forgotten in this debate. Recently obtained legal opinions by Peacerights and Greenpeace also take the view that the replacement of Trident would be a material breach of our obligations under Article 6 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Why does international law matter? It matters because we know that it is the best attempt to preserve the human race and to show our allegiance to humanity. Joseph Rotblat, the great British scientist who won the Nobel peace prize and who sadly died last year, reminded us that throughout the centuries we prepared for war, so what we got was war, not peace. What we now have to do is to prepare for peace, and we can do that only if we extend our present loyalties to our families, to our friends, to our cities, to our nation and to the whole of mankind. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, asked how we can forbid countries such as Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear capacity as we enhance our own arsenal. How can we talk to any other nation about reducing its nuclear capacity if we speak with forked tongues about our own defence needs? The only way to make multilateral disarmament real is by someone taking a lead, and I, like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, would like to see Britain do just that. Military experts have been arguing convincingly that we do not need to rush to renew Trident now, and that there should be a more measured and deliberative process of public debate. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, maintained that there had been wide consultation on the White Paper, but I am afraid that does not accord with what most people would understand by consultation. The public are very critical of processes that are described as consultation but which are merely a cosmetic veneer to dress up decisions that have already been taken. I am afraid that, for many people, that is how this feels. It already feels as though this is done and dusted. The public were taken by surprise by the announcement by the Prime Minister and again by Gordon Brown that Trident would be renewed, and many thought that the reference to the Government’s commitment in the Labour Party manifesto to retain a nuclear deterrent meant precisely that; a commitment to retain what we had, not the introduction of a new generation of warheads. Twenty-five billion pounds is a huge amount of public money, which many feel would be better spent on better operational capacity for the Army in the field and better accommodation for Army personnel at home. There have been repeated accounts about the underequipment of our Army as it is stretched to the limits on two war fronts. The Government argue that new threats may come from rogue states using terrorists as proxy operatives, perhaps even supplying terrorists with fissile material. I want to ask what we intend to do: are we going to nuke the rogue states that behave in that way rather than use traditional military and diplomatic methods? Are we going to kill and radiate the people who have the misfortune to live under oppressive regimes? The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and others are right to remind us about the moral and ethical issues that are being skated over in the debate. I personally hope that Britain will show leadership in the world and redeem the moral authority we have lost over the Iraq war. The White Paper is supposed to launch a public debate and I hope that the public will be encouraged to take part in such a debate. I would like to hear from the Minister how that will be encouraged and what steps will be taken to bring in the public and allow them to be heard. As Rotblat said when he received his peace prize, "““The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival””." That is what we should remember in having this public discussion.