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Armed Forces: Nuclear Deterrent

My Lords, given that the noble and gallant Lord speaks as a former submarine commander, and someone who has had responsibility for the Navy as well as for the whole of our defence, his words have great authority. His final remarks on the impact of the immediate reduction of expenditure really will need to be taken into consideration when we have before us the Comprehensive Spending Review. However, the fact that the major expenditure, as is made clear in the White Paper, will not occur until the period 2012 to 2027, means that it will be on subsequent rather than the present Comprehensive Spending Review that the major impact will be felt. Today’s debate on the future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent falls on the 50th anniversary of the 1957 defence White Paper produced by Duncan Sandys which stimulated in some ways the first significant public debate on British nuclear weapons. I mention this partly because as an undergraduate then I played some part in that debate, and I seem to have been involved in debating both with myself and others on the subject ever since. Unlike some of my noble friends on these Benches, I have never been a unilateralist, but have always held that my unenthusiastic support for British nuclear weapons was acceptable only if the strongest pressure was put on successive British Governments to take their commitments to multilateral disarmament seriously. I commend what has been done and has already been referred to this afternoon. But I shall come back to that at the end in order to support the proposals put forward so clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, earlier in the debate. I begin by considering the question of timing, which was referred to by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce. As the Defence Select Committee in the House of Commons argued in its report last year, it can be suggested that in some respects this is a premature decision. The noble and gallant Lord has just made the point that in paragraph 1.5 the White Paper argues that it would be ““highly imprudent”” to consider extension beyond five years. In any case, even if some conceptual work is now to be undertaken, as suggested in the White Paper, it appears from paragraph 5.11—I would be grateful if the Minister could help us on this—that the main gate decision and the beginning of significant expenditure will not occur until 2012. I believe that that is the critical decision rather than the decision now to carry out certain conceptual studies. It has been argued from these Benches that if we were prepared to operate on the basis of three rather than four submarines from 2022, the decision could even be put back by another two years. While I would certainly argue that the current prospect does not create a situation in which one should decide not to replace the Vanguard submarines, the possibilities of global developments are such that it would be prudent not to make the critical decisions before one has to. That point has been made clear by a number of other noble Lords in the debate. The underlying decision as to whether Britain should or should not have nuclear weapons has always been a difficult one for me. I have ethical, economic and political questions, and I should like to look at all three. Since their first use in 1945, nuclear weapons have always raised very difficult ethical questions. I was glad that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester raised that so clearly in his remarks. The scale of the destruction they can produce is considered so horrific that the normal jus ad bellum, the concept of proportionality, is extremely difficult to apply. During the Cold War the existential threat to our society of a military attack by the Soviet Union was considered so great that the possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent or—and this was equally the case for other NATO members—membership of an alliance whose ultimate defence was nuclear, was accepted. But I consider that one is in exactly the same ethical situation whether one has nuclear weapons oneself or if one is a member of an alliance whose defence system is based on the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. However, the removal of the clear and present danger provided by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact inevitably means that the ethical issues will have to be revisited in any discussion of the replacement of Britain’s nuclear capability. The case is certainly not easy to make, but on balance I feel that the degree of uncertainty and instability in the world is such that a social decision to renounce would have to be taken with very great care. My second concern has always been to do with resources. Even during the Cold War it was not altogether clear, given the effectiveness of the Atlantic alliance and the nuclear capabilities of the United States, whether a duplication on this side of the Atlantic was a particularly useful allocation either of the defence budget or of the budget as a whole. The arguments we have heard today and are in the White Paper for a second decision centre have some merit in adding to the uncertainty facing one’s opponent, thus reinforcing the deterrence. But it is difficult to ignore the arguments of my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, that status might have a part to play. Indeed, in his remarks the noble Lord, Lord Powell, suggested that it certainly does. Again, in the current financial environment and the very difficult budgetary situation facing the Armed Forces, there must be assurances that the significant expenditure described in the White Paper, and which will be spent between 2012 and 2027, is not achieved at the cost of the other pressing and immediate needs of the Armed Forces. Indeed, the experience of both the noble Lord, Lord Owen, and the noble Lord, Lord Moonie, of dealing with this from within the Ministry of Defence was very revealing. The political problems are related to proliferation. Those issues were discussed by my noble friend Lady Williams. I do not share the view that British renunciation of its nuclear weapons would have a direct effect on any of the existing nuclear weapons states or the potential proliferators, particularly Iran and North Korea. In that respect I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Boyce. On the other hand, the disappointing progress of nuclear arms control in the post-Cold War world has made it more and more difficult to maintain the non-proliferation regime. Although the 2000 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference was a success, the failure of the 2005 review conference to agree any conclusions really set back a good deal what had been started in 2000, including in particular the 13 steps which were referred to. The failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the lack of progress on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty suggest to the non-nuclear weapons states that the nuclear weapons states are not treating their responsibilities seriously. That is why I found it rather encouraging to read at the beginning of the year an article in the Wall Street Journal of 4 January signed by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn, calling for a set of new initiatives to move to a world free of nuclear weapons. These are not woolly minded Liberal Democrats. Two former Secretaries of State, a former Secretary of Defense and a former Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee are an impressive quartet. Their first call is for the United States to, "““work with leaders of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons to turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise. Such a joint enterprise, by involving changes in the disposition of the states possessing nuclear weapons would lend additional weight to efforts already underway to avoid the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran””." The article went on to make a series of detailed proposals very similar to the six points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. While it may be thought that the present Administration in Washington will not necessarily respond immediately to this appeal—indeed, since 4 January there has been little sign that they have—there are signs that those thinking about the policy of an incoming Democratic Administration in 2009 are giving thought to some of these issues. That would increase the chances that the next Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2010 could provide a basis to take useful steps to arms control. This is a further argument for at least delaying the substantive decision until 2012 or 2014. Britain should also consider indicating its support for such a proposal and accept the suggestions made from these Benches that there should be a 50 per cent reduction in the number of nuclear warheads that we hold. Such would be perfectly consistent with maintaining an adequate minimum nuclear deterrent.