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Defence in the World

First, I have indicated that I do not think that it is an independent British nuclear deterrent. I have never taken the view that if we were to abandon the nuclear weapons that we have, Iran would immediately do the same. That argument does not hold. However, it could be argued that within the new international conference that I would like to see, we would have the moral and political authority that we do not have under the current proposals to press the case for preventing nuclear proliferation from going further. To put the argument in the context of today’s situation, how can we insist that the UK must maintain its nuclear weapons to guarantee its security and at the same time lecture Iran to the effect that it does not need nuclear weapons for its own security and that the safety of the world will be compromised if it is allowed to go down that route? The hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) made a good, balanced and thoughtful speech, but I was not impressed by his argument that the situation in Iran is very different because of the wild rantings of President Ahmadinejad. I agree, of course, that that inflammatory rhetoric is extremely unhelpful, and it would be much better if he did not use it—[Hon. Members: ““But he has.””] Yes, but the point about Ahmadinejad, which is perfectly well known to the British Government, is that he does not have the power in Iran—that lies exclusively with Ayatollah Khamenei and the senior ayatollahs around him. It would be quite wrong to take the view that we are justified in preventing Iran from having nuclear weapons and, apparently, quite justified in attacking the country militarily just because Ahmadinejad made a statement—an extremely unwise one—about Israel.