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Trident

I do not want to add anything to the words that either my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister or I have already uttered to my right hon. Friend, but I will say to him that I am not sure whether we are at cross purposes. The stage to which he refers is not likely to be reached during the present Parliament. With the deepest respect to my good and right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who is a very fine Minister indeed, he has not of course been Leader of the House. [Laughter.] Yet. I have made the Government’s case. There are opponents of that case who believe that nuclear weapons are morally wrong, pure and simple. For the reasons that I have given today, while I respect and understand that stance I must say—as a member of a Government charged, above all, with the protection of the people of this country—that it is not my position. Moreover, those whom that stance leads to oppose this decision should, by that yardstick, have opposed all previous nuclear procurements. Some, I know, have; some, I suspect, have not. To others, Trident is just a waste of money. In one sense, I hope to God they are right. Nothing would please me or the Government more than to have a nuclear deterrent that was never used, and whose use was never even threatened, because a nuclear threat never emerged. But on the facts before us, we—and they—cannot know that to be true or certain, at least for the next 50 years. While such a risk exists, the Government believe that maintaining a minimum nuclear deterrent remains a premium worth paying on an insurance policy for our nation. I commend the motion to the House.