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Trident

Now that I have been speaking for nearly half an hour, I feel that I should try to conclude, so I will not give way again. The Government are right to avoid a politically motivated delay that would make the programme more expensive, and right too to emphasise that a great deal of work has to be done to ensure that there is what the White Paper calls"““a much greater collaborative effort between the MoD and industry than has been the case in the recent past.””" I hope that the Secretary of State for Defence can assure us not only that the costs involved are necessary, but that the MOD will have the skills necessary to deliver any future submarine programme to time and on budget. I also hope that Ministers will invite the National Audit Office to monitor the contract to protect the public purse. That point has already been made. Those are the reassurances that we would like to receive from the Government about cost and about the management of the whole industrial process. But our support for taking the decision to begin this work and for taking it now is unequivocal. Taking this decision, which is entirely within our rights under the non-proliferation treaty, in no way diminishes our authority to argue for the strengthening of that treaty—a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood)—and to try to counter the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the world. This country has an excellent record in that respect, not only in the ways I have already mentioned, but in ratifying the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty and in ceasing production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. We hope that the Government will couple this decision with leading an intensified international effort to improve the non-proliferation treaty. It was signed more than 40 years ago, but the 21st century has produced a combination of challenges that the makers of the treaty could not predict. Those challenges include shortcomings in our ability to detect states covertly developing nuclear programmes; the need to bring new nuclear weapons states, which did not sign the NPT, into a framework where they too contribute to the non-proliferation regime; and how to respond to the rise of an extensive global nuclear black market. All those problems need work, including the need to secure world stockpiles of nuclear material against theft; to strengthen the proliferation security initiative; and to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency. That work should go alongside this decision today. The efforts to help non-nuclear weapons states, such as Iran, with peaceful nuclear technology must be credible, and so must the united international resolve to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons in defiance of the NPT. All that work—to prevent black market proliferation and to uphold the non-proliferation treaty—is of huge importance to our national security. But it will also be of huge importance to our security for four or five decades to come, acting within the terms of the non-proliferation treaty, to ensure that the United Kingdom can continue to deploy a weapon of last resort. That is why the Government are right to come to the conclusion that they have and why, if we were in their place, we would do the same. On that basis, the Opposition will support their motion tonight.