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Trident

I hope very much that the efforts that are being made towards multilateral disarmament, to which the Foreign Secretary restated the Government’s commitment and to which the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) restated the Conservative party’s commitment, involve sincere commitments. All sane and rational people should be committed to trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons altogether. If the processes running up to 2010 and those that might reasonably follow from it could stave off the dangers of the specific regional proliferations to which I have referred and if the Americans and the Russians could get new energy behind the steps that they have already taken to reducing the number of their warheads, we might begin to develop a situation in which it is reasonable for Britain to consider giving up its nuclear weapons. However, there are an enormous number of ““ifs”” in that and if a week is a long time in politics, seven years is an eternity.