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Trident

It is always difficult to participate in debates in which the traditional sides do not necessarily line up, and one finds oneself alongside dear friends and colleagues who take a different view. It is somewhat uncomfortable. I can tell the House, however, that I will support the Government this evening—I have not changed my views on these matters for many years—and also that it is not nearly as uncomfortable tonight as it was in 1982-83, when we debated the defence of the country in the context of the arguments and battles taking place in the Labour party at the time. One of the allegations made about today’s debate is that it is premature, and that we should not be here because the widespread debate that the country would expect us to have about this important issue has not taken place. That has not been my experience over the past six months—I have been inundated with representations from all kinds of people with a legitimate interest in the issue—and, indeed, the original decision to reach a conclusion at about this time was made some years ago. I think that there has been a wide debate, and that that has been reflected in the speeches today. Many different views have been expressed, some of them very unexpected, by Members in various parts of the Chamber. Like others, I do not intend to hog the debate, but I want to make a couple of points based on the representations that I have received. One of the key points made to me has been that if the United Kingdom renews its Trident submarine, it will breach the non-proliferation treaty. I do not accept that that is the case, and I think the public should be told loudly that it is not the case. The non-proliferation treaty was drawn up as a deal. As it has already been mentioned by other Members, I will not go into what the deal involved, but the treaty was drawn up prior to 1967 by the countries that were then nuclear powers, with the aim of reducing their nuclear capacity over a period in return for concessions on civil power and so forth. It was not about unilateral disarmament. Does anyone in the House think that the Russians, the Americans or the Chinese would have signed a non-proliferation treaty if they had thought that they were signing themselves up to unilateral disarmament, and would not be able to renew the weaponry that they had? There is a very fine line between maintenance and renewal. We have already seen that in China, and investment in new nuclear weaponry technology is currently taking place in Russia. If Mr. Gorbachev has lessons to teach the British, he also has lessons to teach the Russians. The song he is singing now is not the song he was singing when I met him in Moscow many years ago. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is about trying to de-escalate nuclear dependency. It is in that context that the world’s courts must interpret it. We must strongly say that. Another representation that has frequently been made to me—it is an argument that was made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short)—is that if Britain renews its nuclear capacity, that will send the wrong message to other countries who want to rearm. It might send the wrong message, but it will not change the decision that such countries will make or try to make, because fascists and totalitarian people and dictators do not listen to the logic of the kind of debates that we have in this House. Instead, they ask, ““Can we throw our weight about more if we have a nuclear weapon?”” and they say, ““If it is possible for us to get a nuclear weapon, we will try our best to get that weapon.”” To repeat a point that was made by the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman, if another country does not have that weapon, such people will be the first to say, ““No, we will not engage in a diplomatic argument about the issues before us, and we will not even have a conventional warfare argument about our problems””—whatever they might be about, such as oil, Russia or the middle east—““because we have nuclear capacity and we know that you don’t have nuclear capacity and that is all that matters.”” I could talk a lot more about that. Representations have also been made to me that we do not know, and cannot imagine, who the enemy is. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) made that point. However, that is the main reason for having a deterrent. According to the doctrine of uncertainty and ambiguity, we must invest in the cutting-edge of defence technology in the hope that others will understand that we are doing so and we will never have to use what we develop. If we do not invest in that, we will leave ourselves wide open to attack—or blackmail, which can be even worse—by others who hold different views from us. I am currently reading a book for fourth level students about the history of Britain, and it is interesting to learn what people at one point in time thought would happen in the future and what actually happened four or five years later—in Scotland among other places, I might add. It is hard to predict the future. We do not know what will happen in China. What will happen if China breaks up into different parts? What will happen if Russia breaks up into different parts, or if someone who makes Putin look benign takes over and decides to throw their weight around within the Russian sphere of influence or in the middle east? If we have given away our nuclear capacity and we then try to have diplomatic or other arguments with such people, we will be in a very weak position. We do not know what the future holds. My views on this matter are not in any way connected to always supporting the Americans. I do not always support them; I did not do so on Iraq. However, that is, in a sense, a short-term problem. The decision that we are discussing is a much longer term decision. I believe that we must take it in principle. It is no use saying that we will wait until 2014, which is what the Liberal Democrats are saying. It has been conceded this evening that the Liberal Democrats have no argument against the principle of nuclear capacity, and I am glad that they are prepared to support the design and development of any new capacity. However, I say, not only to Liberal Democrat Members but to some of my party colleagues, that that is not enough. What we are discussing is a big decision. We have to tell the British people what we believe in—what our principles are.