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Trident

I certainly support Liberal Democrat policy, and I will come to that later in my speech. If we had to take the decision today to build replacement submarines I would certainly vote in favour, but we do not need to take the decision for several years. The Government should have asked Parliament today only to authorise participation in the missile life extension programme and to start the concept and design work on possible replacement submarines. It is vital that Parliament should be given a future opportunity to vote on whether we actually proceed to building the replacement submarines. I simply do not understand why the Government want us to take that decision today. I can only speculate that the Prime Minister wants to take as many decisions as he can before he leaves office. He seems to want to commit the Government to decisions that do not need to be taken until after he has long gone. The vast majority of the costs associated with any replacement system would begin to be incurred only at the main-gate approval stage. That is when the actual manufacture of replacement submarines would begin. The concept and design work that takes place before main-gate approval incurs only a small proportion of the overall procurement costs. Therefore the final decision on whether, and if so how, to procure any successor system could be taken at any point up to a decision on main-gate approval without incurring significant procurement costs. The main-gate approval for the replacement submarines is likely to take place in about 2014. Scheduling the final decision for a more realistic date in the next decade would give Britain several years that should be put to good use in trying to create the circumstances in which maintaining our nuclear deterrent would prove unnecessary. As I said in response to the intervention, I fully support the Liberal Democrat proposal of an immediate cut in Britain’s nuclear arsenal of 50 per cent. to reinvigorate multilateral disarmament talks and re-energise the negotiations. The remaining warheads would be sufficient to provide Britain with a credible deterrent.