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Defence in the UK

It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I want particularly to raise two issues that are of great concern to my constituency and have been raised with me by a considerable number of constituents. The first issue, which has already been raised by several hon. Members, is Britain's possession of nuclear weapons, particularly the decision to renew and replace the current Trident nuclear weapons system. As the Minister will be aware, this has for many generations been higher up the political agenda in Scotland than in other parts of the United Kingdom. There has traditionally been a far higher level of opposition to nuclear weapons in Scotland, for a variety of reasons. From the 1950s, we have had ongoing campaigns against nuclear weapons, so the issue has been very visible in the public eye. Since the 1950s, we have seen considerable shifts to the left in public opinion. Parties of the left are far stronger in Scotland than in other parts of the UK, and social democratic ideas are much more central in the political establishment. There is also the fact that nuclear weapons systems—Polaris, Poseidon and Trident—have been physically based on the west coast of Scotland, which is our major population base. In constituencies such as mine, we do on occasion see the submarines travelling up and down the Clyde, so people feel that this is far closer to them. That cuts both ways. A number of jobs are provided at the Faslane nuclear weapons base, but there is awareness of and concern about the situation and a debate about whether it is appropriate for Britain to possess nuclear weapons at all. I welcome some of the statements recently made by the Government, particularly by the Prime Minister, on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and their possession by countries throughout the world. Those statements are reinforced by what is being said by the newly elected Administration in the United States of America. As the hon. Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) said, we are moving towards next year's non-proliferation treaty review conference. It is therefore appropriate that the British Government are trying to put this issue far higher up the political agenda, not only because of the new US Administration but because of the greater risks that we all face in the world as the years go by. The position taken by the Conservative Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), suggests that his party sees no circumstances whatsoever in which Britain could move towards not having nuclear weapons. My fear for many years has been that many of the arguments made for Britain's possession of nuclear weapons could be used by any country in the world. The implication of those arguments is that any and every country in the world will possess nuclear weapons as time goes on, and that is a world that we should all fear. We need to put moves on restricting and removing weapons of mass destruction at the top of the international agenda. Such points have been put to me repeatedly by my constituents, and increasingly in the last few months I been asked whether, given the current difficult economic circumstances, it is appropriate for Britain to be spending something in the region of £76 billion on these weapons. The figure is indeterminate; we do not know exactly what it will cost to replace the current Trident nuclear weapons systems, but we know that historically such projects have tended to end up being more expensive than originally envisaged. Whatever the cost, it is likely to be huge, and given some of the other comments made in the debate about our armed personnel and the support that people receive not just through pay, but when they return home having been in the military—particularly those suffering from physical or psychological injury—we have to question whether that is the best use of the nation's resources. I place on the record my hope that the Government will look again at the issue of Trident renewal, and use opportunities available in the coming debates on the non-proliferation treaty to consider ways whereby Britain can move to a non-nuclear future, and perhaps more importantly, to use that as mechanism to ensure that we restrict as much as possible the possession of such weapons of mass destruction throughout the world. Any other position that Britain took would be hypocritical. If we say that it is good enough for us, it is difficult to say that it is not good enough for other nations. In our foreign policy in general, such hypocrisy has damaged us, particularly in the past few years in the lead-up to the Iraq war, and in the repercussions of that war and the war on terror. It would be a significant failing if we continued down that path. The other issue I want to talk about is the future of the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency, which affects my constituents and those of a number of other hon. Members. The DSDA was formed three years ago after the Ministry of Defence won an in-house bid in competition with two private sector companies. Indeed, since its formation, another look has been taken at whether the service should be privatised or remain in house. There was great concern that in the pre-Budget review before Christmas the DSDA, along with a wide range of other public sector organisations, was named as an organisation that would be looked at again for efficiency savings, and to establish whether it is an appropriate part of the public sector to consider for outsourcing, privatisation or some other model. More than 250 privatisation programmes are running in the Ministry of Defence, and an operational efficiency programme is currently being looked at by the Treasury to determine whether the DSDA should be looked at again. Approximately 350 people are employed in a military depot in my constituency by DSDA, and there is a great deal of concern about the proposals. I have written to the Secretary of State and asked him, along with Treasury officials, to meet the relevant staff trade unions to talk through the process. I have also asked them to meet not just myself but other interested MPs in whose constituencies affected depots are sited, on a cross-party basis. We understand that there might be some kind of announcement on the issue in the Budget, so I ask Ministers again whether such a meeting could be set up. One frustration is that since the announcement, it has been difficult to get information about the process. This might be an early stage, and there might not be a huge amount of information to share, but there is concern that there might be an announcement in the Budget when staff have not had an opportunity to take part in the process. Will Ministers get back to us on that, either in the debate or in the next few days, and will they meet the relevant Members? There is a great deal of concern, given the Ministry of Defence's history on the issues of privatisation and job security. I therefore ask Ministers to reconsider the matter, and I would appreciate it if they would come back to us with some dates for a meeting.