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Defence Procurement

Nothing wakes Tories from their sleep more effectively than the word "Europe"; they start foaming at the mouth at every opportunity when we mention it. It is absolutely clear that we need to get more from our European allies, but the hon. Gentleman should accept that although we have not had the commitment that we should have had from some of them, there are lots of countries, such as Denmark, who have given lots of troops to serve in Afghanistan. Some countries need to do more, but we should not ditch the principle just because we do not get the commitments we need from all countries. I shall move on, however, because I do not want to get the Conservatives too excited by mentioning Europe too often. Like a bolt from the blue, during the recess the Government announced another set of job cuts at the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency, including at Crombie in my constituency. That was unexpected, as another review is currently under way, inspired by the Treasury. When the Minister winds up, will he explain why we have had another set of job cuts, as, unsurprisingly, morale is extremely low in the DSDA? Will he also tell us about the Treasury-inspired review, which I understand the MOD did not know about before the Treasury announced it? Is the MOD involved in that review and debate, and when can we expect to have some kind of answer? Nuclear non-proliferation merits an investment of volumes of political capital. Over the next year, we have a tremendous window of opportunity in advance of the non-proliferation treaty talks. With President Obama impressively opening doors that have been padlocked shut for years, there is an opportunity to have serious and effective engagement with a range of countries, including the likes of Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, on a range of global matters, with nuclear weapons at the top of the list. Ultimately, nuclear non-proliferation is a political issue. As it requires political, rather than military, solutions, the signals we send in advance of those talks have to be strong and clear. This is not a time for vacuous comments or commitments that any junior student would see through in seconds. The Prime Minister deserves some credit for investing time and effort on this agenda. He has made a number of high-profile keynote contributions, yet by announcing that the number of missile tubes in the replacement submarines will be cut from 16 to 12, he simply reinforced the status quo. It was a vacuous comment that was not appreciated by his audience and left the negotiators from other countries bemused. Will the Minister confirm whether we will have four or three submarines for the replacement Trident, because Lord Malloch-Brown indicated in another place that we could no longer keep up a continuous sea deterrent with only three submarines? Will the Minister clarify whether we will have four? He is looking puzzled about this; perhaps he should check his colleague’s comments in Hansard as he made a clear statement that we could no longer follow through on the commitment made in 2006 that we might have three replacement submarines rather than four. We need clarification on that because it was only about two and a half years ago that we agreed that there could be a commitment to cut the number to three, and I am sure that many hon. Members cast their vote on that basis. We need clarification on why the decision has, apparently, been made, and on what basis. I agreed with the Prime Minister when he said recently:""We cannot expect to successfully exercise moral and political leadership in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons if we ourselves do not demonstrate leadership on the question of the disarmament of our own weapons."" However, the signal we sent out in 2006, when we agreed to renew the fleet of submarines and to enter into an agreement with the US on new missiles, was destructive. That decision need not have been made at that time; it was never necessary to make all the decisions back in 2006. Whatever the reasons for doing so were—such as, perhaps, support from the previous Prime Minister for the current Prime Minister—it was not necessary to make those decisions at that time, and it sends a message out to all those who will attend the NPT talks next year that we have no intention of giving up our nuclear deterrent until at least the middle of the century. I accept all the arguments about industrial drum beat and the necessary lead time for research, development and design, but making a full and, effectively, final decision on Trident six years before it was absolutely essential was unnecessary and reckless. We could by all means have made some of the decisions—the essential ones—at an earlier stage, but with main gate at around 2014, the big decision only needed to be made in advance of that. In fact, we should have a debate at initial gate too, rather than the announcement being snuck out in a recess.