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Trident

I shall be brief, as it is a short debate and we wish to hear the Minister's reply. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) on securing this debate and on her work for peace in general. I declare an interest. I am chair of the all-party CND group, and the national vice-chair of CND. As my hon. Friend pointed out, I tabled early-day motion 1477, about the Government's plans to order steel for the first new Trident replacement. It is important that the Minister has the opportunity to answer this point. We were told during an important parliamentary debate in 2007—it attracted a substantial dissident vote by Labour Members against the early replacement of the Trident nuclear missile system—that the initial gate decision would not be taken until this Parliament and that we therefore had nothing to worry about. With the assistance of the excellent CND national office, I recently tabled a large number of parliamentary questions. I shall not refer to them all, but they were answered on 16 February. I asked the Secretary of State whether steel for the substantial construction of the hull structure of the first boat would be made as a long-lead purchase prior to main gate. The Minister answered:"““Yes. The specialist high strength steel needed for the hull structure for the first boat is included as a long-lead item in the Initial Gate Business Case for the programme.””" I also asked the Secretary of State how much his Department had allocated to the Trident replacement programme in each year between 2010-11 and 2015-16. Those are crucial dates, as that is when initial gate is supposed to happen. The Minister answered:"““Approximately £330 million was allocated to the programme to replace the Vanguard submarine.””—[Official Report, 16 February 2011; Vol. 523, c. 805-06W.]" It seems to me that the Ministry of Defence is running ahead of itself, and well ahead of authorisation by Parliament for spending such sums on preparation for the development of a new submarine and missile system before Parliament has had the opportunity to vote on it. In addition, it was discovered during the previous Parliament that large sums had been spent on upgrading the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in preparation for the development of the missile systems to go into those submarines. Personally, I am completely opposed to nuclear weapons. I believe that they are immoral; they are weapons of mass destruction. The world would be a lot better off without them—and this country would be extremely well off without them. However, that is not the point of today's debate. This debate is about the costs and the decision-making process, and about Parliament's involvement in those matters. Every three months, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Defence commendably report to the House on progress or otherwise in Afghanistan, and we have the opportunity to question them. If the Ministry of Defence is so determined to spend such large sums, there should at the very least be an open debate in Parliament on the subject before those decisions are made. We signed a nuclear non-proliferation treaty many years ago that commits us to making long-term efforts on nuclear disarmament. As well as seeking to prevent other non-nuclear declared states from possessing nuclear weapons, I believe that we should fulfil our obligations under that treaty. I hope that the Minister will explain under what authority that money was spent, why it was spent ahead of a parliamentary decision, and when and if he will make a statement to the House on that expenditure and the purposes behind it.