Scottish Referendum (Trident)

Debate between Baroness Clark of Kilwinning and Ian Davidson

Thursday 7th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Davidson]

My understanding is that the SNP has existed for some 80 years. It seems somewhat incredible that it has not thought through its plans for how separation would affect the armed forces in Scotland as a whole and Faslane and Coulport in particular, although it is fair to point out that one of the shop stewards at Coulport, in an e-mail exchange with the convenor of shop stewards at Rosyth, said of closure:

“I’d sacrifice for the better of the country.”

That was from an SNP councillor who is also a shop steward at Coulport, Mr Christopher McEleny. In his view, the sacrifice of those jobs would be worth it in the interests of Scotland. To be fair, he said that he did not think it would actually happen, although whether he meant Coulport jobs or Rosyth jobs is not entirely clear, but he was prepared to sacrifice a lot of other people’s jobs in the interests of separation.

The report is worth summarising quickly before I move on to other comments. It is our view, from the evidence that we heard, that nuclear weapons in Scotland could be disarmed within days and removed within months. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I am glad to hear Scottish Nationalist Members cheering that. If they accept that analysis, it means that there will not be any dispute about the fundamentals; it will then be a question of political will.

We as a Committee have accepted the analysis of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that, with the co-operation of the Royal Navy and the UK Government, the process of disarming within days and removal within months could be both speedy and safe. Of course there would be consequences. We understand that it is likely to mean the unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United Kingdom, which I notice SNP Members have also cheered, because the construction of facilities elsewhere would take up to 25 years or so.

An insistence upon the speediest possible removal of nuclear weapons from a separate Scotland would obviously have consequences for other negotiations taking place at about the time of separation. Trident is the elephant in the room. It is likely to be the single most expensive item under discussion, and would spill over into all the rest of the dialogue, debate and discussion. The hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey), a former Defence Minister, whose presence in the Chamber today we welcome, gave us clear and explicit evidence of that. The conclusion of our summary, therefore, was that we wanted the UK Government and the Scottish Government to come clean with people in Scotland as quickly as possible about the consequences of separation and the removal of Trident. The onus now lies on the SNP and the Scottish Government to tell us the timetable that they intend to apply.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his contribution so far. As he is aware, Trident is one of the systems based at Faslane. There are different views, which the Committee has no doubt heard, of how many jobs are directly reliant on Trident, but we also have seven Astute class submarines, eight Sandown class minehunters and the administrative headquarters at Faslane. Has he had any indication from the Scottish Government which parts they would wish realistically to retain?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davidson]

The Committee took the view that there was a possibility of relocation elsewhere in the United Kingdom, not just in England. Locations in Wales were also mentioned. Francis Tusa, editor of Defence Analysis, was perhaps most optimistic about how to do that. He pointed out helpfully that the loading facility at Coulport, which unloads nuclear weapons and so on, is a floating dock. By definition, it floats, so it could presumably be moved, and the facility would not require complete rebuilding in the way that those of us who had not realised that a floating dock floated had assumed. The matter might not be as difficult as it appears, but we are not experts, and it might turn out that that cannot be done, in which case the parameter would change, but it is clear that if it were relocated that would take 20 to 25 years.

[Katy Clark]

I am incredibly interested in what my hon. Friend is saying. My understanding is that one difficulty is storage, because at the moment a hill or a mountain is used. One proposal seems to be to rebuild such a mountain elsewhere in England or Wales. Did the Committee receive evidence on that ?

[Mr Davidson]

We visited the storage facility, which is indeed built into the side of a hill, but, with respect, it is not the only hill in the United Kingdom. There are hills and mountains in quite a lot of locations in the United Kingdom. The search for hills is not the main constraint, and several locations were identified.

The matter can be split into different parts. One is the submarines, and we believe that their maintenance could probably be done in places such as Devonport, where there are enough bays and so on. The warhead element is slightly more complex and there are two issues. One is loading and a floating dock; the other is storage. There is storage at Coulport, but I understand—we were not told much—that weapons are not held there for an enormously long time. They are polished and whatever at Aldermaston, then moved to the hill, which is rather Hobbit-like, and then loaded on to submarines. They are not kept there for an enormously long time. It would be possible to store them at Aldermaston or elsewhere, although the journey would be longer and less convenient in many ways and perhaps less safe, but that would be for the Ministry of Defence and the UK Government to determine.

Our view was that that could be done. It would take a long time and it would be expensive. Professor Walker of St Andrews university helpfully said, “Don’t ask me to put a figure on it. I have no idea at all, but certainly it would be billions of pounds.” Francis Tusa thought it would be much less and said, “I have seen reports that it would cost £50 million. No, it wouldn’t. It would cost much less.” The then Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for North Devon, pointed out that a recent upgrade of the facilities at Faslane had cost £3.5 billion. That was just for an upgrade, so presumably the cost of replacing it would be much higher. We then come back to the extent to which that would form a major part of the dialogue between the Scottish and UK Governments after a separation decision.

I have touched on France and the United States. The other alternative we looked at was maintaining a United Kingdom base in a separate Scotland, similar to the Holy Loch base that the United States had, and the United Kingdom’s sovereign territory in Cyprus. That would have to be negotiated in the spirit of the Edinburgh agreement, which would require best endeavours on both sides.

The matter is not as straightforward as it seems because obviously not just the base would have to be secure. Access and so on would have to be secure, and a substantial amount of water would have to be UK sovereign territory, at least during the period when submarines were leaving. There could be an interesting situation if the Scottish Government instructed Strathclyde police to beat back protestors from outside a UK-owned and maintained Faslane base. The situation could be quite complicated, and not one that the Scottish Government would want.

If a Scottish Government wanted to join NATO, they would have to be part of a nuclear alliance. The compromises that that might involve have not been fully explored. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments must be much clearer about such matters, particularly the relationship with NATO. The Scottish Government have indicated that they are enthusiastic about the concept of joint air bases with the RAF and the Scottish air force sharing facilities. The Ministry of Defence and others have said that there is an issue of control, and if the UK Government wanted to bomb somewhere that the Scottish Government did not want them to bomb, would they have a sovereign right to do so, or would the Scottish Government be able to block the runway?

Joint and shared bases are complicated, and even more so if there were any suggestion that that would be applied to a nuclear base. We took the view that that was a dead end, and that a shared base on Scottish territory or a UK sovereign base on Scottish territory were not runners. We will wait to hear from the Ministry of Defence and the Government in due course, when the Scottish National party has made its proposals.