Foreign Affairs and Defence

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir Menzies Campbell]

I am grateful to the Defence Secretary for that intervention, and for his undertaking.

I also wish to deal with the issue of Trident, to which I come as someone who has always been convinced of the utility of nuclear weapons and accepted the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. We have moved, of course, from mutually assured destruction, through flexible response, to minimum deterrence and weapons of last resort. In fact, the United Kingdom has a good history of nuclear disarmament. When I first took an interest in these matters, as long ago as 1988, we were still talking about nuclear depth charges, nuclear artillery shells and an air-to-surface missile with a nuclear warhead, and we still had free-fall bombs. All those have been dispensed with, so the UK has a solid record on these matters. However, it is illogical not to consider that Trident should be in the full-scale defence and security review. It is a strategic system being excluded from a strategic review, which does not seem to make sense.

The proposal contained in the coalition agreement is that Trident should be examined from the point of view of value for money. I do not believe that we can consider it in that way without considering whether it is required, and whether there are reasonable alternatives. The procurement cost of Trident is approximately £20 billion, and the through-life cost £100 billion, according to a recent estimate. There are those who claim that we can save £100 billion by cancelling Trident. We can, but only by the end of what would otherwise have been the period of the through-life costs. It is not an instant hit, as some have claimed.

The case for Trident’s inclusion in the review is overwhelming. How can we assess its value for money if we do not assess the possible alternatives? The questions that should be asked in that review, anchored in the notion of value for money, are whether it is possible to engage in such a way that there could be a further life extension of the existing system; whether it is possible that we can dispense with continuous at-sea deterrence, which essentially means patrols 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year; and whether it is possible that we could modify Astute submarines to carry Trident. There is already strong anecdotal evidence that work to that effect is being carried out in the Ministry of Defence.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?