Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference

Debate between John Spellar and Paul Flynn

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I believe that this debate is about to take a turn that we have not seen in recent years. It has been very difficult to discuss Trident in this Parliament. Although I hope and will do all I can to make sure that colleagues in my party in Scotland are re-elected, the message I see day after day is that we are likely to have a group of people here who have put the ending of Trident at the top of their agenda. That will be a very significant change in this place. The suggested alternative of a grand coalition, if it went ahead, would not include many Labour Members.

The cost of Trident is £100 billion over its lifetime. Last week, a £5 billion increase in the cost of the clean-up in Sellafield was announced. On the same day, the news that we had sold our share of Eurostar was given headline treatment. It was sold for a seventh of the increase in the cost of the clean-up of Sellafield. The cost of clearing up the waste from Sellafield, mostly from the weapons we have created, will eventually cost more than £100 billion. These are vast costs. If we have in the new Parliament a phalanx of Members who put a very high priority on the elimination of Trident, we will have a public debate. I believe that that public debate will have a very significant effect.

[Mr Spellar]

Yet again, my hon. Friend repeats the £100 billion figure. Would he mind telling us how much a year that actually represents?

[Paul Flynn]

Taken over the period, I have given the accepted figure. I am not going into the details. I know the arguments, but the figure is realistic. The costs are enormous, but for the waste it is even greater. Forget about the cost of Trident, just concentrate on the cost of the clean-up that is going on at the moment. The clean-up of Sellafield has just been nationalised by the Government. The Labour Government actually privatised it some seven years ago.

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), who I heard on “Desert Island Discs” say that her greatest regret in a very distinguished parliamentary career—I had the great honour of being part of her team with Robin Cook in the late ’80s on the different subject of social security—was that progress has not been made on nuclear disarmament. I think there is a mistaken impression that there are those who believe in getting rid of all weapons overnight. That has never been the aim of the anti-nuclear movement. The aim has been to progress towards countries reducing their stockpiles and reducing the risks, until eventually there are probably just two nations possessing nuclear weapons: America and Russia. I believe that is the likely way ahead.

The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has been making speeches on this subject for many years. I believe he is in a state where he ignores from his calculations the existence of the United States and regards us as the key player. That is only right if we believe we are back in the gunship days of the 19th century. If there is an attack on the Baltic states, they will not come looking for us to defend them; they will look towards the United States. The NATO countries met in my constituency in September. Of those 28 nations, how many are nuclear powers? Just three of them. The rest are not. The belief that we must punch above our weight—a hangover from Victorian times—has done us much damage. We did it in Iraq and Helmand. We punched above our weight, spent beyond our interests and died beyond our responsibilities.

I received a letter today from the Minister about the event on Friday to recall the heroism of those who died in Afghanistan, saying we had to be grateful to them because they reduced the threat of terrorism in Britain. No they did not—our being in Iraq and Helmand increased the terrorist threat. We did not get rid of the Muslim bodies threatening us; we multiplied them. We went from small organisations in one or two countries to a threat in many countries throughout the world. I was once expelled from the House for saying that Ministers were not telling the truth when they said to our soldiers, “Go to Afghanistan and you will stop bombs coming to the streets of Britain.” It was never true. It was never true when Tony Blair said he was going into Iraq to stop terrorism.

We have this whole mismatch—this idea that the threats in the world can be held back by nuclear weapons—but the threats are very different. We cannot hold back terrorism with nuclear weapons. We cannot hold back global warming with nuclear weapons. We cannot provide clean water to our planet with nuclear weapons.

Afghanistan and Pakistan

Debate between John Spellar and Paul Flynn

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Spellar]

That is certainly to be encouraged, but Tehran will have a degree of involvement. It has a Persian minority within Afghanistan, it is a significant power within the region and it suffers considerably from the impact of the drugs trade on its own population. It will thus have to be engaged in its own interest.

[Paul Flynn]

My right hon. Friend will recall that when we went into Afghanistan, one of the reasons for doing so that we heard from the Dispatch Box was that Afghanistan provided 90% of the heroin coming into Britain. Will he remind us what percentage of heroin comes to this country from Afghanistan after the sacrifice of 375 British lives?

[Mr Spellar]

Still far too much, but I think my hon. Friend would also recognise the role of the Taliban in that trade and the money they obtain from it to fund their activities. As I point out again in this context, it is in the interest of the wider world and in the particular interests of the regional powers to act along the lines I mention and the regional powers obviously need to be engaged in the process.

Let me deal now with the Select Committee report. There has understandably been a debate about the decision to announce a deadline for British combat withdrawal by 2014 and about the manner in which it was taken. This features quite strongly in the report and was obviously the subject of the Prime Minister’s statement today, which was welcomed by the Leader of the Opposition.

I have to say, however, that the Government’s response was, frankly, inadequate—almost embarrassing—and if I were a member of the Select Committee, I would have been rather insulted by such an inadequate response to the very significant questions that it posed. The Select Committee might well want to pursue these at a future date. It reads very much as a “seat of the pants”, “top of the head”, “don’t bore me with the details” response.

Let us examine the Government’s response to paragraphs 156 and 157, which makes it clear that the 2014 decision was not made by the Cabinet or even the National Security Council. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham quoted from it earlier. The decision

“was made by the Prime Minister following discussions with a number of senior Ministers”.

It is not even clear whether those discussions took place collectively or individually. Obviously, in this context, sofa government is alive and well.

Nowhere in their response do the Government answer the Select Committee’s questions about what advice they had received from the military before the decision, and we consider that a significant omission. Equally unclear—especially in the context of the many references today to our engagement with the United States—is the answer to the question asked in the Select Committee about what consultation the United Kingdom had had with the United States. I do not know whether there has been any subsequent communication from the Government to the Committee on the subject, but the reply given on May 2011 did not match the significant questions that the Committee had posed. That is no way to run a war, and it is certainly no way to treat a Select Committee.

Further questions arise from today’s statement by the Prime Minister. First, it is clear that a dozen helicopters were ordered by the previous Secretary of State. The current Secretary of State, when he was the Opposition spokesman, raised the issue regularly—according to an estimate by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), about 161 times—before the general election. Now he has put the order on hold. Given that the Prime Minister has committed British forces to two more fighting seasons, will the Government activate this order immediately? I gave the Minister notice of that question. I hope that he has a reply, not only for me but for the House, and, more important, for the troops.

Secondly, the Prime Minister announced a continuing military relationship with Afghanistan, and stressed that it would not involve a combat role for our troops. We have to ask—and the military too will seek an answer to this question—how force protection will be provided, and by whom it will be provided. We must also think again about the dangers of mission creep.

Because I want to give the Minister time to respond, I will end my speech now. The role of the Opposition in these matters is to support the national interest and, in particular, to take a long-term view of the issues and support our armed forces. However, on behalf of the country and our troops, we must also hold the Minister and the Government to account for their performance, and we look forward to the Minister’s reply to the questions that he has been asked.