Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The Government will cross-departmentally set out their proposals on the diamond jubilee in the near future. The House will be informed in the usual way.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), exactly how are the public supposed to maintain confidence in our programme to replace the Trident deterrent when the president of one of the governing parties is apparently given carte blanche to cheer up his battered activists by telling them it probably will not go ahead at all?

[Dr Fox]

The coalition agreement made it very clear that the Liberal Democrats within the coalition would be free to advocate alternatives to the replacement programme. The overall Government policy remains the replacement of the Trident programme however, and, as I said earlier today, the best solution for the United Kingdom is a submarine-based, continuously-at-sea, minimum-credible nuclear deterrent that protects the UK while contributing to overall reductions in international nuclear arsenals.