Nuclear Deterrent

Part of Business of the House – in the House of Commons at 4:40 pm on 17 January 2013.

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Photo of Bernard Jenkin Bernard Jenkin Chair, Public Administration Committee, Chair, Public Administration Committee 4:40, 17 January 2013

I commend Mike Gapes, who has just made a powerful contribution to the debate, and my hon. Friend Dr Lewis for securing it. I congratulate the Minister on delivering a model speech, which in a short time went through all the key arguments that justify the Government’s spending the money.

We need to lay more emphasis not just on how we might imagine the weapons system could be deployed but on the fact that it is in use every single day, shaping the global security environment that we enjoy today. It is no coincidence that the advent of nuclear weapons on the international scene has led to the longest period of peace among the superpowers and major powers of the world that we have ever seen.

War between super-states is now unthinkable because of nuclear weapons. That is rather a good thing and certainly an argument for our maintaining our inherited role of acting as a major democratic, friendly, benign, positive influence in global affairs, with our international role enhanced by nuclear weapons.

The issue is the sort of country that we are and that we want to continue to be. We are a country with global reach, global influence, global interests and the ability to enhance global security—not just for the world as a whole, but for the security of our own people.

Were we, irresponsibly, simply to dispose of our nuclear capability, we would be upsetting a balance that we may not even understand. We are down to fewer than 200 nuclear warheads. China, which has been mentioned, is increasing its number of warheads pretty dramatically with two new intercontinental ballistic missile systems and a new submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missile system. Russia, with its thousands and thousands of warheads—far more than it could possibly want—is building new nuclear weapons systems and new nuclear submarines for the delivery of those systems. We are not living in a world that is disarming, despite the incredibly generous gestures that our country has made. The next move downwards is not for us, but for others. If others will not make those moves, we must continue to guarantee our security and that of our allies.

I end on one fundamental point. Much is being made of the cost of Trident. I respect the view of those who over the years have been proved wrong but nevertheless carry on with their campaign to disarm our nuclear weapons. However, nothing is less honest than the idea that there is some cheaper system that will maintain the deterrent effect of our nuclear weapons or that somehow our current weapons system is vastly overspecified because of the Moscow criterion, to which completely obscure and mad reference has been made. That has nothing to do with the capability that we deploy today. It is totally irrelevant and a means of spreading disinformation about the credibility of our system so that the Liberal Democrats can get rid of our nuclear weapons system.

The Liberal Democrats know that there is no cheaper system. Just how cheap is it? It represents 0.1% of GDP over the lifetime of the system. I challenge anybody to produce any defence expenditure that can produce so much global influence.