Trident

Part of Point of Order – in the House of Commons at 2:46 pm on 14 March 2007.

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Photo of Jon Trickett Jon Trickett Labour, Hemsworth 2:46, 14 March 2007

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"notes the Government's decision, as set out in the White Paper The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent (Cm 6994), to take the steps necessary to maintain the UK minimum strategic nuclear deterrent beyond the life of the existing system and to take further steps towards meeting the United Kingdom's disarmament responsibilities under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but believes that the case is not yet proven and remains unconvinced of the need for an early decision."

In the few minutes that I have I want to tackle a number of arguments. I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend Nigel Griffiths for the friendship that he showed to Back Benchers in his recent post and more particularly for the friendship that he showed to miners waiting for compensation in my constituency and throughout the country. He was a good friend to the miners and did a huge amount of work during those years. He is now tempting the House into, in effect, an immediate unilateralist position. I want to argue that there is no reason for us to proceed immediately in that direction.

First, I want to remind Members of exactly what these weapons are, because that seems to have been forgotten. They are the most destructive instruments that mankind has ever been able to create. The Nagasaki bomb killed 140,000 human beings. The weapons that we have now have eight times that capacity. There is the capacity to kill—to fry, in effect—1 million people with the explosion of a single device. Our submarines have the capacity to deliver 48 of those. We are talking about a huge destructive capacity—an awesome capacity—which we must all think very carefully about. It is that thought that leads me to the position that I have adopted and to the argument that I want to try to develop in the few minutes that I have at my disposal.

It seems to me that the Secretary of State made little of what is, in a way, the most important point, which is that the debate is taking place this afternoon thanks to the Government's finding the time. I pay due respect to the Government and to the Secretary of State for the good-spirited way in which the debate has been handled. But, frankly, the arguments that have been deployed are specious. I want to look at three of them.

The first argument is about unilateralism. A straw man has been erected in relation to the amendments in the names of 113 Members. It has been argued that, somehow or other, a unilateral decision has been suggested. The fact of the matter is that the only unilateralists in the House are those who are arguing for unilateral rearmament now. What I would like to see, as I am sure many hon. Members would, is a period of time during which we can get the arguments right and enter a process of multilateral discussions, possibly leading to a round of disarmament, under the NPT, which we are legally obliged to undertake—