Missile Defence

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:18 pm on 15 January 2003.

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Photo of Geoff Hoon Geoff Hoon Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence 1:18, 15 January 2003

I appreciate the sincerity with which my hon. Friend puts his case, but I would invite him to consider this point. He says that missile defence might unwittingly add to proliferation, but it will be developed to protect democracies. It will be developed to protect the United States, the United Kingdom and members of the NATO alliance—a fundamental prerequisite of which is that its members should be democratic societies. My hon. Friend is saying that if we do not develop missile defence to protect those democracies, we will be relying on countries such as Iraq or North Korea—neither of which could remotely be described as democracies at present—not to threaten the United Kingdom. If I went to my hon. Friend's constituency and discussed those issues with his constituents, I am pretty sure on which side of the line they would fall, because I suspect that they are not greatly dissimilar to my own. They would say, XWhy shouldn't you protect us against the kind of threat that could come from countries like North Korea and Iraq?" With the greatest possible respect to my hon. Friend, I do not think they would say that those countries could be relied on not to develop a threat to the United Kingdom and its citizens.