UK's Nuclear Deterrent

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are lessons. Some people suggest to us that we shou...

I offer the Prime Minister many congratulations on her election. Will she be reassured that whate...

I commend the hon. Gentleman for the words that he has just spoken. He is absolutely right. The n...

I add my congratulations to the right hon. Lady in her new role. If keeping and renewing our nucl...

No, I do not accept that at all. I have to say to the hon. Lady that, sadly, she and some Labour ...

Of course, when SNP Members go through the Lobby tonight, 58 of Scotland’s 59 MPs will be voting ...

I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that that means that 58 of the 59 Scottish Members of Parliam...

I thank the Prime Minister for giving way and congratulate her on her appointment. She mentioned ...

I say that it is not a choice. This country needs to recognise that it faces a variety of threats...

rose—

I would like to make a little progress before I take more interventions.

I know that there ...

May I congratulate the Prime Minister on her surefootedness in bringing this motion before the Ho...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for the support that he and his coll...

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on becoming Prime Minister. Will she confirm that, when the La...

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course, the last Labour Government held votes in this ...

rose—

I am going to make some progress. North Korea is the only country in the world to have tested nuc...

Last year, the then Minister for Defence Procurement, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), said...

I am happy to do so. If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish this section of my speec...

I wonder whether the Prime Minister, with her very busy schedule, caught the interview on Radio 5...

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I think he is right to point out that there are Oppos...

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for taking a second intervention. I asked her a simple questi...

I have given the figures for the cost of building the submarines. I am also clear that the in-ser...

The Prime Minister quite rightly paid tribute to our submariners. Will she also pay tribute to th...

The hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point. Our nuclear defence industry makes a majo...

I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place as Prime Minister. Does she agree with me that, like ...

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Some constituencies—obviously, Morecambe and Lunesda...

I will give way to the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), and then I wi...

I hope that the Prime Minister will come on to explain how a like-for-like replacement for Triden...

I will come on to the whole question of nuclear proliferation a little later, if the right hon. G...

Will the Prime Minister confirm for me and the House that the vast majority of the cost involved ...

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about jobs here in the United Kingdom, and it is also...

On the issue of jobs, there is a lot of steel in Successor submarines, so will the Prime Minister...

The hon. Gentleman might have noticed that the Government have looked at the Government procureme...

I was listening carefully to the question from the leader of the Scottish National party about co...

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend; he put that very well indeed.

Let me turn...

It is all very well looking at the cost of building and running the submarines, but the cost of i...

My hon. Friend makes a valid and important point, and this issue must be looked at in the round, ...

I congratulate the Prime Minister on her appointment. I shall be voting for the motion this eveni...

The answer to that is yes—we are very clear that we face different threats and need different cap...

I congratulate the Prime Minister on her new role, but let us cut to the chase: is she personally...

Yes. The whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to...

I am sure the Prime Minister is aware that Russia has 10 times the amount of tactical nuclear wea...

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. As I pointed out earlier, Russia is also modernising its nucle...

Will the Prime Minister give way?

I am going to make some more progress.

We play a leading role on disarmament verification, ...

May I start by welcoming the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and congratulating her on...

Is not the true cost the one we remember every Remembrance Sunday—the millions of lives we lost i...

We all remember, on Remembrance Sunday and at other times, those who lost their lives. That is th...

In the past, the Labour leader’s solution to a domestic security threat was to parley with the Pr...

Towards the end of her speech, the Prime Minister mentioned the nuclear non-proliferation treaty ...

How would the right hon. Gentleman persuade my thousands of Korean constituents that it is a good...

I, too, have Korean constituents, as do many others, and we welcome their work and participation ...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

No.

It is hardly surprising that in May 2009, an intense debate went on in the shadow Cabin...

As Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend will be privy to briefings from the National Se...

Britain, too, currently retains the right to first strike, so I would have thought that the best ...

I will not give way.

Indeed, at the last two nuclear non-proliferation treaty five-yearly r...

My right hon. Friend is speaking about previous party policy. At the shadow Cabinet meeting last ...

I thank my hon. Friend for his view. As he well knows, the party decided that it wanted to suppor...

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I will come to my hon. Friend in a moment.

Other countries have made serious efforts to bri...

Like me, my right hon. Friend stood in May 2015 on the basis of a party policy which had been agr...

My hon. Friend is well aware of what the policy was. He is also well aware that a policy review i...

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, a multilateral process is currently taking place at the Un...

I think it is a great shame that the Government do not attend those negotiations, and I wish they...

Order. Mr Shelbrooke, I want you to aspire to the apogee of statesmanship, but shrieking from a s...

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Can the Prime Minister confirm whether the UK will back the proposed...

We can all agree that nuclear weapons are truly the most repugnant weapons that have ever been in...

If this is all about controlling them, perhaps we should think for a moment about the obligations...

I am stunned to hear the argument that has just been made from the Tory Benches that we cannot di...

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have achieved the chemical weapons convention, a ban o...

My right hon. Friend is fond of telling us all that the party conference is sovereign when it com...

Party policy is also to review our policies. That is why we have reviews.

We also have to l...

rose—

Alright, I will give way—[Interruption.]

Order. I think the right hon. Gentleman has signalled an intention to take an intervention, but b...

Under the last Labour Government, because of our stand on supporting non-proliferation, as a nucl...

We did indeed help to reduce the number of nuclear warheads. Indeed, I attended a number of confe...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I am not going to give way any more, because I am up against the clock.

In case it is not o...

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

I apologise for having to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but we have a point of order.

I seek your guidance, Mr Speaker, on the accuracy of the language used by the Leader of the Oppos...

The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that it is up to each right hon. and hon. Member to read the ...

The issue of course is the submarines, but it is also the new weapons that will have to go into t...

Order. In accordance with usual practice, no time limit on Back-Bench speeches will apply until a...

I have often had the pleasure of debating this topic with the right hon. Member for Islington Nor...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am sorry. I normally like to take interventions, but I will not, because of the time pressu...

May I begin by joining the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister in their comments abou...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I will take an intervention from the Prime Minister, unless the hon. Gentleman can give us that n...

I was merely going to ask the right hon. Gentleman what would be the cost at which he would he su...

I will help the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues: there are no circumstances in which we would s...

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Forgive me. I was just mentioning my hon. Friend.

I thank my right hon. Friend for mentioning my husband who did fire the Trident missile. Not only...

My hon. Friend makes her point very well.

Still remaining on the consensual side of this im...

Let me dispose of this part of my speech. The updated figure is now £179 billion —these are the G...

I thank the hon. Gentleman. That is a very helpful intervention. I am not sure whether those numb...

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in response to a freedom of information request on the ful...

I suppose we should ask ourselves whether that “safe space” is the House of Commons. We are none ...

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I am summing up.

Today, almost every single Scottish MP will vote against renewing Trident ...

Order. Before I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I remind hon. Members that there...

Because I suspect that I may be the only person on the Conservative Benches to make the arguments...

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s remarks. He said that we have capped defence expendi...

indicated assent.

I see the Secretary of State for Defence nodding at my remarks.

My right hon. Friend is technically right, but it would be a triumph of hope over expectation tha...

The hon. Gentleman’s figure is now being used widely. I asked the House of Commons Library and va...

Yes, it is extremely straightforward. It is 6% of 2% of GDP on the basis of the Government’s prop...

It is a pleasure to follow that imaginative speech by the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt)...

I thank my friend for giving way. A nuclear deterrent also protects our soldiers in the field. Ma...

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Those who wish to eradicate nuclear weapons from the Unit...

That was one of the most courageous speeches I have heard during my time in the House.

I am...

I have listened with great interest to what the hon. Gentleman has said about the situation of nu...

There are many polls that conflict with the information that the hon. and learned Lady provides. ...

Will the hon. Gentleman tell us what role these nuclear weapons played in the catastrophes in Lib...

That was a totally ridiculous intervention, which is not worthy of a reply. The hon. Gentleman mi...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not take any more interventions.

We have to think through the recent conflicts i...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not give way.

The nature of regimes in a more dangerous world is what we need to...

Until three weeks ago, I anticipated that I would speak in this debate as Labour’s shadow armed f...

Mine too.

That is something else we have in common. I believe that both my parents were members of CND. I d...

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his speech. He will have heard, as I have done, the case that...

That is a very important point. In fact, the Government tried to come to precisely that conclusio...

I rise to support the motion, and I do so joylessly and with a heavy heart. Nobody can stand in a...

Before my hon. Friend speaks about those two crucial points, does he agree that the speech we hav...

My hon. Friend is right, and the speech by the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock)...

One lesson from history must be from Nye Bevan, who said as Foreign Secretary that he should not ...

The hon. Lady is right. I am enjoying the consensual nature of this debate—it is the House of Com...

I rise to support the motion. There are those who do not agree with my position, including in my ...

If time permits, I hope that my hon. Friend will mention an issue that affects a lot of my consti...

My hon. Friend is saying that the Labour tradition is to support our armed forces, and I totally ...

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to the debate.

I ...

The hon. Gentleman represents Plymouth. There has been a lot of debate about relocating Trident t...

Absolutely, I would support that move. I would love to have all the jobs that would come with tha...

I assure my hon. Friend that all of us who represent constituencies in the south-west would be mo...

Absolutely. We are proud of our naval heritage in the south-west—we are very proud of the people ...

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said earlier, there exists in Scot...

The SNP’s policy is for Scotland to be independent. If Scotland no longer had a nuclear deterrent...

As an independent sovereign nation, we would act as every other independent sovereign nation in t...

We have heard an awful lot about job losses in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Is that something t...

Job losses are a concern wherever they occur and whoever the Member is, but I can say that the SN...

It is a privilege to speak in a debate on one of the most essential issues that the House could d...

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). I am proud...

Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that the example he cites—the rise of Daesh—shows the sheer ab...

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has asked that question. Having set out the reason for the u...

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we do not have a bottomless pit or an inexhaustible supply of ...

That is a legitimate point and we have to make a legitimate choice. I support the Government’s ch...

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to explain SNP policy. Is he no...

Of course I am aware of it. Is the hon. and learned Lady aware of the fact that NATO has somethin...

rose—

I cannot give way anymore.

Jobs are, of course, another crucial aspect. Tens of thousands o...

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker), who has made not only a pa...

rose—

rose—

I appreciate that it was in their manifesto, but what of the bit of hypocrisy highlighted so ably...

Perhaps, given his in-depth knowledge of Scottish politics, the hon. Gentleman can explain my pre...

Order. I want to fit everyone in, and there are a great many SNP voices to be heard a little late...

I will move on to the next point, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My right hon. Friend the Defence Secre...

Does my hon. Friend agree that the use of huge figures in isolation is at best unhelpful and at w...

My hon. Friend is right. The cost of maintaining the nuclear deterrent on a year-on-year basis is...

Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, would he like to reconsider his comment that we were hypocri...

As was explained so ably by the hon. Member for Gedling, if a country is a member of NATO, it is ...

Some of the speeches that we have heard today have given me the feeling that the cold war is stil...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No.

It is absolutely beyond belief that, at a time of national tragedy, the first thing tha...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No. I think we have heard enough from the hon. Gentleman.

We need to think about how we act...

rose—

rose—

I will not take interventions. I am keen to make my speech as quickly as possible, because a numb...

We have been debating the issue of whether we should have an independent nuclear deterrent for 70...

To support what my hon. Friend has just said, if there had not been many conflicts going on in ot...

Of course I agree with that; I think that is a fact of history that is generally recognised. We h...

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech on the cost, and he is absolutely right of course that...

That is a powerful point, and I am not taking an absolutist position. I know that many Members do...

May I say at the outset that I was a multilateralist during the cold war? I supported the balance...

Can the hon. Gentleman please explain to the House what precise technical expertise he has to sug...

The UK leases the missiles from America, where they are made, maintained and tested. Our four sub...

I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and he is being very reasonable in his approach. ...

I have debated these issues with the right hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions and I respect ...

Margaret Thatcher and, I believe, Tony Benn used to say that there are no final victories in poli...

The hon. Gentleman is a defender of the idea of a nuclear deterrent and the deterrent effect. Doe...

Today, we are discussing the nuclear deterrent.

We have heard some curious arguments tonigh...

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like me, will have browsed through the business pages of The S...

The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible point. As I understand it, the Secretary of State is committe...

Surely the poisoning of Litvinenko and the annexation of Crimea happened despite our having nucle...

The point that I am making is that we cannot predict the future. We only have to look at the even...

On the subject of Russia’s actions, would not the annexation of territory on our continent have b...

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The past is a poor predictor of the future. Also, lookin...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way in the last 10 seconds of his speech. Is he aware of th...

rose—

Order. It will be obvious to the House that a great many people still wish to speak and that ther...

When I sit in the House of Commons, I talk to many Members who support Trident. I can tell them t...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No.

It is a well-rehearsed argument on deterrence that to prevent other nations from striki...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No.

We are locked in our cold war mentality of maintaining weapons to counter threats that ...

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan), even though I di...

Given that we have heard in the past that it was too dangerous to put the nukes in Devonport, as ...

Before the proposal for independence was rejected in the referendum, there was a debate about whe...

What the SNP wants is to be a member of NATO and for NATO to be nuclear-free. That would be the b...

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because it gives me the opportunity to expose s...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I apologise to my hon. Friend, but I will press on, given the time.

Although NATO depends o...

One of the great traditions of this House is that on matters of conscience, such as that before u...

My right hon. Friend and I both believe in a tradition of beating swords into ploughshares and sp...

I commend that Swedish programme. Like my hon. Friend, I stand here first and foremost as a Chris...

I have ended up following the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on several occasions, bu...

Does the hon. Gentleman have any concern for Scotland and does he know how many nuclear warheads ...

I am concerned about not just Scotland, but the rest of the world. Britain’s position in campaign...

rose—

Sorry, I have little time left.

Our approach to nuclear weapons has been measured and propo...

It is a sad irony that a week after the long-awaited Chilcot report highlighted the worrying exte...

Had the Scottish National party won the independence argument, what Army or Navy would it have to...

One must realise that, as an independent nation, we could provide the same support to NATO as eve...

Was it not the case in that last entry into our waters that the Ministry of Defence heard about i...

That could certainly be the case. I am sure that my hon. Friend is better informed on that point ...

It is an honour to be called in a debate of such national importance. For me, there is one compel...

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that we would have nuked Germany?

If we had the ability. The nuclear weapon is there for one thing only: to defend this country in ...

To take my hon. Friend back to the earlier intervention, it is a fact that both Germany and the a...

My right hon. Friend is right. I do not want to go back over the historic debate but there are th...

My hon. Friends the Members for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) and for Chesterfield (Toby Per...

I am a proud member of both the GMB and Unite trade unions and I stand here today to make the cas...

Should we not get this into some sort of perspective? By 2020 the UK’s stockpile of nuclear weapo...

My hon. Friend ably outlines the threat we really face.

The horrific attacks in Nice last w...

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I am not giving way.

Whole communities live their lives in the shadow of the shipyards and ...

Today’s vote and our decision about Trident are at the heart of what kind of future we want for o...

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No.

Right now, around 130 countries have endorsed a UN motion calling for a global ban trea...

Order.

8.7 pm

Last year, the Government produced their strategic defence and security review and the accompanyi...

Does my hon. Friend agree that, ultimately, the Government should prioritise their spending on in...

I do accept that, but it is fair to say that, in the SDSR, the Government did make significant mo...

So it is that I, as a democratic socialist, support every word of the motion before us in the nam...

Obviously the hon. Gentleman supports the renewal of Trident. Has he any idea why his colleagues ...

That is a matter for my friends in the Scottish Parliament.

It is the policy of the Labour ...

There is a little flaw in the hon. Gentleman’s argument. The SNP has 56 out of 59 seats here and ...

I commend the hon. Gentleman for that audacious and fundamentally incorrect intervention. I reall...

I am against the renewal of Trident for all the reasons that have been so ably laid out by my hon...

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I am going to carry on.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Steven Paterson) has...

rose—

Order. There can be only one Member on his feet at one time. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn...

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have lost a wee bit of time, but I will be as quick as I can.

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the spiralling cost, which is even more difficult to c...

I can only agree with my colleague. I was about to make a point about the vulnerability of the mi...

This debate is welcome, but I think that many Members will realise that it is not entirely necess...

Government Members seem to have the idea that we in the Scottish National party are against nucle...

I rise to support the motion. The Prime Minister said earlier that the first duty of a Government...

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I am sorry, I will not give way, because too many others want to speak.

Above all, the poli...

As we know, it was the famous post-war Labour Government who first acquired Britain’s nuclear det...

Will the hon. Lady give way?

No, I will not give way.

That is why both Unite and the GMB support the renewal of our subm...

I believe we should oppose the maintenance of the continuous at-sea deterrent. For me, the argume...

In the same statement, the mayor of Hiroshima called on us all to share the sincere message of th...

My hon. Friend makes a good case, and I agree with her.

Contemporary nuclear weapons are ca...

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. This issue has been framed as contentious, controversia...

I was elected by 15,000 voters with a 7,000 majority on a Labour manifesto in favour of Trident a...

I rise to speak in favour of the motion, for the following reasons. First, it is the policy on wh...

In November, the UK Government published the latest strategic defence and security review. At tha...

Too often today we have heard that Trident is classed as the ultimate deterrent. Yet the great wa...

Over our recent history, Parliament has held many debates about the decision to send our armed