Mr. Cranley Onslow (Woking)

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry that I have to raise this matter as a point of order. Perhaps it will help hon. Members who hope to take part in the debate to know that in the Vote Office there is a transcript of the evidence given by the Secretary of State when he appeared before the Select Committee on Defence on the subject of Trident. Hon. Members my obtain copies of that evidence.

I hope that some more routine way can be found to notify the House of matters such as this rather than the Chairman of the Committee having to raise it as a point of order at the start of the debate.

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. We must find another way, even if I have to announce it myself. There is no other way of giving the information to the House.

3.33 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. John Nott)

I beg to move, That this House endorses the Government's decision to maintain a strategic nuclear deterrent and to choose the Trident H (D5) missile system as the successor to the Polaris force.

Mr. Speaker

I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Nott

It was on 1 March 1955 that the then Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, opened the debate in the House which foreshadowed the development and production of the hydrogen bomb—and subsequently the creation of the first British strategic nuclear deterrent. He said then: We live in a period, happily unique in human history, when the whole world is divided intellectually and to a large extent geographically between the creeds of Communist discipline and individual freedom, and when, at the same time, this mental and psychological division is accompanied by the possession by both sides of the obliterating weapons of the nuclear age. He went on to say: It is now the fact that a quantity of plutonium, probably less than would fill this Box on the Table … suffice to produce weapons which would give indisputable world domination to any great Power which was the only one to have it. There is no absolute defence against the hydrogen bomb. … What ought we to do? Which way shall we turn to save our lives and the future of the world? It does not matter so much to old people; Churchill was then aged 80— they are going soon anyway, but I find it poignant to look at youth in all its activity and ardour and, most of all, to watch little children playing their merry games, and wonder what would lie before them if God wearied of mankind."—0fficial Report, 1 March 1955; Vol. 537, c. 1893–95.] All of us share a feeling of deep concern, even foreboding, about the future. All of us fear the idea of war, and, heaven forbid, of nuclear war. Imagination stands appalled. There can be no other aim but to preserve peace. But how? Every hon. Member of the House, I do not doubt, would choose balanced and verifiable disarmament as the sanest route to a safer world. We all seek to bring it about.

It is not necessary to be a pacifist or a unilateralist or a Socialist, if I may say so, to see the essential lunacy of two great Powers acquiring ever more efficient delivery systems, each of them armoured with multiple warheads, whose sole purpose is to deter the use of the strategic armoury of the other side. That is why we want START to begin at the earliest opportunity.

Nor, at the theatre level, can any security justification be perceived for the Soviets deploying 900 SS20 warheads—150 of them this year, in the last three months, when the modernisation of similar systems in Europe has not begun. This is lunacy as well. That is why the West has tabled the zero-option at Geneva—and why we stand by its objectives. But, lunatic or not, this is the world in which we live—and these are the realities that we are forced to contemplate while we strive for progress towards genuine two-sided disarmament that would sustain a balance of security on both sides of the divide.

Force and science, hitherto the servants of mankind, are now threatening to become his master. We cannot arrest the advance of knowledge, and who can say, 20 or 30 years from now, what fool, what knave, what lunatic, will threaten our children and our grandchildren with these weapons? Our overriding duty, while protecting the security of our own people, is to strive towards genuine multilateral disarmament. We cannot shuffle off all responsibility for our people's future by the futile gesture of renunciation.

In this debate we are discussing matters of the utmost importance for the future security of this country; matters which are the heaviest responsibility that any Government have to bear. Our horror at the power of these nuclear weapons must, indeed, inform our discussion, but it must not prevent us from facing the issues and discussing them methodically.

The motion before the House refers to the Government's determination to maintain a credible independent strategic deterrent, and to our decision that the Trident II (D5) missile carried in a new generation of British-built submarines is the best way of doing so, from the mid-1990s on. Our determination rests on three propositions. We believe that it is essential to the security of the United Kingdom that we retain a strategic nuclear deterrent. We believe that a submarine-launched ballistic missile is the only effective way to ensure that credibility into the twenty-first century. Finally, on the evidence available to us, we believe that the Trident II (D5) missile system is the most cost-effective way of ensuring our deterrent needs when Polaris ceases to be credible.

Let me turn, therefore, to the first proposition: that we should maintain the unbroken continuity of our independent deterrent which stretches back to the V-bomber force in the 1950s, to Polaris today, and, we propose, to Trident in the 1990s and beyond.

Mr. Denzil Davies (Llanelli)

The motion does not refer to an independent strategic nuclear deterrent. Is that an oversight or is it intentional?

Mr. Nott

I shall come in a moment to whether it is fully independent.

No one in the House has any quarrel with the Russian people. My reading of their history leads me to the belief that the Russians are a brave nation who have suffered more than their fair share of human exploitation through the ages. I hope that one day the Russian people will be our allies, just as the Germans are today.

Our quarrel is not with the Russian people, who have no say. Our quarrel is with a hostile ideology that holds a contempt for human freedom, and with a Communist dictatorship that has the apparent will to impose that ideology by force of arms on others.

Even if we do not believe that the present ageing Russian leadership, with personal memories of 20 million Soviet dead, would willingly embark upon some exploit which might expose its citizens to another war of hideous attrition—or least of all to the devastation of a nuclear exchange—we can have no such confidence about a Communist succession and its perceptions.

Who can tell whether tomorrow's Communist leaders might not be prepared to use the awesome power that they now possess to further their beliefs or divert their restless people from a multitude of problems which a crumbling Soviet empire could so easily bring in train? I think that we are bound to judge even today's Soviet leadership not so much by its well-advertised desire for peace as by its actions.

The history of Eastern Europe since the war—Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the murderous destruction of millions of Soviet citizens by Stalin, and further afield in Angola, Ethiopia, South Yemen and Afghanistan—suggests that the present Communist leadership is prepared to promote its interests by any means when it calculates that it can safely get away with doing so. I see no evidence at all to suggest that the leaders of the Soviet Union respect anything but strength or that they will negotiate seriously if they believe they can retain superiority by manipulating the Western peace movement to achieve their ends.

Rather before my time, but within the experience of the Leader of the Opposition, I am mindful that another godless and authoritarian regime in the 1920s and 1930s gave ample warning by its deeds and by its ideology of what it meant to do. It too did not hesitate to translate its idealogy into action, despite the efforts of others to appease it, primarily because of their sincere abhorrence of war. At that time, 10 million people in this country signed the peace petition, yet hundreds of thousands of them died defending freedom when the ink was hardly dry.

Today, although the memories of that war are fading, and are without the experience of half our nation, we still subscribe to NATO, to prevent such horror happening again—and we use the word "deterrence" in rather general terms to describe the policies of NATO to which, I believe, all political parties in this House subscribe.

But deterrence is not a policy only to prevent the threat of nuclear attack; it also relates to the more easily conceivable threat of the use of any military force, including nuclear blackmail, as an instrument of political aggression. Its purpose is to prevent a ruthless military power using its superiority, either nuclear or conventional, as a political instrument to play upon the sense which others feel of the evils and horrors of war.

To understand NATO's policy—the policy of deterrence—we have to place ourselves in the position and in the mind of an aggressor. Planning deterrence means thinking through the possible reasoning of an adversary, doing this in his terms and not in ours, and allowing for how he might think in future circumstances, not just in today's. It rests, as on a chessboard, on blocking off in advance a variety of possible moves in an opponent's mind.

In thinking through the policy we have to ask ourselves these questions. Would our conventional forces deter if only the other side, and not we, had access to theatre nuclear weapons? Of course not. How would we, even were we to possess conventional superiority, resist attack or political blackmail by his theatre nuclear weapons? In the eyes of the blackmailer or the aggressor, we would have no credible response to a nuclear threat.

Further up the scale of conflict, would theatre nuclear weapons actually deter if only the other side, and not we, had access to strategic nuclear missiles? Of course not. How could we, even if we were to possess theatre nuclear weapons, resist the threat of the annihilation of our homes and cities when he knew that we did not possess a capability to respond in kind? A threat by us in such circumstances to use theatre nuclear weapons would be seen by him as an incredible gesture because he, and not we, could escalate the response beyond our means to respond.

Ultimately, deterrence in the face of nuclear weapons has to rest on the possession of an indestructible second strike capability, so that at no level of attack would the aggressor possess the power to blackmail us into surrender. That is why the communiqué from last week's NATO nuclear planning group, supported by 13 countries, noted the continuing build-up by the Soviet Union of its strategic forces, and in that connection supported the determination of the United States and the United Kingdom to ensure the deterrent capabilities of their strategic nuclear forces which are of fundamental importance to the Alliance's strategy. Strategic nuclear forces remain the ultimate guarantee of NATO security.

Mr. Frank Allaun (Salford, East)

Is not there a flaw in the right hon. Gentleman's argument? He is saying that the Soviet nuclear weapons justify and necessitate NATO's nuclear weapons such as Trident, cruise missiles and the vast increase in arms spending? If we proceed along that course, will not the Soviet Government say exactly the same? Will not they say "We must further increase our nuclear weapons to keep up with the West"? Thus neither side will be any step further forward, but both will be bankrupting their economies.

Mr. Nott

I was not referring, in what I had just said, to the numbers of strategic nuclear missiles in the world today. I am greatly in favour of the strategic arms reduction talks, and I hope that they will succeed. I was referring to the fact that to possess a theatre nuclear capability, but not a strategic nuclear capability that is invulnerable to attack, would not make the nuclear theatre capability a credible threat, because the other side would be able to escalate beyond our capability to respond.

That brings me to the reason for an exclusive British contribution to NATO strategic forces, which I think is the point that the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) was asking about. It seems to me to be central to the motion.

First, while we have every confidence in the American strategic guarantee, again we have to look at Soviet perceptions. It is possible that, at some time in the future, in circumstances that are very different from those prevailing now, a Soviet leadership might calculate, however mistakenly, that it could risk or threaten a massive nuclear attack on Europe without involving the strategic forces of the United States.

If the Soviets are ever tempted to make such a horrendous miscalculation, the existence of an immensely powerful nuclear force in independent British hands, supporting our conventional forces based in Germany, will be an enormously complicating factor and a powerful argument for Soviet caution.

It is for this reason that, in addition to the collective alliance's endorsement of our decision to opt for Trident, several of our European partners—notably the Government of the Federal Republic—have individually made it clear to us that they welcome our intention to maintain a credible strategic deterrent fully committed to NATO.

The second reason for an exclusively British strategic deterrent is that, in the last resort, Great Brtain must be responsible for her own defences. She cannot shuffle them off on another nuclear power. After 30 years with a nuclear capability, if we abandon nuclear weapons on moral grounds, we would deal a devastating blow to NATO—which depends for its collective security on the nuclear deterrent. We would be abrogating all responsibility for our own security which would be protected only by the existence of the United States' nuclear umbrella that we had refused to support. To renounce our own nuclear weapons and then shelter under the American umbrella would have neither moral nor political merit, and it would leave the French, our immediate neighbour, as the only European nuclear power. I notice that in a foreign affairs debate on 5 November 1981, the official then foreign affairs spokesman for the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), said: I have often said that strontium 90 does not respect conference resolutions or declarations of neutrality."—[Official Report, 5 November 1981; Vol. 12, c. 136.] Indeed, strontium 90 would be just as powerful launched or delivered on our French neighbours as on these islands.

Mr. Denzil Davies

The right hon. Gentleman says, if I understand him correctly, that it is important that the Soviet Union should perceive that Britain has its own nuclear weapon if it feels—perhaps wrongly—that the United States will not come to the defence of Europe. If it is so important that the Soviet Union should perceive our independence, I repeat my question: why not say "independent strategic nuclear deterrent".

Mr. Nott

The right hon. Gentleman has asked the same question twice.—[Interruption.] I do not have to answer every question in the opening sentences of my speech. I am coming to that issue. Perhaps I might be allowed to develop my argument. As I said, we would be abrogating all responsibility for our security if we gave up an independent deterrent and were to be protected only by the existence of the United State's nuclear umbrella, which we have refused to support.

Could it be, then, we should choose the renunciation of an independent strategic capability because of cost? Is cost to be the determinant of British independence? Are we to forgo our own defence against nuclear oppression and nuclear blackmail because 3 per cent. of our defence budget is just too much to bear? Of course all my Cabinet colleagues—and my defence advisers—would have liked to find a cheaper way of sustaining a credible strategic capability beyond the 1990s—but none exists, as any incoming Administration would discover, and the most expensive system of them all is one that fails to deter.

There can be no question of delaying any longer a decision on the modernisation of Polaris, with the lead times involved in building a later generation of submarine. By the mid-1990s the Polaris submarines will be noisy—and much easier to detect—and very difficult to maintain in operational order. We did, of course, examine a host of other options, including the submarine-launched cruise missile, but for many reasons we concluded that both on grounds of submarine and missile vulnerability, it had none of the necessary attributes of a credible strategic system.

During the questions following my statement on 11 March, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Sir H. Fraser) suggested that we were acquiring the weapon of a super power. Perhaps we are, but the threat that we face comes from a super power, our submarines must be capable of surviving against super power technology, and the defences that we have to penetrate are those of a super power. Given probable Soviet anti ballistic missile developments—even within the ABM Treaty—the Polaris missile with the Chevaline warhead is unlikely to be credible beyond the 1990s. I repeat that the most expensive system of them all is the one that fails to deter.

Sir Frederick Burden (Gillingham)

Is my right hon. Friend convinced that the new submarines that will carry the Trident weapon will be as silent as the Russian submarines, which are propelled by diesel electric means? If so, surely there is a threat from that source?

Mr. Nott

We have a substantial lead in submarine technology over the Soviet Union. The choice of the new submarines that we made is heavily influenced by the need to keep that 10-year lead in submarine technology, and so we will.

Mr. A. E. P. Duffy (Sheffield, Attercliffe)

The Secretary of State mentioned the intervention of his right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Sir H. Fraser) in his last statement to the House about acquiring the weaponry of a super power. His right hon. Friend also asked him about the effect of such an acquisition of super weapons on our conventional defence forces. Will he now say a word about that?

Mr. Nott

I shall do so right now.

In the open Government document I published, for the first time, a chart showing defence equipment expenditure up to 1995 on our major roles. No doubt, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) has seen that. Our planned expenditure on the strategic nuclear deterrent, if it were instead to be spread over many conventional capabilities, would not represent more than a marginal increment in those conventional forces which will anyhow obtain 97 per cent. of defence expenditure over that period—and more, if there is growth in the defence budget after 1985–86.

Of course, I and all my defence advisers would like more frigates. As Secretary of State for Defence, I should like more tanks and aircraft. However, all of us, including the Chiefs of Staff, are unanimous in the view that a strategic nuclear capability takes precedence over an increase in such forces. Even a massive conventional force has no ultimate value in a nuclear environment unless the possessor of those conventional forces can resist strategic nuclear blackmail by the other side.

Mr. Robert C. Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne, West)

It seems to me that in the last five minutes the Secretary of State has been peddling the most dangerous mythology that we can defend this country in isolation. Surely collective defence within the NATO alliance is the only way in which we can defend ourselves? It is a dangerous mythology that he puts about to say that we can defend ourselves in isolation.

Mr. Nott

I made it clear earlier that all our NATO allies, all 13 countries in NATO of every political persuasion, fully support our decision to maintain a strategic nuclear capability. It is part of the collective defence of freedom. The NATO Nuclear Planning Group said in its communiqué that it regarded a strategic capability as vital. If there is a myth here, I can only say that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West (Mr. Brown), both as a Back Bencher and as a Minister, has supported that myth for many years.

Mr. Keith Speed (Ashford)

Will my right hon. Friend answer this riddle, which is worrying many people: how can we apparently afford £8, 000 million to meet a threat in 13 years' time, which may possibly be true, when we cannot afford £3 million to keep HMS "Endurance" on patrol to meet a threat that is facing us today?

Mr. Nott

I do not intend to get involved in a debate about the Falkland Islands now. These issues are too important to be diverted into a discussion on HMS "Endurance". In any event, as my hon. Friend knows, expenditure on Trident will be extremely small in the next few years.

The arguments in favour of our retaining an independence nuclear deterent rest, of course, upon the force being truly independent. Independence means control. Although it has been stated many times before, I repeat again to the House that the Polaris force now, as with the Trident force in the 1990s, is entirely under the control of the British Prime Minister; the release of any nuclear weapon would be wholly within the power of Her Majesty's Government—and the Soviet leadership knows it to be so.

We are in no way dependent upon the United States for communications, targeting, or any other matter relating to the day-to-day operations of the force. It is unquestionably an independent force. We cetainly have the technical ability to build a successor missile of our own, as indeed the French have done. We chose not to do so purely on the ground of cost. A sudden withdrawal of support facilities could, after a year or two, begin to have an effect on the servicing of the Trident missile, although the D5 missile will have a much longer in-tube life that the Polaris missile. We would, therefore, have the time to provide our own replacement facilities, albeit at considerable cost.

Mr. Julian Critchley (Aldershot)

Is it not a fact that if the Americans withdrew support facilities for the Polaris fleet it would remain operational for nine months, and if they withdrew support facilities for the Trident fleet it would remain operational for 24 months?

Mr. Nott

That is not the case. My hon. Friend is referring to the stocks of spares that we carry at any given time. If arrangements with the United States are severed—I see no prospect of the United States breaking an agreement between our two countries—it is true that after a year or two we would have to provide components from our own productive resources. We could do that, but it would be costly.

Mr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East)

The central reason why Trident II (D5) represents such a massive escalation of the nuclear arms race is that it is designed to destroy Soviet missiles in hardened silos. It is a counterforce weapon and, therefore, a first strike weapon. That is a massive escalation over Trident I (C4). Will the Minister face that issue?

Mr. Nott

Of course, it is embodied in the Opposition amendment and I shall refer to that point.

The amendment accuses the Government, among other things, of escalating the arms race—the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang)—and of showing contempt for the INF negotiations in Geneva and the United Nations Special Session on Disarmament. These are fine-sounding phrases, but hardly borne out by the facts.

Taking first the United Nations Special Session on Disarmament, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister hopes to attend this, just as the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) did in 1978 while his Government were continuing the Chevaline programme in secret. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will reaffirm our commitment to realistic, balanced and verifiable measures of nuclear disarmament—including a comprehensive test ban treaty, which we support. These will be achieved not by emotional gestures or political posturing and propaganda, but by painstaking detailed negotiations. What the United Nations special session will provide is a powerful and important stimulus to these endeavours in which we intend to play a full role.

I deal next with the Geneva talks. The right hon. Gentleman and his friends seem determined to drag the British Trident force into the INF negotiations in Geneva—almost as determined as the Labour Government to keep Polaris out of the SALT II negotiations, on the quite reasonable ground that it represented a minimum deterrent force which could not be reduced.

Trident is, of course, a strategic sea-based force like Polaris—even the Russians recognised that in arguing for the inclusion of Polaris in SALT while the Labour Government were determined to keep if out of SALT. The Geneva negotiations are concerned with land-based intermediate-range forces. All our allies understand this, but I have not succeeded in getting the message through to the Opposition.

Indeed, so far as the arms race is concerned, the four-boat Trident force will be capable of carrying the same number of missiles as presently deployed on our Polaris force. I shall come to warheads in a moment. This number of missiles—a maximum of 64—represents a very small fraction—about 3 to 4 per cent.—of the predicted Soviet and United States delivery systems. This is about the same proportion represented by Polaris when it first came into service.

Of course, Trident has the capability to carry many more warheads than Polaris, but on the same basis of comparison the proportion will actually be lower than when Polaris came into service in the 1960s—at that time no anti-ballistic missile defences existed—and is one of the decisive factors in determining the size of a minimum dererrent.

Finally, the amendment refers to the "intolerable burden" that Trident is supposed to place on the British economy. The United Kingdom Trident programme will provide £4 billion of extra work for British industry. I believe that work for British industry that is in the furtherance of the defence of this country is good work.

Whilst in the United States last week, I discussed detailed arrangements for the participation of British industry in the American Trident programme. I was impressed by the United States' Secretary of Defence's determination to move ahead as fast as possible with his undertaking, not least to waive the buy American provisions to clear the legal obstacles from the path. An American team will visit this country next month to brief British firms on the range of possible products for which they will be able to compete, and to explain American procurement procedures to them.

Thereafter, Mr. Weinberger is willing to designate American officials in both this coutry and the United States to maintain and develop these liaison arrangements. The American Department of Defence also intends to initiate discussions on these new arrangements with the American prime contractors, among them Lockheed, and the Pentagon will be arranging meetings between these American companies and interested British firms.

The production programme for the D5 missile system is not, of course, decided and it is simply not yet possible to quantify the size of the opportunities that will be open to British firms. In some subcontracting areas it will be up to 80 per cent. of all components and in others 10 per cent. or less. Undoubtedly the competition will be fierce, but with continuing support of the Department of Defence I do not doubt that the opportunity exists for very substantial business. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement, who will wind up the debate, will follow this up further in a visit to the United States. Contracts obtained for the American Trident programme, and for ours, will last for several decades over the lifetime of the system.

We have had peace in Europe for half a lifetime now, despite deeply opposed political systems, massive forces in close proximity and a succession of potentially inflammatory situations, which in any other age would have been highly likely to lead to war. In an East-West setting deterrence plainly works and Great Britain has a distinctive role to play in it—one that our allies welcome.

It would be dangerous folly, in the world as it is now, to abandon that role. Much the best long-term way to sustain it at the strategic level is to build a new force around the Trident missile. That is, in absolute terms, not a cheap course, but the consequences of shirking it might one day prove unimaginably expensive.

To recognise the success of deterrence is not to accept that it is the last word in ensuring freedom from war. Any readiness by one nation to use nuclear weapons against another, even in self-defence, is terrible. No one, especially from within the ethical traditions of the free world with its special respect for individual life, can acquiesce comfortably in it as the basis of international peace for the rest of time.

We have to seek unremittingly, through arms control and otherwise, for better ways of ordering the world. But the search may be a long one, no safer system than deterrence is yet in view, and impatience or emotion would be a catastrophic guide. To tear down the present structure, imperfect but effective, before a better one is firmly within our grasp would be an immensely dangerous and irresponsible act.

4.10 pm
Mr. John Silkin (Deptford)

I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: condemns the decision to purchase the Trident nuclear system, a decision which escalates the arms race, breaks the spirit of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, shows complete contempt for the negotiations currently taking place in Geneva and for the United Nations Second Special Session on Disarmament, damages the United Kingdom's conventional defences, places an intolerable burden on the British economy and reduces the United Kingdom's power to pursue an independent foreign policy. The amendment gives the reasons why Labour will cancel the Trident project. We reject the Government's policy. The policy will not keep Britain safe 20 or 30 years from now, as the Secretary of State claims. The Secretary of State thinks of it as an insurance policy. He may have satisfied himself that when he looks into the mirror a little insurance broker looks out. He may find reassurance in the notion of Trident as an insurance policy against a Russian attack, but he has overlooked the uncomfortable facts. Insurance policies do not prevent disasters or accidents. They never really compensate for the loss suffered. They regularly create an entirely false sense of security., and they are not worth much in time of war.

The Secretary of State tried to deal with our criticism that he is escalating the arms race. I say that he "tried" to deal with it because he did not succeed. He appeared not to understand why the possession of Trident escalates the arms race. Trident does not make anybody in Britain feel secure. It is yet another manifestation that convinces more and more people that we no longer control nuclear weapons, but that they control us. What we are getting is designed not to prevent war—the original reason given for Polaris—but to fight war.

Deterrence was the hub of the Secretary of Slate's argument. Nuclear deterrence, if it exists, is about mutually assured destruction. Nuclear deterrence implies the ability to retaliate to a first strike, so that both sides are equally in danger of destruction. But is not Trident's unique quality that it is accurate enough to destroy Soviet inter-continental ballistic missiles in their silos? What sort of deterrent is it in that context?

Let us consider what Trident is and how it relates to Polaris. Trident multiplies Britain's strategic nuclear warhead capacity to about 20 times its original Polaris level.

Mr. Cranley Onslow (Woking)

Has nobody ever told the right hon. Gentleman that the Russians have submarine strategic capability?

Mr. Silkin

We are dealing with the United Kingdom. We can deal with the question of the United States and the Soviet Union, the two super powers, but the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Sir H. Fraser) made the important point on 11 March when the statement was made that Great Britain is adopting a super power's weapons when it is not a super power.

The Secretary of State said that it was not his intention to multiply Britain's nuclear warhead capacity to anything like 20 times the original Polaris level. Will he consider the problem from the point of view of an adversary? He talked about a game of chess. In a sense, I accept that that is what it is. One has to look not only at one's own motives but at the chess board and one's adversary's motives and work out what one's adversary might think. An adversary would not measure the Secretary of State's intentions for many reasons. For instance, the Secretary of State will not be Secretary of State for all time, but will be succeeded by somebody else. Such an adversary would measure the capacity.

It is almost as if the United Kingdom were playing "last across" with the Soviet Union. That is why the danger of escalation is so real. As the Secretary of State fairly said, not only members of the Labour Party, pacifists and unilateralists, but people throughout the country are protesting. They are terrified out of their wits at what is happening.

Nuclear warfare has repealed the law of safety in numbers. More warheads do not magnify the chances of peace; they multiply the odds on war. That is what the people have seen. That is why they recognise the importance of the Geneva talks. They seek a reduction, not just a limit, in nuclear weapons and a reduction in the tension, which has grown so much in the last 12 to 24 months.

People regard the Geneva talks as the only possible means of stopping the nuclear madness. I think that the Secretary of State hinted that he felt the same. For 25 years the people of Britain were told that we were at the top table and that our possession of nuclear weapons stopped us from going naked into the conference chamber. Now the people see that we are not even in the conference chamber, naked or fully clothed. They wonder why.

In the past, Governments of both parties played a part in negotiating the test ban and the non-proliferation treaties. Now the Government say that we never intended to go to Geneva and that we intend leaving it to the two super powers. The Secretary of State said that that happened before his Government came to power. He identified that with his Government's attitude in a different context—in the context of Trident.

Our possession of strategic weapons is supposed to influence the top table negotiations. The Government are committed to maintaining a strategic nuclear force at an irreducible minimum level. If that is so, the Government cannot contribute to a strategic disarmament agreement without disqualifying themselves from the strategic weapons club. That is why the British Government are absent from the Geneva talks and that is why the Government prefer negotiations between the two super powers to be kept exclusively on a bilateral basis.

Mr. Nott

Geneva is not about strategic weapons. I keep making the point that it is not.

Mr. Silkin

Geneva is about theatre weapons. Geneva should lead to strategic weapons. Can the Secretary of State assure the House that when we go on to START the British Government will be represented at the tripartite negotiations?

Mr. Nott

No more than the right hon. Gentleman's Government were represented at SALT. SALT and START are bilateral negotiations between the two major powers. It is not true to suggest that we have not played a major part in agreeing the zero option in following the course of negotiations in Geneva and influencing those negotiations.

Mr. Silkin

The Secretary of State is making the worst of a bad case. He is telling the House that the Government have not the slightest intention of being present at any negotiations on strategic weapons. We already knew that. We also needed to have it confirmed in the House so that the public could be made aware of it.

In addition to that fear, it is the wish of many that we be represented as a major party at the Geneva talks. After all, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we were signatories to the test ban treaty and were one of the three original signatories to the non-proliferation treaty. Therefore, we have a right to be represented, especially as we are a super-nuclear power.

There is another reason why the public are fearful. There is this year the second special session on disarmament at the United Nations. I am pleased that the Prime Minister has at last agreed to go to the plenary session. She said that she would attend "at some point", but when I wrote to her about it she would not identify the point. If the world is to recognise that the British Government are as serious about disarmament as the British people would like them to be, it is not enough for the Prime Minister to say, as she did at Harrogate: Of course I would like to see nuclear disarmament. She should be at the session right at the beginning.

The Opposition amendment mentions the nonproliferation treaty. [HON. MEMBERS "And everything else."] Yes, it mentions everything because the Opposition are trying to articulate all the fears of the British public. That is much better than talking about the cost of Trident in terms of chocolate bars, as a member of the Government did the other day.

The non-proliferation treaty represented a self-denying ordinance by non-nuclear powers in return for undertakings by the three major nuclear powers of the day to negotiate an end to the nuclear arms race and to bring about nuclear disarmament. Article 1 of that treaty made the position clear. It said: Each nuclear weapon state undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices". In other words, the transfer and acceptance of nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices is contrary to the spirit of the treaty. It may also be contrary to the letter in certain cases. The transfer of Trident from one of those nuclear powers to another State, whether or not that State was one of the original signatories, is contrary to the spirit of article 1 and, I maintain, of article 6.

Mr. Nott

The non-proliferation treaty refers to nuclear warheads. We manufacture the warheads. There is no transfer of nuclear warheads as they are manufactured at Aldermaston.

Mr. Silkin

If the non-proliferation treaty were solely about warheads, it would be extremely limited. The right hon. Gentleman should re-read article 6. He can do that for himself, quite simply. The whole basis of the treaty is that it is imperative to stop the nuclear arms race. It is how warheads are delivered, not their possession, that is crucial. Trident is a powerful and deadly method of delivering nuclear warheads on a hitherto unknown scale.

Mr. Ioan Evans (Aberdare)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the logic of the Secretary of State's argument is that to maintain our independence we must possess an independent nuclear deterrent? Does he also agree that that argument could be used by every country which does not possess nuclear weapons, and that it is against the spirit of the non-proliferation treaty?

Mr. Silkin

That is exactly the reason. It is so stated. That is why the non-proliferation treaty came into existence.

Sir Frederick Burden

I am confused about Labour Party policy. The right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) knows my views about keeping up a strong conventional force. However, I find it especially difficult to understand how, after supporting Polaris for so many years because of its effectiveness and the need for a nuclear deterrent, the Opposition suddenly now say that we apparently need none at all.

Mr. Silkin

The country was always strongly divided on the issue of nuclear weapons, but Trident is so completely different, difficult, dangerous and deadly as to be a different matter in both quality and quantity. Many Labour Members were against the Polaris missile system. although some were in favour of it, but the Labour Party is unanimously against Trident. If any hon. Gentleman can find such unanimity on the Government side, I for one would be intensely surprised.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans) mentioned independence. It also appears in the Opposition amendment. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) said, it does not figure in the Government motion. No doubt that was an oversight and a head may roll as a result. I assume that the word "independent" was intended to be included but that the Government motion was merely badly phrased.

I believe in friendship with the United States—I always have. However, friendship rests on a relationship between equals, not between master and servant. The Secretary of State has presented the purchase of the Trident system to the British people as perpetuating an independent strategic force. He tells us that we need it—this is the interesting way in which he advanced his argument today—because America might one day drift away from us, or might seem to be drifting away from us. Are we really expected to believe that the Americans would let us have Trident if they thought that we would use it as we pleased, rather than as they pleased? If the Secretary of State believes that, I am interested to hear it. I am reminded of the Duke of Wellington, who, when accosted by a gentleman with the words: Mr. Jones, I believe?", replied If you believe that, you will believe anything. We are completely dependent on the United States—I challenge any hon. Member to dispute this—for missile technology, launch and guidance systems, satellite intelligence and test facilities in Nevada and Cape Canaveral. We do not have to risk a nuclear Suez to show that independence is an illusion. The Americans would never have let us take Trident unless they were completely satisfied that we would never use it in any other way than as they tell us to use it.

Once, the situation was different. Britain had a special relationship with the United States. British Prime Ministers gave cautionary advice and exerted a restraining influence on United States Presidents—both Sir Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee did that—but nuclear dependence means the end of independence in the Trident age.

Dr. Alan Glyn (Windsor and Maidenhead)

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the United States has already said that it is keen that we should have an independent nuclear deterrent? Is he aware that that is set out in the exchanges between my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Reagan?

Mr. Silkin

That might be a reason why the word "independent" did not appear in the motion. It depends, as they say, on what is meant by "independence". If the United States thought that we would use Trident this week, anywhere—in the South Atlantic, for example—in a way which might involve the United States, would we be allowed to use it? Of course we should not.

Mr. Nott

Why does the right hon. Gentleman not consult his colleagues who are former Prime Ministers? They would tell him that the deterrent is independent.

Mr. Silkin

My former colleagues never had to deal with Trident. In future, when Britain speaks on world affairs we shall increasingly hear the unchallenged voice of America. The process is now well under way. The Government do not merely echo the bellicose rhetoric of the White House. They amplify it. They cannot criticise the United States President's Latin American policy. They dare not say that he is wrong.

Trident is not Britain's ticket to peace and freedom; it is the badge of our servitude. The sacrifice of our ability to pursue our own foreign policy is but one of the many casualties of Trident. The United Kingdom's economy will be weakened by scarce resources being diverted away from manufacturing industry.

The Secretary of State was at his most unconvincing when he talked about the jobs that he hoped might come to the United Kingdom—10 per cent. here, 80 per cent. there. We have heard those promises before, but they have not materialised.

Far worse even than that is the effect on conventional defences. The recent cuts in RAF flying hours, the closure of dockyards and other naval support facilities, the latest of which were announced last week, and, with the current dangers in the Falkland Islands, major cuts in the surface fleet are all but first instalments in the long-term programme of cuts in our conventional forces that Trident will necessitate. Indeed, it has been said that within five years the Royal Navy will be unable to fight a war at sea of any duration or even to fulfil its peace-time commitments.

The Secretary of State is pleasing one person—Admiral Gorshkov—as in its peak years Trident will absorb nearly 30 per cent. of the naval budget. The Secretary of State shakes his head. Perhaps he would like to intervene again.

Mr. Nott

When the Labour Government left office the naval target heading was £3, 459 million at constant prices. In 1985–86 it will be considerably greater than that. The amount devoted to the naval target heading, without Trident, will be much greater in 1985–86 than it was when the Labour Government left office, so what is the right hon. Gentleman talking about?

Mr. Silkin

As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, when the maximum payment years come, his figures will be as irrelevant as chocolate bars. We are talking about the peak years, in which Trident will absorb 20 per cent. of new equipment costs. Does the right hon. Gentleman dispute that?

Mr. Nott

Yes, I do. The figure that I gave was 10½ per cent.

Mr. Silkin

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned only "equipment". I am talking about new equipment. My figure of 20 per cent. is right. He had better go and look again. If the Secretary of State wishes to talk about costs, let him remind the House of the actual cost of Tornado compared with the original estimates and then explain to us why Trident should be immune from the disease of defence inflation. Of course the cost will rise, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it.

Major wars have changed in technique and technology. The dangers have changed. But major wars cannot change geography. As always, we have to tailor our defence to the rules of geography and to our economic resources. We can no longer afford to make the all-round balanced contribution to NATO that makes us unique in Europe and indeed in NATO and explains our disproportionately high defence spending. The time has come to face military and economic reality.

On 24 January 1980, the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, now the Leader of the House, who is not unnoted for his wise words to us from time to time, said: I am very clear that it would be gravely harmful if sustaining our nuclear contribution to the alliance meant emasculating our non-nuclear contribution. That would amount to lowering the nuclear threshold."—[Official Report, 24 January 1980; Vol. 977, c. 684.] That is precisely what is happening. Trident does exactly that.

The structure of our defence policy must change. The emphasis on our contribution to NATO in the 1980s must come down far more to our naval and air force efforts. We do not discount BAOR, but defending Britain's air defence region in the air and, at sea, defending the sea lanes of the Atlantic, the English Channel and the North Sea are the spheres in which we are most needed and at our best.

Mr. Bill Walker (Perth and East Perthshire)

If air defence is so important, I am at a loss to understand why the outgoing Labour Administration left the Air Force more than 200 fast jet pilots short.

Mr. Silkin

The hon. Gentleman will have to learn that we are considering how best to defend our nation and where its future lies. He must realise that for all parties in the House this is a moment of truth. We must all consider where we are going. The Tories intend to press on with Trident. The Liberals and Social Democrats in the country rejected nuclear weapons, although they have yet to receive a clear statement from their leaders, whose attitude to matters of vital importance seems always to be dictated by the apparent advantages in the constituency in which they happen to be speaking.

Mr. Frank Allaun

They supported cruise.

Mr. Silkin

The Labour Party is unanimously opposed to Trident. Labour will cancel it outright and finally abandon the pretence that the path to peace lies in preparing for nuclear war.

4.35 pm
Sir Hugh Fraser (Stafford and Stone)

As Opposition Members have been kind enough to refer to some of my remarks, I should at once declare that the case against Trident advanced by the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) is one of the most complicated and knowingly absurd that I have ever heard. I must confess that I cannot support the Government on Trident, for three reasons, which I believe are more practical and relevant to reality than the rather vague arguments advanced by the right hon. Gentleman, especially when, in pursuit of greater rhetoric, he said that only equals can be friends. One can understand why the right hon. Gentleman sometimes feels somewhat isolated.

I maintain that we are purchasing the wrong weapon from the wrong firm at the wrong time. Of course, I agree with much of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and will undoubtedly be said by others about the size of the global missile crisis. It is a crisis of colossal and absurd superfluity of nuclear weapons. Broadly, it is that crisis to which my right hon. Friend referred in his admirable speech. There are now some 50, 000 warheads in the world—equivalent to perhaps 10 million times the force of the Hiroshima explosion. The basic problem is how to achieve disarmament, not on a unilateral basis as the Labour Party wishes, but, as Lord Zuckerman and the late Lord Mountbatten pointed out time and again, to make progress in arms reduction by negotiation from strength and the application of reason to that process.

Looking at the world situation, I believe that reason must eventually seep through. Existing nuclear weapons, be they tactical, theatre or intercontinental, once used, cease to be effective weapons of war. War, as a mode of action, has rational objectives. Once used, such weapons become meaningless instruments of world destruction in which neither policy nor even war can be pursued. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has seen the recent statement by Admiral Rickover—who was the father and mother of the American naval nuclear enterprise—to the effect that within 48 hours of a major nuclear exchange the United States Navy nuclear fleet would cease to exist as an effective military force. It would be without bases, without refurbishment, without targeting and probably without central control. That is why I believe that the statesmen and chiefs of staff of this world must eventually realise that in the creation and building up of nuclear weapons, whether they be tactical, strategic or theatre nuclear weapons they are embarked upon a policy that ceases to be warlike and becomes mere folly.

That is why I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be attending the world disarmament conference in New York. All plans of nuclear arms control, whether the Baruch plan, the Acheson plan or the Lilienthal plan, have been stymied by one power—the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, one can only hope that reason will one day prevail, and that the present nuclear absurdity will be brought under some sort of control. At the moment, of course, that day is not here.

We are faced with immediate problems. That is why I cannot possibly support some of the things that have been said and that are about to be said by the Opposition and by those who oppose the Government. Today, I note that we are celebrating 25 years of the EEC—an institution that has its problems. But if one looks further afield one sees that the problems of NATO are even graver than those of the EEC. Therefore, when discussing the issue, some reference must be made to the NATO position.

As we all know, NATO is a unilateral American guarantee of European security, under which it was believed that Europe, under the shadow or with the help of the American nuclear umbrella, would achieve two things—political unity and effective European self-defence. After 33 years, neither of those two things has happened. That must be accepted as a fact, because a fact it is.

Theodore Draper wrote in Encounter recently: For 33 years Europeans have benefited from the American strategic deterrent without paying for it or controlling it. A new crisis for NATO is developing on the questions of payment and control. That is why NATO has never been in a more disturbed state and why there has never been a greated threat to the stability of the organisation. Dr. Kissinger wrote when considering the dilemma from the American point of view: The dilemma of tactical nuclear weapons for our allies is that they wish to commit the USA to the early use of strategic nuclear weapons. At the other end of the scale I quote what President Mitterrand said in his book "Ici et Maintenant" which was published in 1980, a few months before his election: I am no more attached to the Atlantic Alliance than a Romanian or a Pole to the Warsaw Pact. That is the problem which faces the West today—a growing mistrust between Europe and the United States. In that context, America is not so much the isolationist as the isolated. Therefore, I believe that NATO is perhaps moving into its most dangerous period.

In defence, timing is of the essence and for the next four or five years the window for Russian aggression against the West could not be wider. At this stage, what is needed above all else is the reinforcement of our conventional arms. That is the key.

I turn to the gap in Britain's defence. About 20 years ago I was Secretary of State for Air and so I know a little about the subject, though not as much as my hon. Friends, who are better informed than I. In an article in The Times today Mr. Stanhope points out that the RAF's front line today has 80 aircraft fewer than was planned for three years ago. That was largely the fault of the Labour Government.

I turn to the question of naval defence. That is not just a matter of a lonely HMS "Endurance" in the Antarctic surrounded by Argentinian warships, which were doubtless sold to that country by us, but the cancellations that will take place over the next two years, with about 15 ships going out of commission.

I maintain that at the moment our nuclear contribution of Polaris to NATO is perfectly adequate. To disturb the balance further by a new nuclear investment beginning now could be fatally dangerous.

Mr. Duffy

Before the right hon. Gentleman moves on from the ships that have been reduced in numbers, to which he referred, is he suggesting that that is not Trident-related and that there is not an element of Trident displacement in that reduction in surface ships?

Sir Hugh Fraser

Of course there is. Anyone who has anything to do with defence matters knows that forward planning—even the expenses six, seven or eight years ahead—has an effect on immediate programmes. It always has and it always will.

Next I turn to the Trident system itself. There is no question but that Trident as a theoretical system—it will not be operational in the United States until 1986—is the best known. But in this case, I believe that the best is the enemy of the good. One of the essential differences between the Polaris and the Trident is that Polaris is an area weapon—a weapon or deterrent that threatens cities and industrial complexes—while Trident is an infinitely more sophisticated counter-force strike weapon of immense accuracy, designed specifically to pinpoint military targets, missile sites or command posts. Even if I believe this concept to be total nonsense, it can be said by "nuclearologists" that Trident has a nuclear war fighting capacity as well as simple deterrent capability.

Those who back the Trident system have not thought out its full classical nuclear implications. The implications are vast and put Britain even more in the front line and open a whole new dimension of danger regarding civil defence, nuclear anti-ballistic missile systems and crisis management considerations that have not been fully considered.

The Government have said that the weapon will strengthen the West by creating what is stated to be another centre of nuclear decision that would baffle the Soviets and make them even more careful of launching aggression.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor (Nantwich)

I got the impression that in the admirable early part of his speech my right hon. Friend was talking of the threat of withdrawal of European support for America. He now appears to be arguing that the American—European alliance could be relied upon for the next 30–40 years. Does he agree that the logic of his earlier comments point to the need for an independent European command centre that could take the very decisions about which he expresses doubt?

Sir Hugh. Fraser

My hon. Friend, a distinguished baronet and colleague, is on my side, as he will see in a moment. I suggest that, as long as NATO exists, the idea of an alternative centre of nuclear decision is meaningless, If I, or the noble baronet, were the United States Commander-in-Chief and I thought for one second that the United Kingdom was even considering the independent use of an American D5 missile against Moscow without American agreement I would immediately re-target all my rockets on London.

So much for the argument about an alternative centre of decision within NATO. Either NATO exists under American nuclear command or it ceases to exist. That is the hideous fact and it is time that this country and the Western world accepted it.

By purchasing Trident we are not primarily adding to our independent status. We are adding four boats to the already colossal striking power of the United States nuclear submarine fleet. We may be boosting our ego, but we are also doing a good service to the American taxpayer.

I would not be opposed to such generosity—after all, the Americans are a most generous people who have defended Europe for a generation—if such a gesture had outstanding mutual advantages. But there is a danger of NATO running into immeasurable and fairly immediate trouble—I hope that here I shall regain the support and encouragement of my hon. Friend the Member for Nantwich (Sir N. Bonsor)—unless some of the problems of which I have spoken can be resolved. The danger is that we may enter a period of unlimited nuclear blackmail and innumerable political and military permutations.

Unlike some right hon. and hon. Members, I believe that the chief value of a nuclear weapon system for this country lies in its benefit to national independence. I think that my record is a good as anyone's in that regard. As a temporary member of the Cabinet, representing the Ministry of Defence, I, along with my right hon. Friends the Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), insisted on 21 December 1962 that independence should be written into the Polaris agreement. I believe that it was because of our insistence that clause 9 was included in the treaty.

Looking ahead, I see a period when supreme national interest—national survival—may be the issue at stake. It is essential that there should be a deterrent of sufficient weight and size to preserve the safety of this country.

Viscount Cranborne (Dorset, South)

I am sure that my right hon. Friend knows a great deal more about the matter than I do, but I was under the happy impression that the agreement under which Trident was being purchased from the United States was almost identical to the agreement under which Polaris was purchased.

Sir Hugh Fraser

I am coming to that point. I can see circumstances over the next decade in which an American Government might quite properly find it inappropriate to leave the D5 weapons system in British hands. We have seen that before with the McGovern Act; it is not inconceiveable.

Therefore, I believe that a system other than Trident must be our target for an independent system in the 1990s. Many suggestions have been made, including cruise and other systems, but I remain of the view that the Polaris fleet and its refurbishment—even, if necessary, the addition of a fifth boat—would be not only adequate for our defence purposes, but cheaper than the proposed system.

The Polaris fleet is an area weapons system only. It can deliver 200 warheads equivalent to 3, 000 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. To say that it is not a deterrent—even if it cannot be aimed at Moscow because of Russia's ABM resources—is nonsense. I maintain that it is adequate for our defence.

Whatever some experts may say, I still think that there is no reason to believe that, even on the most conservative forecasts of the hull life of a submarine, the physical replacement need begin before 1993. In other words, the replacement programme need not start until 1987. The oldest submarine, "Resolution", was commissioned in 1967and the latest, "Revenge", was commissioned in 1969.

I also believe that it would be possible to arrange for the rocket motors for the boats to be built here without offending American sensibilities. Solid fuel could be used, as it is in many of the Russian rockets, which are not without effect. If the worst came to the worst, Chinese copies could be made. That would not be possible with the Trident missile.

At this stage, with the problems of maintaining our forces and the dangers of cutting back on our conventional forces being so obvious—we must remember that conventional arms are most likely to keep the Americans in Europe—the building of an expensive super power weapon should be reconsidered and the Secretary of State should agree to take his logical, but falsely based, thinking back to the drawing board.

4.58 pm
Dr. David Owen (Plymouth, Devonport)

The Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party tabled an amendment which was not selected and I shall seek to explain why we do not approve of the Government's decision to purchase the Trident missile. However, we think it necessary to make it clear that we fully support the United Kingdom's continued membership of NATO and fully accept that that membership carries two commitments—a commitment to detente through disarmament and negotiations on arms control, and a commitment to defence, involving both conventional defences and nuclear deterrence.

It is essential to say that while the build-up of arms continues, and particularly while the Soviet Union is intent on matching the nuclear armaments of the United States at every level, it would be incredible and dangerous for NATO to abandon the concept of nuclear deterrence. There can be no non-nuclear deterrent strategy for NATO. That is why we cannot support the Opposition amendment. It would be impossible to believe that, having listened to the Opposition spokesman. Of course, the amendment's wording was carefully phrased so that the various views inside the Labour Party could be accommodated in the Division Lobby.

Both the parties I speak for—I carefully consulted the Leader of the Liberal Party—recognise that while the Soviet Union has nuclear weapons NATO must have them, too. Pending all-round nuclear disarmament, both parties acknowledge the need for the NATO strategic deterrent, of which our Polaris submarines form part. Both parties agree that, for as long as the Polaris fleet provides a useful part of a NATO deterrent, it should continue to fulfil that role. Moreover, both parties agree that the decision on whether to replace it need not be taken now. The right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Sir H. Fraser) spoke eloquently on this essential point and I shall concentrate on it.

The Government were right to take the decision to spend an extra £300 million—a lot of money—on re-motoring Polaris missile motors. That decision was correctly taken and will ensure that Polaris missile life continues to the end of this century. The hull life question was resolved some years ago and Polaris can be retained until the end of this century.

Mr. Stanley Newens (Harlow)

rose——

Dr. Owen

I will not give way. I have dealt with the view of both parties in a careful and definite statement.

Mr. Newens

rose——

Dr. Owen

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman because time is short.

On the Polaris extension, the only aspect that had credibility was the Secretary of State's constant reference to the fact that the motors were becoming noisier. There is no doubt that there is an increased possibility of detection. Only a fool would deny that, and it is a small argument against the potential of giving, at the very least, four to five years in which more careful thought could be given to whether Polaris should be extended by the introduction of a new deterrent system.

The right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone was right to emphasise that the decision to go for the D5 Trident was a major step forward—beyond the extent of the Polaris commitment. That is a different type of weapons system and is capable of taking out hardened missile targets. Its accuracy, increased megatonnage and greater numbers of missiles, all represent a significant escalation in the nuclear arms race. I urge the Government to rethink their position. At this time, more than any other, there is the potential for a major move forward in the whole subject of arms control and disarmament.

Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North)

Tell the Russians.

Dr. Owen

I do not need to tell the Russians. I have just taken up the Secretary of State's kind offer to be briefed on these matters. I am the first to admit that, since I left office two and a half years ago, there has again been an escalation in Soviet military might. No one can try, or pretend, to foresee the future. If the circumstances had changed significantly, in a way that I do not feel they have, I would be prepared to rethink my position. No responsible Government would put the future of Britain's defence in jeopardy merely because of previous commitments.

There are at least five years in which a British Government can pursue arms control and disarmament. They need not make this decision and commitment now. It will be extremely expensive for our conventional defence capability. Day after day, we are beginning to see what the price is. We were promised a strategic reassessment of the Navy's role, and a decision to move out of the "big ship Navy", which I supported. We were asked to believe that there was the possibility of an increase in the submarine build rate and the effectiveness of submarine forces. We are now seeing that those promises have not been delivered. There has been no improvement in submarine forces and a major reduction in the conventional surface fleet Navy. We can observe pressures in many other parts of the defence budget, which has only just begun. On arms control——

Mr. Julian Amery (Brighton, Pavilion)

The Secretary of State for Defence is well known, from his background, as a strong defender of the public purse. The Treasury is about the toughest guardian of the public purse. If it has accepted that this is the most competent means of maintaining the deterrent, are we sure that any other solution is less expensive? Did the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) notice that Lord Carver, the most eloquent opponent of the independent deterrent, said that if we were to go ahead with it, Trident was the best?

Dr. Owen

I have never denied, if one were comparing intercontinental strategic ballistic missile systems, that Trident is undoubtedly the best system. I have never made any secret of that. I am glad that the United States has the Trident system. The Americans need the Trident system to match the Soviet submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The question for the House is whether Britain, in the present economic and industrially straitened circumstances—when we make only a contribution to the NATO deterrent—needs to purchase the Trident missile system. I am not sure how much the Treasury accepted this question. That will be revealed by history. This commitment was entered into by the Prime Minister, and it is one on which she is unshakable and inflexible, as she is on so many of her commitments. There has not been totally rational debate on this issue within Government. My position on Trident has been consistent and logical from the moment that I was Foreign Secretary and I hold it to this day.

It is necessary to use this five years for arms control. There are now three major forums of arms control. First, it is most important to do something about the risk of limited nuclear war in Europe; the whole concept of limited battlefield nuclear war. I urge the Government to get an agreement this year in the mutual and balanced force reduction talks in Geneva on a first phase reduction to get a conventional balance. They must also introduce into those negotiations the concept of a battlefield nuclear weapon-free zone. That must be at least 100 kilometres on either side, east and west, of the border. No nuclear or chemical weapons would be deployed there and it would not be possible to