Nuclear Weapons
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2640, in the name of Roseanna Cunningham, on nuclear weapons.
We should be clear that this debate is about Britain's very own weapons of mass destruction, which are paid for by you and me, Presiding Officer, and indeed by the taxes of everyone in the chamber. How do they differ from other WMDs? For a start, they are easily verifiable and they are not difficult to locate. A team of United Nations inspectors would have little difficulty in tracking them down and, at the end of their search, the world would know what it already knows: that Britain, unlike some other countries, has WMDs. Let us not pretend that we are talking about anything other than WMDs.
We have moved on from the days of the arms race and the madness of mutually assured destruction, but the facts about nuclear weapons have not changed. Every single Trident warhead has seven times the destructive power of the bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945, killing 140,000 and leaving a legacy that continued to kill for generations.
The moral argument against nuclear weapons remains as strong as ever—indeed, I believe that it has been strengthened. We are no longer in a situation where two power blocs strive to cancel each other out while fingers are poised twitchily over the nuclear trigger. Instead, a group of countries in the nuclear club are insisting that they and only they are responsible enough to have nuclear weapons. The door has been locked and nobody else is to join the club. Anyone who attempts to do so is slapped down and told not to be a naughty boy, unless of course they are a friend of the United States, in which case their actions are overlooked. That is international arrogance of the highest order and a case of "do as I say, not as I do".
The country that tried most recently to join the nuclear club is North Korea. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, stated clearly that North Korea is risking further world isolation. She said:
"there needs to be no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula in order to maintain stability in that region."
That somewhat begs the question why, if nuclear weapons are not okay for the Korean peninsula, they are okay for the Cowal peninsula. I do not accept the argument.
There are safety issues with our current system. We know that there have been eight incidents on the jetty at Coulport, where nuclear warheads are loaded on to Trident submarines, which have resulted in the emergency services being called. We know that Scottish local authorities and the Scottish Executive are not included in risk assessment exercises on the transportation of nuclear materials through places such as Glasgow. The Ministry of Defence will not tell us what the most recent risk assessment exercise, which was carried out in January 2005, had to say. That is unacceptable. It is clear that there are safety issues that we should be addressing in the Parliament.
On the legal side of things, our possession of weapons of mass destruction is in flagrant disregard of international law. In 1996, the International Court of Justice ruled:
"the threat of use of nuclear weapons would be generally contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law"—
but hey, why should that apply to the United Kingdom?
I take Roseanna Cunningham back to what she said about North Korea and ask her one simple question: does she believe in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons?
I believe that no country should have nuclear weapons and that those that do should be setting an example to ensure that others do not decide to take that road.
If the moral and legal arguments will not sway members, they should consider the finances involved. Apart from being objectionable because of the evil that it has the potential to do, Trident has been a costly white elephant and I have no reason to believe that any replacement system would be any different. Over the 10 to 12 years of its operational life, Trident will have cost the UK taxpayer £15 billion, the cost of replacing the system will be upwards of £20 billion and it costs something in the region of £1 billion a year to run. If we do not ditch it now, Scotland's share of the money blown on a replacement for it would be in the region of £3 billion over 10 years, at an annual cost of £300 million. I do not believe that Scotland can afford to spend its money on that.
Compare all that to the cost of retaining Scotland's historic infantry regiments—the MOD expects to save only a few million pounds by disbanding them—not to mention what those vast sums could have meant for schools or hospitals.
The member says that she wants to keep the Scottish regiments and yet at the same time she wants to disband the British Army. How can she square that?
Like most modern west European states, an independent Scotland would have its own defence forces—we have never said any different—which would include the continued existence of the historic regiments of Scotland.
I turn to the three amendments. The Green amendment would be a useful addition to the motion and we are happy to accept it. I have to characterise the amendment in Robert Brown's name as typical Liberal Democrat weaselspeak. I am trying to work out from it whether the Liberal Democrats are for or against Trident, but it is impossible to do so—I look forward to an explanation. Scott Barrie's amendment is profoundly confused. He was obviously never on any of the anti-nuclear marches that I was on, which is a pity, because I had thought that more members had been on such marches. If he is so keen to debate the reserved matter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, I suggest that he persuade his ministers to introduce a debate on it in Executive time. The Scottish National Party will be well up for such a debate.
I make no apology for debating nuclear weapons in the Scottish Parliament. I do not deny that the subject matter is outwith the Parliament's current competence, but we have debated such issues before and we will do so again. It is an issue of huge importance to Scotland and we are Scotland's voice. We must be heard. There is a UK general election in the offing and voters will have the opportunity to vote for a party that is committed to delivering an independent, nuclear-free Scotland. I hope that they take that option. Until then, the debate must go on and must influence that decision. I doubt that Scots want the son-of-Trident programme any more than they wanted Trident in the first place—a fact that tends to be glossed over by members of the Executive parties.
Only three months ago, the Parliament passed a motion that condemned the amalgamation of Scotland's infantry regiments. The money that Trident costs Scotland every year could save the Black Watch and the rest of the Scottish regiments. I want Labour and Liberal Democrat members individually to look to their consciences as they consider how to vote this afternoon. This is not an issue on which the partnership agreement takes a stand and the Parliament is not going to pass legislation on it. I know that many members have a long-standing commitment to the cause of nuclear disarmament, and some of us have been on the same demonstrations together down the years. Today, the Parliament has the opportunity to keep faith with those principles by supporting the motion in my name.
I move,
That the Parliament is opposed to the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Scotland; believes that the existing Trident nuclear system which costs almost £1 billion annually to keep in operation should be scrapped; recognises that a decision on the replacement of Trident will require to be taken within the next UK Parliament; further recognises that the cost of replacing Trident would be over £20 billion, and wishes to register strong opposition to any proposal by Her Majesty's Government to procure a replacement for the Trident nuclear system.
There are few people—none in the chamber, I hope—who would support a proliferation of nuclear weapons, although the issue of nuclear deterrence remains controversial and complex. Ms Cunningham said that she never saw me on any marches, but I never saw her on any marches either; perhaps we were on different marches. I assure her that I was on marches in the early 1980s.
Many people argue that the conditions for complete nuclear disarmament do not yet exist; others claim that a lead must be taken. However, most people agree that the goal should be non-proliferation, arms control and a path to the reduction in number of nuclear weapons. Deterrence, arms control and non-proliferation are critically important to Britain's security in an increasingly interdependent world, and the ultimate goal must be the global elimination of nuclear weapons, as my amendment acknowledges.
Ms Cunningham's motion, on behalf of the SNP, says nothing of the sort. It opposes weapons of mass destruction in Scotland but says nothing about such weapons elsewhere. It gives the impression that we do not want them here but we do not care about anyone else. The motion criticises Trident but says nothing about whether the money that would be saved should be spent on alternative defence projects or—as is more likely—no defence projects at all. It is on the issue of defence projects that I wish to concentrate.
I am astonished at Mr Barrie's comments. He does not want us to debate the reserved matter of UK weapons, yet he somehow thinks that we should debate matters that pertain to entirely different countries. He needs to question his logic on the issue.
If Roseanna Cunningham and her colleagues listen carefully to what I am going to say about SNP logic regarding defence jobs in Fife, they will agree that that is what we should be talking about.
From previous questions and debates, we know that the SNP holds a self-contradictory position on defence and says some things differently in some parts of Scotland from what it says nationally. Some may say that its position is not just self-contradictory but hypocritical. Only last week, Margaret Ewing questioned the First Minister about the economic impact of Ministry of Defence cuts at RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Kinloss in her constituency. She was right to do so, and I would have expected nothing less from such an assiduous constituency member. However, where would those bases—and RAF Leuchars, in Fife—be in an independent Scotland? The critical mass would not exist to secure those bases and an independent Scottish air squadron. The SNP should be big enough or honest enough to admit that.
I thank Scott Barrie for his kind comment about my work for Moray. Does he believe that the Ministry of Defence should increase its defence procurement budget in Scotland beyond the 6 per cent that is currently allocated, which is way below the level that it should be at?
Defence procurement and defence jobs are the very issues on which I will concentrate the rest of my speech.
On the subject of MOD spending, I turn to our navy. I am sure that, later in the debate, Jackie Baillie, the local member for Faslane, will highlight the contribution that the base there makes. However, I want to talk about Rosyth dockyard, in my constituency. On Monday, the leader of the SNP called for a cross-party campaign to save jobs at Rosyth. Although I suppose that his belated concern for the situation at Rosyth should be welcomed, let us get a few facts straight. Where was Alex Salmond, in his first incarnation as the SNP leader, when the dockyard trade unions, local Labour MPs Gordon Brown and Rachel Squire, and Labour councillors on Dunfermline District Council and Fife Regional Council were fighting to secure the Trident refitting contract in the early 1990s? He was nowhere to be seen, and not just because there were no votes to be won on the issue in Banff and Buchan. Much as the SNP is now trying to make political capital out of the job difficulties at Babcock Rosyth Defence, the main—indeed, the only—cause of the run-down of employment at the dockyard, was the cynical award of the refitting contract to Devonport Royal Dockyard by the previous Tory Government, not on the basis of best value or economic grounds, but purely in a failed attempt to hold on to Tory seats in south-west England.
Will the member give way?
No. I have taken enough interventions.
As we knew then, and as we see from today's motion, the SNP does not believe in Trident. Even if we had won the campaign to have the refitting take place at Rosyth, the SNP would have cut the jobs there anyway. The Tories took our jobs away, but the SNP would also have taken our jobs away. It would have made no difference to the people of Fife which of them was in government. Let us have no crocodile tears, feigned sympathy or members' motions; the SNP would have betrayed Rosyth exactly as the Tories did.
Often, in parliamentary debates, SNP members claim to be internationalist yet, when it comes to defence, they display the worst aspects of any little Englander approach. They want us out of NATO; they want to deny our international defence commitments; and they would hide behind the skirts of the rest of the western world but promise nothing in return. SNP members should not complain—as they will in today's debate—about the UK Government's defence policy without at least giving us a glimpse of theirs. What would happen to the 7,000 jobs that are connected with Faslane? What would be the future work at Rosyth? Refitting a couple of fisheries protection vessels is not going to hold on to the jobs there. Those are questions to which my constituents want answers. Rather than discuss a hypothetical decision that might be taken by some Government at some point in the future, perhaps SNP members could answer those questions.
I move amendment S2M-2640.4, to leave out from "is opposed" to end and insert:
"acknowledges that defence and national security are matters reserved to the UK Parliament and acknowledges, in the words of the Government's Strategic Defence Review, "the goal of the global elimination of nuclear weapons"; welcomes the many moves taken to reduce the number of weapons in the world including UK support for the convention to ban anti-personnel landmines, end-user certificates and other restrictions on the arms trade and the significant reductions in the UK's nuclear weapons stockpile; notes the position of the Scottish National Party, in favour of withdrawal from the United Kingdom and NATO; recognises that withdrawal from the United Kingdom and from NATO would put at risk 25,000 direct MoD jobs in Scotland, 6,000 more dependent on MoD contracts and 12,000 more jobs supported by the military presence, and notes that between 2000 and 2004 the MoD placed 2,500 contracts in Scotland worth around £2 billion, all of which would be at risk under the SNP."
I am grateful to the SNP for raising this issue for debate. However, it is a strange motion to put before the Scottish Parliament at this time. As Scots and as citizens of the United Kingdom, we all have an interest in the United Kingdom's defence and foreign policy actions. The security of the realm and its people is, after all, the first duty of any Government. Nevertheless, defence is a matter that is reserved to Westminster and the Scottish Parliament therefore has no functional responsibility for defence.
More important, no decision is currently being made by Westminster about Trident, nor is one imminent. It is not the subject of current debate and there is no specific international opportunity at present to push the cause of disarmament. Indeed, the world is probably as dangerous a place as it has ever been, partly because of the short-sighted decision of the United States and the United Kingdom to wage war in Iraq without UN sanction or a sustainable casus belli.
Above all, there are issues about the proliferation of nuclear weapons that affect Israel, India, Pakistan and the unpredictable rogue state of North Korea. The unilateral scrapping of the United Kingdom's remaining nuclear weapons—the four Trident submarines—would not make the world one iota safer and might well make it more dangerous. Liberal Democrats yield nothing to others in wanting a nuclear-free world in which the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent, among others, is scrapped. However, that must be done as part of an international agreement that contains an effective mechanism to discipline rogue states. That is something that the SNP must address.
The United Kingdom's Trident force is not a threat to world peace, nor is it an urgent issue today. The situation in North Korea and Iran is an urgent issue; the presence of two nuclear states on the Indian subcontinent is an urgent issue; and the nuclear arms that are possessed by Israel, the focus of the middle east cauldron, are an urgent issue. When it is boiled down—Scott Barrie touched on this—the SNP's proposition seems to amount to the idea that we cannot do anything about those places, so everybody else should give up their nuclear weapons. That is not a sustainable, practical policy in the current state of the world.
The reason why the SNP is raising the issue today has nothing to do with Trident but has to do with two things, both arising from the forthcoming general election. The first is the need to secure the party's left flank against the Scottish Socialist Party and the black-and-white mirror world that the socialists inhabit. The other is the need to secure the party's right flank against the problem that its manifesto costings do not add up. It will be disappointed because scrapping Trident would save the UK £687 million per year, which represents about £60 million in Scotland. That would hardly fund the cost of replacing the investment in the local economy of West Dunbartonshire that the Faslane base that employs 5,000 people provides, far less the yawning funding gap in the rest of the SNP's policy. That is the valid point.
Robert Brown will be aware that the Secretary of State for Defence said recently that after the UK elections, a decision will be taken on a successor to Trident. Is it Robert Brown's view that the UK Government should commission a successor to Trident?
I will deal with that question in a moment because I was going to move on to that subject.
Up to 40 countries across the globe have the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. Fortunately, most have taken a positive decision not to do so. Some take the opposite view and others have manufactured nuclear weapons in secret. Thanks to Mordechai Vanunu, the rector of the University of Glasgow, and others like him, we know that Israel is one of those nations.
The key to progress is the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which requires sustained international efforts to maintain and progress, and which is the subject of an important review conference in May. No doubt the subject at issue will include those states that have not signed up to the non-proliferation treaty.
Let there be no doubt in the chamber that those countries will not be influenced in the slightest by a unilateral decision by Britain. However, it is important that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty exists against a background of commitment by the established nuclear powers to disarmament. That is why the Liberal Democrat amendment, unlike that of Labour, is committed to a multilateral nuclear disarmament process and not just a general futuristic objective. That process should involve building on the comprehensive test ban treaty, the non-proliferation treaty and supporting a nuclear weapons convention.
Does the member acknowledge that the UK Government has not delivered on the non-proliferation treaty and that that is why rogue states such as Korea want to arm? Because we have not made reductions, we have not made the argument for the NPT.
That is a bizarre argument, which seems to be saying that because other states have not signed up or agreed to the non-proliferation treaty, we should get rid of Britain's nuclear weapons.
Trident has been designed for a 30-year deployment. HMS Vengeance was ordered in 1992 at a cost of £550 million and the other submarines incurred similar costs. Rightly or wrongly, that money has been spent, as has the £13 billion for the Trident system. That argument is over for the time being and a decision on a replacement will not have to be made until the end of the decade or possibly later if they are kept in service for as long as the prefab houses of old were.
Liberal Democrat instincts on issues of defence and foreign policy are usually sound. They are certainly sounder than those of the Labour Government on Iraq and a good deal sounder than those of the dithering and opportunistic Conservatives. We take the view that no effective case for a successor has been made, but the decision is one for another place and another time.
I do not doubt the sincerity of individuals' beliefs on this very difficult subject. However, I question the SNP's role in the chamber. It is the main Opposition party. Its primary role is to hold the Executive to account and it does not do that very well. Every time it brings to the chamber a debate on a reserved issue, as it does all the time, it demonstrates its irrelevance here, and we already know that it is irrelevant at Westminster.
On Trident and nuclear disarmament, I commend the Liberal Democrat amendment to the chamber. I move amendment S2M-2640.2, to leave out from "is opposed" to end and insert:
"believes that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is central to nuclear weapons control; supports the universal ratification of, and adherence to, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; regrets that technology in the production of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, continues to advance and to proliferate around the globe; supports the retention, against this background, of Britain's nuclear deterrent until real progress can be made on the multilateral elimination of nuclear weapons; believes that for nuclear non-proliferation and weapons reduction to be achieved, nuclear-armed countries such as Britain must be willing to participate in any disarmament process; believes that a decision to commit any research or other funding for the preparation of any successor to Trident must be first approved by the Westminster Parliament and that no effective case for a successor to Trident has yet been made, and calls on the UK Government to press for a nuclear weapons convention to formalise the commitment of all nuclear weapon states to nuclear disarmament."
There are two groups in this Parliament. There is the Lib-Lab-Con party, which is in favour of Trident, and there is everyone else, who represent the 85 per cent of Scots who say that they oppose nuclear weapons on our soil.
In 1996, the International Court of Justice advised that
"the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law".
In other words, it would be contrary to the Geneva convention, the declaration of St Petersburg and the Hague convention. Trident was useless in the Falklands fiasco, in Bosnia and in our attack on Iraq. Indeed, the high cost of Trident has damaged our conventional capabilities. It does not provide security; it simply gives terrorists a target.
Remember the hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of damage that was caused by three elderly ladies with a pair of bolt cutters a few years ago. How safe would Coulport be against a well-equipped terrorist? Nuclear convoys that supply Trident suffer accidents in most years and are vulnerable to terrorist attack. There were five accidents on the Firth of Clyde alone in the years between 1973 and 1987. That risk is not worth continuing with.
The United Nations has ruled that the use of depleted uranium coated weapons breaches the Geneva convention and the genocide convention. Two thousand tonnes of depleted uranium were dropped on Iraq in the recent attacks; that is 2,000 tonnes of radioactive dust. However, there are not just moral and legal imperatives against using depleted uranium. The MOD has fired more than 6,000 DU rounds into the Solway firth. We are told that that is safe, but this week, phosphorous shells were found washed up on the beaches of the Solway. The shells are almost certainly from the arms dumps in the Solway or Beaufort's Dyke where, we were told by the MOD 50 years ago, they would lie safely for the rest of time. Children play on those beaches, which are some of the best sandy beaches in Scotland. We must stop viewing the sea as a military dump. The weapons that were washed up on the beaches this week are proof positive that the haphazard firing of depleted uranium shells into the sea is not safe.
Article VI of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which has been mentioned before, imposes on us an obligation to take
"effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament".
We need urgently to give the world a lead. Under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the non-nuclear powers promise not to obtain nuclear weapons as long as the nuclear powers take steps to disarm. India, Pakistan and Israel have refused to sign because they see no evidence of the nuclear powers disarming. Two years ago, North Korea withdrew from the NPT for the same reason. How can we argue with those countries that they should stay non-nuclear when we are taking no steps to disarm and, indeed, are considering a new generation of weapons? As we have heard, the Government has announced that it is doing that and it will make a decision in the next two or three years.
The treaty is floundering. We need urgent action from the Westminster Government and the Executive to help to ensure that the ratification meeting in May is a success. Trident has not persuaded one single country to reduce its nuclear arsenal. Scotland should take the lead in this—we must do it for economic reasons and we should do it for our safety and for moral reasons. Most of all, we should take a lead for the sake of the entire world.
I move amendment S2M-2640.3, to insert after "£20 billion"
"; notes that communities and the environment across Scotland are endangered by nuclear convoys, by the dismantling of nuclear submarines at Rosyth and the testing of depleted uranium shells at Dundrennan; furthermore calls on Her Majesty's Government to honour its international obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,"
Once again, the SNP has chosen not to use its time to debate health, housing, council tax, pensions, the deprivation in parts of Scotland's cities or the difficulties that are faced by those in remote rural areas. Instead, it has decided to debate nuclear weapons, an issue on which this Parliament cannot make a decision. I am disappointed that my amendment concerning navy and civilian workers at Faslane was not accepted.
With the greatest respect to Roseanna Cunningham, I am baffled that the SNP wants to debate the future of Trident when, by doing so, it only draws attention to its muddled and irrational defence policy. Fortunately, the SNP's wish to scrap Trident could not be implemented unless it won a majority at Westminster, which is unlikely. Trident has been the cornerstone of Britain's worldwide defence policy, and it has played an enormous part in keeping the peace and providing security for this country. Trident has been a very successful deterrent against invaders or would-be conquerors.
We cannot talk about this subject in a Scotland-only context. I cannot see the UK scrapping Trident, but if Scotland were to become independent and the SNP did scrap it, there would be serious consequences for Scotland and many other nations.
The member attacks the SNP for choosing a reserved issue for debate. If his party does not believe in debating reserved issues, why did it choose to debate nuclear energy during its debating time a couple of weeks ago?
Last week we debated education, which is slightly more relevant to Scotland.
The SNP has admitted that Scotland would have to withdraw from NATO. Imagine the vulnerability of Scotland's position—and, for that matter, the vulnerability of the rest of the UK—were that to happen. I do not accept that the SNP's Scottish army would be able to guard Scotland's vast coastlines.
Will the member take an intervention?
No.
If the SNP got its way, there would be no British Army, no Royal Navy and no Royal Air Force. The withdrawal of Trident is part of a greater SNP policy that would leave Scotland defenceless. Its idea for creating Scottish defence forces is to take over all serving Scottish military personnel and to move them to such forces. For the Army, that would mean that there would be six infantry regiments, with minimal logistical back-up and support. Our Scottish regiments have done more than punch their weight. Scottish soldiers are feared as fighters and respected as peacekeepers. However, the SNP's policy would condemn those highly trained men from the best army in the world to a career providing a guard outside Alex Salmond's presidential palace, like some low-grade Ruritanian flunkeys. The Scottish defence forces would be unlikely to take part in peacekeeping or to join other forces in missions across the world, because the SNP's policy is to leave NATO.
The economic effects of scrapping Trident would be devastating. Between Faslane and Babcock, some 7,000 jobs would be lost. Thousands of people in Helensburgh and Garelochhead would lose their jobs at Faslane, and many other communities would suffer. What would the SNP do about those job losses and the resulting devastation of local economies? A reasonably prosperous area of Scotland would become a wasteland. On the one hand, we hear that the SNP wants to encourage a vibrant economy. On the other, it is willing to throw away 7,000 jobs at the drop of a hat to increase its appeal to SSP voters.
The SNP would like to get rid of our nuclear deterrent, but I believe that it is fundamentally wrong. It is good for our democracy to have the deterrent to counter the threat of dictatorships with nuclear weapons. Unilateral disarmament by the UK will never bring about disarmament by aggressive dictatorships or rogue states. The best way in which to keep the peace is to promote the spread of democracy from a position of strength. That is what Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan did so successfully when they ended the cold war.
For most of members' lifetimes, ever since the first nuclear bombs were dropped nearly 60 years ago at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nuclear cloud has been hanging over us. It is clear that, as long as countries maintain nuclear arsenals, there will continue to be the threat that a nuclear holocaust will take place one day on the planet.
As Roseanna Cunningham rightly said, there is no need for Bush and Blair to go halfway round the world looking for weapons of mass destruction, because such weapons are right here on our doorstep. As Roseanna Cunningham said, one Trident warhead is seven times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, where 140,000 people lost their lives. A couple of weeks ago, Chris Mullin, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, said in the UK Parliament that one submarine with 48 warheads is currently at sea acting as a deterrent. That one submarine—there are four in total—has the power equivalent to 336 Hiroshimas.
We must bear in mind that, although the UK has only 200 warheads, the US, Russia and other countries have thousands between them. The Scottish Parliament has now been in existence for six years, and we must ask ourselves why on earth Scotland, a small country of 5 million people on the north-western periphery of Europe, is home to one of the world's deadliest nuclear arsenals.
I am interested in the process that the SNP suggests. It is proposed that we get rid of the American, British and, presumably, the French nuclear deterrents. How would getting rid of Britain's nuclear deterrent advance the cause of removing the nuclear weapons that North Korea, Israel, Pakistan and India have? I am sure that the member would agree that nuclear weapons are much more dangerous in those countries than they are here.
We in Scotland cannot call on other countries to get rid of their nuclear weapons when we have one of the world's deadliest arsenals on our doorstep. When I last considered the geopolitical situation, other countries round the world were not queuing up to attack Scotland. If they are, that may be because we have Trident missiles here.
I want to consider Scotland and its role in the world. At the moment, we waste a colossal amount of resources on maintaining the nuclear deterrent, or whatever we want to call it. One billion pounds a year—3 per cent of the UK defence budget—is spent on nuclear weapons. If the son of Trident comes about, it will cost a further £20 billion, which is the equivalent of £2 billion a year, to maintain it. We believe that the people of Scotland do not want that cash to be spent on nuclear weapons. They would rather it were diverted to dealing with social and economic issues here in their country. Over the next 10 years, the UK will pay £400 million to help the former Soviet Union to deal with its nuclear legacy. We all support that, but it gives an indication of the global cost of nuclear weapons.
I turn to the wider debate. Nuclear weapons are a legacy of the cold war, which finished a long time ago. Children who will leave school after the summer were not even born when there was a cold war—that is how long ago it was. Nuclear weapons are no longer relevant in our national security strategies. No matter how many submarines go round our seas loaded with nuclear weapons, they will not stop Osama bin Laden or other terrorists. They do not have a role to play in the 21st century.
Scotland has an opportunity to become a nuclear weapon-free country and to play a role in making the whole world nuclear weapon free. In 1998, the new agenda coalition, which was led by the Irish and launched in Dublin, began a campaign to achieve nuclear disarmament. Small countries can play a role in making the whole world nuclear weapon free.
There is a growing trend towards establishing nuclear weapon-free zones around the world. At the end of April—just a week or two before the UK elections—all the countries that are involved in establishing such zones will get together in Mexico. Would it not be great if Scotland were independent and we could be represented at that meeting, to allow us to play our role in getting this part of the world to become a nuclear weapon-free zone?
In his recent book "A Short History of Nearly Everything", which was a big success, Bill Bryson said that, if we were to translate the history of the world into 24 hours, the human race would appear on the planet only one minute and 17 seconds before midnight. Would it not be an appalling tragedy if the human race abused its technical knowledge to wipe out not only itself, but the planet? That is something that we must avoid. The Scottish Parliament, which represents the people of Scotland, must play its part in ensuring that it does not happen.
This is slightly reminiscent of groundhog day—another SNP debate, another reserved issue. The people of Scotland will soon begin to wonder whether there is any point in having SNP MPs at Westminster, as today's debate demonstrates that they are incapable of making the case there.
I turn to the substance of the debate. It is fair to say that many activists in the Labour movement, including me, have campaigned over the years for nuclear disarmament. World peace and a nuclear-free world are aspirations that we all share. We may differ on how to achieve those aims, but I know of no sane person, inside or outside the chamber, who wants to see nuclear weapons used anywhere in the world.
The Labour Government has clearly demonstrated its commitment to Britain's obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Together with France, Britain was one of the first two nations to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Practical action has also been taken. There has been a reduction in the number of warheads, which is down by a third. All air-launched nuclear weapons have been removed. That is action, not rhetoric, and the SNP would do well to learn from it.
I make it clear that there are no plans for Trident to be replaced and that no decision has been made on any possible successor system. I quote from the recent defence review white paper, "Delivering Security in a Changing World", which states:
"The Government's policy on nuclear weapons remains as set out in the SDR"—
the strategic defence review. The paper continues:
"We are committed to working towards a safer world in which there is no requirement for nuclear weapons".
I stress the word "no".
It pains me to have to make this point yet again, but if the SNP is a serious, grown-up party, it needs to recognise that responsible politicians must think through the consequences of their actions. In that context, I want to talk about Faslane.
Will the member give way?
No.
Specifically, I want to talk about an EKOS Consulting report that was commissioned a few years ago. The report showed that 7,000 people are employed at the base, 4,000 of whom are civilians. However, there is more. Some 3,700 indirect jobs result from supplier linkages and income multipliers. The base is one of the largest single-site employers in Scotland, and by far the largest source of jobs in the local economy. If we consider that West Dunbartonshire is among the most disadvantaged areas in Scotland, and that Faslane provides a quarter of the employment in the area, the SNP's attitude is nothing short of scandalous. Have the nationalists thought about what will happen to the workers and their families, or are they, too, destined for the scrap heap?
A couple of years ago, I found that the SNP's policy website was blank on this matter. It had nothing to say, except that the matter was under review. I confess that I am not sure whether today's offering is any better. Perhaps, as Ronan Keating would say, the SNP says it best when it says nothing at all.
We remain in the dark about the SNP's policy on these matters. Does it want to be in or out of NATO? Do we need to wait for the vagaries of an SNP conference for such a decision? In any case, we need not worry: apparently, when Trident is scrapped, the Scottish navy and customs and excise will be based at Faslane. At least, that is what the former SNP MSP Lloyd Quinan said. What a relief that news was to the workers. However, geography is not one of the SNP's strong points—Faslane is, of course, on the west coast—and Mr Quinan had obviously not checked with the boss before he made his statement. At the same time, Alex Salmond was on his feet, telling people in Rosyth—which is on the east coast—not to worry, because the self-same navy would be based there.
Do members want to know how big that navy will be? I will tell them: it will consist of seven frigates and the workforce involved will number 100. Is my maths wrong? If not, the SNP needs to tell us what it will do for the other 10,600 people who work at Faslane. Until the SNP can properly answer that question, it should not waste my time and the chamber's time. I urge Parliament to reject the motion.
We have just heard an example of a pathetic lack of ambition from someone who says that she believes in nuclear disarmament and world peace, but who speaks an entirely different game. Jackie Baillie mentioned the income multiplier. Three years ago, I wrote to Glasgow City Council to ask how many people it employed, directly or indirectly, with the £1 billion of grant-aided expenditure that it had at its disposal. The chief executive at the time replied that, with that £1 billion, the council employed 30,000 directly and another 20,000 to 30,000 indirectly. In short, for £1 billion, Glasgow City Council directly and indirectly employed 60,000 people. Jackie Baillie tells us that we cannot get rid of Trident because it will lead to the loss of up to 8,000—perhaps 10,000—jobs.
Will the member give way?
No. The member did not take any interventions.
As I said, Jackie Baillie told us that 8,000 to 10,000 jobs would be lost. What poverty of ambition. The very same people who are currently employed in highly skilled refitting, engineering and technical jobs could be just as well employed on new ferries, new trains, new buses, magnetic resonance imaging or kidney machines and so on. The skills would not disappear, because the workers would be redeployed. The only difference is that 20,000 more people would be employed as a result of that approach than are currently employed as a result of the money that is wasted on nuclear weapons. From the outset, we need to get rid of the nonsense that says that somehow or other we must stick with nuclear weapons because they create jobs. In fact, they create even fewer jobs than would be created with socially useful production.
When I listened to the Tories' arguments, it felt like groundhog day. They never change. Jamie McGrigor did not take an intervention as he told us that getting rid of nuclear weapons would leave us defenceless. He wanted to know who would guard our borders. The question that I wanted to ask him was: from whom are we going to be defenceless? After 1945, people like Jamie McGrigor tried to tell us that we needed nuclear weapons because the Russians were just over the hill and would invade us if we did not have them. I do not know what they were going to invade us for; after all, they have enough rain in their own country. Moreover, throughout the 1980s, they certainly had nothing like the level of unemployment that we had under the Tories.
This is about the politics of fear. We want nuclear weapons because we want to frighten everyone. I have seen no reports that say that the good people of Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland cannot get a good sleep at night, and yet they do not have any nuclear weapons. They are—to come back to Jamie McGrigor's point—defenceless. It is time that we had the guts and courage to stand up in the world and say that we will take action on nuclear disarmament and that we want to be a country that promotes peace, not nuclear proliferation, throughout the world. At the moment, we cannot say that we are a country of peace when every one of the UK's nuclear weapons is on our shores.
We must fight for disarmament; try to promote ourselves as a country of peace; and encourage the people of Scotland to go to Faslane on 4 July to protest for nuclear disarmament. If the Tories think that they are popular enough, we should put it to a referendum. That would show clearly that the people of Scotland would rather have investment in schools, hospitals and pensions than in nuclear weapons.
One of the great philosophers of the 20th century, Will Durant, once wrote:
"In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is the product of order."
In my youth, I was a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament because I realised the horrible potential of weapons of mass destruction and wanted to stress the need to be free from that threat, which, during a time of cold war aggression in the 1970s and 1980s, was growing ever greater.
I still acknowledge that threat, but I am a little bit older now and, like Will Durant, I have matured. I now appreciate that this is an incredibly complex geopolitical issue that raises many different concerns. I still believe in nuclear disarmament but, in discussing it, we need to have order as we strive towards that aspiration.
In the member's youth, the cold war posed a threat. At that time, he was a member of CND and did not believe in nuclear weapons. However, the member is older and there is no longer a cold war. Why does he believe in nuclear weapons now that no threat exists?
If the member had listened, she would have heard me say that I still do not believe in nuclear weapons. If she paid attention, she might not waste parliamentary time with such stupid interventions.
Because of our Labour Government, there have been major reductions in nuclear forces. I am proud of that record. Indeed, despite what the Green party said, the UK has relinquished all air-launched weapons; Royal Navy surface ships are no longer able to carry or to deploy nuclear weapons; and the nuclear missile and artillery roles that were previously held with US nuclear weapons under dual-key arrangements have been resigned. That represents real progress towards nuclear disarmament.
Trident is the only nuclear system left and I hope that it will be the last. However, getting rid of it will require an ordered defence policy, not disarray, and gaining freedom from the threat of nuclear destruction will require orderly negotiation. In today's post-cold war nuclear politics, the issue is not as simple as the SNP would have us believe.
However, why should we be surprised that the SNP has a chaotic defence policy? It does not have an impressive record on issues relating to Scotland's defence; indeed, its approach to defence policy is careless and contradictory. For example, it advocates withdrawal from NATO and has repeatedly opposed NATO action, despite the fact that such action has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Moreover, the SNP advocates Scottish independence while arguing for the retention of Scottish regiments in the British Army. As I have said before, at least when the Indians and the Irish gained independence, they had the decency to tell Britain to take its army with it. The SNP wants us to believe that Scotland would be the only country in the world to gain independence—its so-called freedom—and still keep the army of its oppressors.
The most disingenuous aspect is that the SNP would put independence before Scotland's national security and the benefit that we gain from defence jobs. This week, the SNP accused Labour of causing unemployment at Rosyth while advocating shutting down the very defence industry that provides thousands of Scots with employment.
As the election looms, we will see much more of the political opportunism for which the SNP is famous. I am glad that the SNP has again given us the opportunity to expose that opportunism. The money that is currently spent on Trident has been pledged variously by the SNP to the national health service, to increasing the number of nursery places, to improving the lot of pensioners and even to a Scottish Nobel prize. The SNP asks only that we should wait until Scotland is independent to address the critical issue of defence.
I am an optimist and I expect to live to see Scotland free of nuclear capabilities, but I do not expect ever to see Scotland becoming independent. If I ever stop being an optimist, I will become a nationalist.
It is always interesting to hear the straw men that are put up by the other parties to represent the SNP's position. Much of the debate has been characterised by members constructing an edifice and then shooting at it rather than addressing the real issues, but I think that there is consensus in the chamber that we wish to see nuclear weapons removed.
I would like to make a frivolous intervention, as there have been frivolous interventions by SNP members. Did the member's dad happen to have a nuclear weapon given to him, which he shoved in his cupboard?
Michael McMahon welcomed the end of air-launched nuclear weapons. So be it. However, it does not matter whether weapons are launched from the air, land or water—what matters is where they land. Weapons cause damage when they land rather than when they are launched, and nuclear weapons in the UK are designed to damage civilians rather than military targets—that is the morality behind the debate.
Troops from our islands—from Scotland in particular—are deployed in conflicts here, there and everywhere throughout the world. They are stretched thin and worked hard—perhaps they are overworked—because we choose to divert our resources to weapons that we hope we will never use and for which we cannot envisage the circumstances in which we would use them.
In 1985, in the fictional "Yes, Prime Minister" television series, James Hacker visited defence chiefs and discussed the nuclear deterrent. Afterwards, in a review of what was happening, he was asked what the deterrent was for and who it deterred, but he could not say. In the modern world, we certainly cannot say what the deterrent is for and who it deters. Hacker was asked how the deterrent deterred, but he could not say. He said that he would use it, but certainly not if the East Germans crossed into west Berlin or if the Russians went in to support civil unrest in west Berlin. All the scenarios developed. As he came up Whitehall, he still could not say when he would use nuclear weapons. We remain in the same position today.
Jackie Baillie asked why there are SNP members in the House of Commons. Perhaps she should consult the House of Commons library. All the SNP members in the House of Commons are in the top 10 for activity, but the feeble 50 Scottish Labour members languish at the bottom of that table. In an independent Scotland, Scotland's defence forces would be active and engaged to meet Scotland's priorities just as we now have defence forces—a wonderful five members—defending Scotland in Westminster.
Jackie Baillie, properly, mentioned jobs in her constituency and she favours the elimination of nuclear weapons, of course. What preparation is she making for the elimination of jobs that depend on nuclear weapons? Service personnel should have no fears. Again, I remind members that we are committed to ensuring that every person who is employed in the services in Scotland will have the opportunity to work in the Scottish independent defence forces when there is independence.
We are clinging grimly to immorality, twitching in fear of the advance of rationality and failing actively to support a world order. Eliminating nuclear weapons from the world is a long and difficult job, so we must start to do so now. Where better to start than with ourselves? There is no time to waste.
The debate has provided a significant opportunity to voice our opposition to nuclear weapons. I join a long line of politicians who have taken a stance against such weapons, which includes the First Minister, Jack McConnell, who was active on the streets of Stirling during the 1980s in opposing nuclear weapons. He argued about their illegality, the technology's political redundancy, the economic waste of the billions of pounds that are spent on nuclear weapons and the complete moral outrage of having nuclear weapons systems.
Nuclear weapons are illegal. The International Court of Justice has ruled that they are illegal, and they are illegal under the Geneva convention, the declaration of St Petersburg, the Hague convention and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Many members have said that they are politically irrelevant because we live in an age in which wielding a craft knife on a jumbo jet does more to change global politics in the space of a couple of hours than nuclear weapons ever have.
There is an economic case against nuclear weapons. Over the entire lifetime of the Trident system, a sum of money equivalent to 116 times the amount of money that has been spent on the Holyrood building project will be spent. That money could have been spent on tackling antisocial behaviour, putting more police on the streets or creating jobs in our communities, which Tommy Sheridan mentioned.
There is a moral case against nuclear weapons. I wonder whether Jackie Baillie believes that Labour ministers have acted responsibly. A Labour minister, Geoff Hoon, ruled in the potential use of nuclear weapons in Iraq—he did not rule out using them; he ruled in using them. I say to Jackie Baillie that that was not responsible. If the Labour Party at Westminster had any guts, it would implement the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Chris Patten, who is a Tory, has said that, in the past year,
"we have been applying double standards".
He has stated:
"It is very difficult for us to argue that there is something morally wrong with other countries developing their nuclear capacity when we don't … live up to all our commitments under the NPT".
He is right. Of course, it is easy to say those words when one is not in Government or in charge of the US aircraft carrier that is the UK.
Robert Brown fails to understand that the west's nuclear arsenal is built on a house of cards. If the UK changed the terms of the mutual defence agreement between the US and the UK, of course that would lead to disarmament through the non-proliferation treaty. If we moved to reduce the nuclear arsenal in the UK, the whole edifice would come down and countries such as North Korea would be brought into a position in which they could disarm.
Given the state of North Korea, how on earth would getting rid of the nuclear deterrent in Scotland or the UK encourage the North Koreans to do likewise?
Countries have lost faith in the non-proliferation treaty, and we must move and show leadership. Countries must be brought back into the moral consensus.
The issue is not only an international issue; it also affects communities in Scotland. Nuclear convoys run through Stirling throughout the night, and there is an increased risk of those convoys breaking down and having accidents. People will be concerned about such issues in the forthcoming election. There is the legacy of nuclear submarines rusting in the dock at Rosyth. The interim storage of laid-up submarines—ISOLUS—consultation recommended that nuclear submarines should not be cut up at Rosyth. Will the Executive take a firm position on that when the MOD submits its plans?
Chris Ballance mentioned the use of depleted uranium weapons at Dundrennan, which is perhaps the biggest environmental scandal in Scotland at the moment. The First Minister, Jack McConnell, should hold true to his Labour movement principles. He should join his colleague Ken Livingstone in New York in May at the discussions on the non-proliferation treaty and give voice to the 85 per cent of Scots who do not want nuclear weapons in Scotland. He should try to force movement on the non-proliferation treaty to get international consensus on getting rid of nuclear weapons.
The debate has been good and worth while. It was fair enough for Roseanna Cunningham to set out the SNP's unilateral position, but I question the worth of having just 75 minutes to debate such an important issue.
Chris Ballance, who was representing the extremist Green Party rather than the cuddly Green Party, supported the SNP's unilateral position; that is fair enough. However, he was completely wrong to maintain that the UK has done nothing in this area. I have news for the Greens. As Mike McMahon pointed out, all the UK's tactical nuclear weapon systems have been taken out of service.
As usual, Tommy Sheridan called for direct action. I am not sure what else he called for. The UK's nuclear force is now limited to its strategic deterrent, Trident. I am not noted for coming to the defence of the UK Government, but Stewart Stevenson—who has left the chamber—failed to acknowledge that we have got rid of the tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons, which are the most dangerous form of nuclear weapons. Those are the weapons that could have been used in a real scenario.
Mike Rumbles mentioned the nuclear weapons that could have been used. Is he saying that the nuclear weapons that we have cannot be used?
That is correct—that is my personal belief.
We have spent huge resources on procuring the Trident system and we now spend about 3 per cent of the UK's annual defence budget on it. The point that I am making is that there is a legitimate argument about whether any UK Government would ever use our nuclear deterrent. I have said that I cannot envisage any scenario in which the Trident missile system could be used. However, members such as Jamie McGrigor believe that the fact that we have such a system means that we have an effective deterrent. Following on from Tommy Sheridan's question, I ask Jamie McGrigor under what circumstances a Tory Prime Minister would order the commander of the one nuclear submarine that we have on patrol to launch his Trident nuclear missiles. I cannot envisage such a situation.
The Liberal Democrats believe that unilateral nuclear disarmament is not the best way forward. We believe that the key to a safer world is to make progress on multilateral nuclear disarmament. We must be willing to take part in the disarmament process. We want the UK Government to press for a nuclear weapons convention at which the commitment of all nuclear weapon states to disarmament could be formalised.
As far as the future of Trident is concerned, it is clear that no effective case for a successor system has been made. In any event, it must be right that the UK Parliament remains the proper body to take any decision on whether to replace Trident.
As the motion represents a unilateralist approach to nuclear disarmament, the Liberal Democrats cannot support it. In my view, the Labour amendment is concerned simply with scoring points off the SNP. [Interruption.]
Order.
The Liberal Democrats are in favour of real nuclear disarmament to make the world a safer place. We can achieve that by engaging with other countries in discussions on multilateral nuclear disarmament.
I urge members to support the Liberal Democrat amendment.
When I read the SNP motion, my mind drifted back to a time to which Scott Barrie referred, when the Tory Government decided—mistakenly, in my view—to take away nuclear submarine maintenance from Rosyth. Scott Barrie asked where the SNP was at that time. I can tell him where it was. Margaret Ewing and Alex Salmond were at Westminster with the same shop stewards as Scott Barrie was with to protest against the Government about the removal of the nuclear submarines from Rosyth. Now the SNP wants to remove them from Faslane. Given the importance of the Faslane base to the local economy and its wider importance, what on earth would the SNP replace the nuclear submarines at Faslane with?
Tommy Sheridan said that we should use the resources that we spend on nuclear weapons for more industrial purposes, but I remind him that the skills and training that are available at Faslane are vital to the future of Scotland in other ways. There are no private facilities that offer the skills and training that are obtainable with the Royal Navy or the civil organisations at Faslane.
Does the member agree that the skills to which he refers could just as well be deployed on the refitting and building of passenger ferries, train carriages and new buses?
Regrettably, we are not building boats. The member might not have noticed, but that is not happening. Shipyards on the Clyde are shutting. I repeat that the skills that are available at Faslane have been taught and developed at Faslane; without them, Scotland would be a poorer place.
I want to consider wider aspects of nuclear weapons. Roseanna Cunningham said that she never saw Scott Barrie on CND protest marches, and Scott Barrie said that he never saw Roseanna Cunningham on the marches that he went on. Neither of them saw me because I was not there. I was not there because I believed that the deterrence policy was right for the United Kingdom and the wider world. In my view, that policy has been proved to have been correct.
Before Chris Ballance was out of his diapers, I had experienced the effects of the cold war. I can remember back to the time of the 1939-45 war, when 50 million people lost their lives as a result of the use of conventional weapons, not nuclear weapons. In my view, all war is wrong, but in many instances it is inevitable, because of human nature and jealousies between nations. It is something that must be guarded against.
I believe that the nuclear deterrent has kept the major powers apart over the past 50 or 60 years. It would be a very ill-advised leader of the UK or, indeed, an independent Scotland who would wish to move out of the umbrella protection that nuclear weapons provide.
I give way quickly to Stewart Stevenson.
I am sorry, but Mr Gallie is in his final minute.
I will support the Labour amendment. I am tempted to support that of the Liberals, although I wonder why they felt it necessary to break their links with their partners in the Parliament. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that a general election is looming.
I am delighted that the UK can control its own nuclear weapons. As always, I will make a point about the European constitution. If we were to pass over responsibilities for defence to others, I would be a bit more worried.
Anyone who has been watching First Minister's question time for the past two weeks could be forgiven for thinking that there is a crisis in the Scottish health service.
There is.
If such a crisis existed, it would be fair to assume that the SNP would put that crisis on the table, put forward a solution and try to effect change at the first political opportunity that presented itself. After all, health is an issue on which we can vote, take action and express differences of opinion. However, the SNP has not taken that opportunity. On the occasion of its first opportunity to choose a debate after Nicola Sturgeon's most recent performance at First Minister's questions, the SNP has chosen to have a debate not on the health service—the issue that matters most to the people of Scotland, according to Nicola Sturgeon—but on nuclear weapons, a matter for which we have no responsibility and on which we have no choice and no veto. But there goes the SNP, once again.
Will the member give way?
Nicola Sturgeon could not be bothered to turn up for the debate. She cannot come into the chamber now and think that she can nip into the debate in the middle of my speech. If the subject was important to her, she would have been sitting in the chamber for the whole debate, just like everybody else did. We will see what subject she raises at FMQT today.
Will the member give way?
No, I think I will just carry on. [Interruption.]
Order.
Oh well, on you go, Stewart.
I thank the member for giving way. Will she acknowledge that the SNP's last debating day, which was only two weeks ago, was spent on health, which is a matter of importance to the people of Scotland?
Absolutely, but how many minutes did that debate take up? It was not as many minutes as Nicola Sturgeon has taken up at FMQT on the subject.
Since that debate, another two weeks of Nicola Sturgeon telling us about the crisis in the health service have elapsed and yet, once again, we come to the chamber for an SNP debate and there is no debate on the issue. The truth is that, when the issues are difficult and the chips are down, it is not Nicola Sturgeon who runs the SNP but the Notting Hill nats and Alex Salmond—Nicola dances to Alex Salmond's tune. Issues on which the Scottish Parliament has responsibility and on which we can change things are sidelined. Once again, the SNP ducks the real challenge, which is to grasp their role as MSPs. It seems that they would rather act as a support band to their London bosses. [Interruption.]
Order.
The SNP sees a note of truth in what I have said.
All of us are committed to achieving world peace and nuclear disarmament. We may differ on how best to do that, but all of us are committed to doing so.
My colleagues Scott Barrie, Jackie Baillie and Michael McMahon exposed the difficulties of a party having a policy that is built on a slogan. I expected that from Tommy Sheridan—the Trots have been doing that for 30 years, and never have they had the aspiration of Government. However, the SNP tells everyone that it is a serious party of Government. Therefore, we could be forgiven for expecting from it today a slightly more thought-through policy and a bit more detail on how jobs would be redeployed.
Stewart Stevenson said that he guarantees that every single job at Faslane would be transferred to the Scottish defence force. How many people is he talking about? How many people are in the marines, the air force, the navy, the army and all the special operations forces? How would all of them be transferred and how would they be employed? How many people are employed on Ministry of Defence contracts?
The number of jobs in the defence industry has been reduced because of the jobs that have been lost since Labour came to power in 1997.
That response gives me a very useful in to an example that exposes the contradiction on the issue. The SNP's parliamentary candidate for the Rosyth area has claimed that the awarding of the contract to refit the Ark Royal to Rosyth was a pre-election sweetener and that it was not awarded on merit; yet, this week, the same person said that more jobs should be given to Rosyth. The SNP cannot have it both ways. Either Rosyth deserved the Ark Royal contract or it did not, and Rosyth should either get the jobs or it should not. Perhaps Tricia Marwick should have a wee chat with the SNP's man in Rosyth and put him straight on what SNP policy is.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry, but I am in my last minute.
Tommy Sheridan talked about a referendum. There will be a referendum and I imagine that 5 May will be the day when the people of Scotland and the people of the United Kingdom elect a new Government. People will give their verdict on many different issues, one of which will be defence policy.
Perhaps the real reason why we are having this debate is because the SNP has finally realised what the Labour Party already knew—that, if or when decisions come to be made on these issues at the UK level, there will be no SNP MPs to debate them at the House of Commons.
The SNP motion concentrates on ensuring that there will be no replacement for Trident and that the £20 billion plus is spent on peaceful uses in our country, such as the creation of jobs of a peaceful nature.
All our opponents attempted to talk about everything except Trident and I turn first to Scott Barrie, who seemed to have to hide behind a smokescreen by diverting the debate on to other reserved matters. For Labour, Trident is about Britain having a seat at the top table in the Security Council. Without Trident and without our nuclear weapons, Labour's aspirations for Britain would fail—we would be removed from the top table. Whenever the subject of nuclear weapons is debated, Labour members become extremely concerned; they feel that they have to disguise the issue. The SNP will not disguise the subject. It is clear that Scotland has a different perspective on the issue from the Labour Party's.
Will the member give way?
Not at the moment.
The global elimination of nuclear weapons is something that many of us believe must happen. I say to Scott Barrie that thinking globally is one thing, but what the SNP suggests we should be doing is acting locally.
The Liberal Democrats' amendment shows them to be the masters of irrelevance and obfuscation. The party was set up on the principle of having a policy in favour of nuclear weapons—that was Charles Kennedy's stance at the joint Social Democratic Party and Liberal Party discussions. One wonders why, after all those years, the Liberal Democrats have not moved on and why Scotland is not yet in the position of having a voice at the tables in the world at which non-proliferation and the like are discussed. One also asks why the Liberal Democrats continue to lodge amendments of the sort that we see today and refuse to debate a motion on the stopping of the replacement for Trident. Why did its members who spoke in the debate not concentrate on the specifics of the motion?
The Greens told us—as the SNP believes—that 85 per cent of Scots want rid of nuclear weapons. The SNP has provided the chamber with the opportunity to debate the issue today. We hope the debate will show the people of Scotland that as many members of the Parliament believe that we should get rid of nuclear weapons and that the first and best way in which to do that is to refuse to replace Trident.
Will the member answer the question that I asked earlier? How will Scotland or the UK ridding the country of nuclear weapons help to deal with the North Korea situation?
The fact is that the UK's Trident submarines are centre-stage. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is dealt with by the sovereign nations of the world and Scotland, as a nation, would have a role in that. As a successor nation to the existing UK, we would have a seat at the tables at which the discussions are held. The point of the exercise is to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in this country. Replacing Trident is the first opportunity to do so.
It was interesting to hear that the Tories will support the Labour Party's amendment at decision time. Indeed, it was interesting to hear how close the arguments made by Jamie McGrigor and Jackie Baillie were. It is clear that the Tories accept Labour's argument.
Will the member give way?
Not at the moment.
It seems that Jackie Baillie is incapable of using the internet. If she had looked up the SNP's website, she would have found the answer to the question she posed on the SNP policy on defence, which states:
"the SNP will pursue a non-nuclear defence policy. Our armed forces will initially be equipped with Scotland's share of UK defence resources. The Scottish Defence Force will be all professional, supported by part time volunteers. Defence policy will be made in Scotland's national parliament."
At present, defence policy is made in the UK Parliament. By lodging the motion, the SNP is trying to influence that process.
Will the member explain how seven frigates and 100 jobs will take care of the 10,600 people who currently work at Faslane?
The member will have noted that I said that our armed forces will initially be equipped with Scotland's share of the UK defence resources. That means that the work will continue.
Attitudes in Scotland to nuclear weapons have long been one of opposition; from the most middle-class areas to the most working-class areas of the country, 85 per cent of Scots are opposed to nuclear weapons. At the SNP conference, the loudest cheer is always for the speech on the motion that says that we will get rid of nuclear weapons from our soil.
Will Rob Gibson give way on that point?
No, thank you.
The motion before us puts the SNP in a position to ask members to consider the moral argument and to set an example by arguing that no replacement to Trident in Scotland is the best way forward for the Parliament, and is the best way forward for all Scots. Trident is a relic of the UK's past. It has no part in Scotland's future, and the SNP's motion makes that perfectly clear. I am glad to support it, and I ask others to do so too.