Trident

14 Mar 2007
Ms Diane Abbott: Like many Labour Members, I came of age politically in the era when issues of war and peace, and our responsibility as a movement and as individuals to make the world a safer place for our children, were at the very forefront of the political debate. A lot has happened in the intervening years, but I believe in the same things as I believed in then.

Today we live in, if anything, a more dangerous world than ever, but if this evening this House takes a vote in principle to go forward with Trident, we will make it even more dangerous. That is partly because the vote will be premature and partly because we will not be doing it on the basis of full information, including scientific information. I refer the House to what Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, said on this issue:

    “the more those States that already have”

nuclear weapons

    “increase their arsenals, or insist that such weapons are essential to their national security, the more other States feel that they too must have them, for their security.”

Many Members have said that if we let go of our nuclear weapons, other people will not automatically let go of theirs. In fact, we are not letting them go—we will have nuclear weapons going forward into the future. Nevertheless, if we insist on renewing and increasing our arsenal, how can that help with proliferation?

In reading past debates on this issue, I came across a quote from the current Chancellor, then the Member for Dunfermline, East, who said about Trident that it is

    “unacceptably expensive, economically wasteful and militarily unsound.”—[ Official Report, 19 June 1984; Vol. 62, c. 188.]

I defer to no one in my admiration for the Chancellor. He was right then, and what he said he is even more right today.

I beg the House, even at this late stage, to vote to take this decision when we need to take it, and not prematurely because of other considerations. That would not be a decision to pursue unilateral disarmament. We need to take our decision on the basis of sound information, sound science and a genuine intent to make the world a safer place for our children.



back ⇢