On Thursday Robert Straker and I spent time in the Beckenham Conservative’s Office and then went campaigning down Croydon Road to Elmers End Green in Kelsey and Eden Park Ward. I took lunch in the Sunrise Café. In the evening we met up with about ten Tory party members in Copers Cope and then canvassed along and around Foxgrove Road area. The team were directed by Tony Power, aided by the incredibly hard-working Councillor Ruth Bennett.
I don’t think it was a Conservative voter who challenged me yesterday on the matter of replacing our Trident Strategic Nuclear Submarines. He told me his view that nuclear deterrence was pointless and it would cost too much at £100 million. I don’t agree.
I won’t rehearse most of the oft repeated arguments on why we should keep our nuclear deterrent – except for one which I think carries topical currency.
On 5th December 1994 the United States, Russia, UK and Ukraine signed the so-called Budapest Memorandums of Security Assurances. They were later joined by China and France. In these memorandums Ukraine agreed to join the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear weapons. By way of return it gave up its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons; it had one third of the old Soviet Union’s arsenal on its soil. As a tit for tat Ukraine’s sovereignty was guaranteed by the nations that signed the protocol. I wonder whether Russian T-64 and T-72 tanks would be cruising quite so easily through Donetsk and other Ukrainian towns today if Ukraine still possessed nuclear weapons. Maybe not!
The £100 billion cost of Trident is an estimate spread over its lifetime which could be about 35 years. In fact it is estimated to cost about £2.8 billion a year. That is still a lot of money I accept – but, in proportion, well under one tenth of the annual Defence Budget. Using similar long-term logic, overseas aid will cost the British taxpayer approaching half a trillion pounds over the same period! Personally I think Trident to be essential for our defence – the first duty of government - and thus well worth the money.
The attached photograph was taken when I visited Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde at Faslane, Scotland in March 2013 with the House of Commons Defence Committee. Faslane is the home port of the Royal Navy’s Submarine Service and obviously the point from where our SSBN submarines deploy. As an ex-soldier who hated being confined in small spaces, I am in awe of those that serve under the waves. They are a very special breed of person.