HC Deb 18 January 1967 vol 739 cc419-20
26. Mr. Brooks

asked the Secretary of State for Defence when the British Polaris fleet will become obsolescent; and when he expects to announce proposals for the British deterrent to succeed it.

Mr. Healey

The British Polaris force, which will in due course take over our contribution to the strategic nuclear forces of N.A.T.O., will be fully deployed in 1969–70. The question of any successor weapon system is therefore premature.

Mr. Brooks

Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the United States Government is at present considering the re-equipment of its own Polaris fleet with the more advanced design of C3 missile? In view of the reports that this missile is eight times as effective as the A3, which is the present equipment of our own Polaris fleet, would not my right hon. Friend accept that the reason underlying this American decision suggests that our fleet may be out of date by about the end of the 1960s?

Mr. Healey

My hon. Friend will, I think, find that although the United States is planning to produce the Poseidon to replace the A3 in some of its own Polaris submarines, it is by no means planning to take all the A3 missiles out of service. I am satisfied on the evidence available to me that there is no danger that the A3 missile will not be capable of carrying out all its functions during the period we envisage having it in service.

Mr. A. Royle

When does the Minister intend to renegotiate the Nassau Agreement, which set up the Polaris fleet in the first place?

Mr. Healey

When it is necessary.

Mr. Hugh Jenkins

Is my right hon. Friend committed to the renegotiation of the Nassau Agreement? Is not the Labour Party opposed to the possession of an independent British nuclear weapon? What is he doing in talking about deploying it in the immediate future? Will he not suffer a similar fate to that now suffered by my hon. Friend on the back benches if he persists in these wrong courses?

Mr. Healey

I do not know to which hon. Friend on the back benches my hon. Friend is referring. I can, however, tell him that we have always made it clear, both in Opposition and in Government, that we regard these ships as a contribution to the collective nuclear deterrent strength of the West, and we intend so to employ them.

Mr. Powell

How can the Secretary of State and that Government take a rational decision on this question if they cannot decide whether, as the right hon. Gentleman says, this is a massive contribution to the deterrent power of the West or whether, as the Prime Minister says, it bears the proportion of a pea on the top of a mountain?

Mr. Healey

All I can tell the right hon. Gentleman is that 64 Polaris missiles are a very massive pea.