Commons Sitting of 3 March 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  LLOYDS BANK BILL
  Considered; to be read the Third time.
Oral Answers to Questions
  SOCIAL SERVICES

    General Hospitals
    Mr. Rentonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will publish in the Official Report a list of the new general hospitals that he expects to be opened in England in the next five years.
    The Minister for Health (Dr. Gerard Vaughan): I shall be glad to send this information to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Renton: If, as I suspect, the first phase of the new mid-Sussex general hospital is not on that list, will my hon. Friend share my deep regret at that omission? Is he aware chat my constituents, in an area of rapidly growing population, have waited 20 years for this new hospital? Will he ensure that his Department's new limits on the size and duration of capital contracts do not mean that we shall wait another 20 years?
    Dr. Vaughan: I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern in that respect. I assure him that the re-examination of the size of the hospital will not delay the contract. It is expected to start in 1982–83 and to be completed in 1989–90. It is agreed that there should be a full accident and emergency department in the new hospital.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call anyone else may I tell the hon. Gentleman that he should have put down a question about his constituency, because he has made this an open question, which I do not allow.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Is the Minister aware that the question asked for the information to placed in the Official Report? Will he do that?
    Dr. Vaughan: Yes, I shall be glad to arrange that, but I should point out that the list will be provisional. It may need to be changed, depending upon economic circumstances.
    Mr. Renton: Mr. Speaker, I should like to reply to your implied rebuke.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman may ask me a question, but he cannot reply to me.
    Mr. Renton: May I ask you a question, Mr. Speaker? I tried to put down a specific question about the mid-Sussex hospital, but it was ruled out of order by the Table Office.
    Mr. Speaker: I still say that the hon. Gentleman could have added the words"especially with regard to Sussex", or something like that.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Why is the Minister so coy about giving the figures openly to the House? Will the provisional list be changed because he thinks he can hive off a lot of National Health Service work to private hospitals? Or is he merely seeking to make those of his friends who are in the private sector more viable at the expense of NHS hospitals? If so, he should have the honesty to say so now.
    Dr. Vaughan: The hon. Lady sees mysteries and plots where none exist. It is a rather long list, and I did not want to weary the House with explanations about what was provisional and what was not.

    Tobacco Products
    Mr. Nicholas Bakerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what discussions he is having with the Pharmaceutical Society about the sale of tobacco products by pharmacists.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Sir George Young): None, Sir, but I am considering whether an approach would be worth while.
    Mr. Baker: Will my hon. Friend consider giving his encouragement and support to the Pharmaceutical Society, which is in the process of discussing a ban on the sale by its members of tobacco products? Will he agree that it is inconsistent that people who are supposed to be guardians of the public health should sell tobacco products?
    Sir George Young: Yes, I agree. It is deplorable that any member of the health professions should trade in products that are so harmful to health.
    Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Given the way in which the tobacco companies have been dragging their feet over the restriction on advertising, does the Minister accept that it is time to bring tobacco within the terms of the Medicines Act 1968?
    Sir George Young: I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend said in his remarks on this subject on 21 November. We have recently concluded a voluntary agreement with the Tobacco Advisory Council that covers the matter, and when that agreement runs out in July 1982 it will be for the House to consider what might follow it.

    Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970
    Mr. McNallyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services to what extent he monitors the application by local authorities of the provisions of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Rossi): Certain of the financial and statistical returns obtained by the Department relate to provisions made under this Act, such as meals services, aids to households and day centres; but implementation is primarily a matter for individual local authorities to determine.
    Mr. McNally: Is the Minister aware that that is not good enough? An authority such as Stockport, which has not brought its register up to date for five or six years, cannot possibly be carrying out its duties and responsibilities under that Act. Is there not a responsibility, therefore, on the Minister to monitor authorities and bring into line those that are not fulfilling their duties?
    Mr. Rossi: My right hon. Friend has certain reserve powers under the legislation. If anyone feels that a local authority is not fulfilling its duties under the Act, the matter can be referred to my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Ashley: Those powers are never used by the right hon. Gentleman. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there have been cuts by local authorities, as a result of Government cuts in expenditure? Is he further aware that it would be easy to recoup these cuts by pursuing the many people who evade taxation in the black economy? Is he aware that £3,000 million could be used to help disabled people if the Government were to pursue tax evaders?
    Mr. Rossi: I agree that it has not yet been necessary for my right hon. Friend to invoke the powers that Parliament has given him. With regard to the so-called cuts, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that since 1978–79 there has been an increase by 4 per cent. in real terms in money that is being spent by local authorities on the provision of personal social services.
    Mr. Wigley: To what extent has the Minister monitored the powers under the Act for access for disabled people to buildings to which the public have the right to go? In particular, has he done any monitoring of the extent to which the planning authorities have used the powers of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 in England and Wales to make provision for disabled people to enter buildings, in the same way as the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972 is being applied in Scotland?
    Mr. Rossi: The matters that the hon. Gentleman mentions are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment, and not of my Department, but I have noted that he has a Bill before the House, with which I wish him every success.

    Invalidity Beneft
    Mr. Hannamasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will now take steps to restore the full value of the invalidity benefit.
    Mr. Rossi: My right hon. Friend has given an assurance that invalidity benefit will be restored to the level of retirement pension when incapacity benefits are brought into taxation, subject to resources being available.
    Mr. Hannam: I welcome the announcement by my right hon. Friend to discontinue the abatement of invalidity benefit this year and in future, but will my hon. Friend accept that a disabled couple are losing nearly £100 a year through the present abatement? Will he therefore do his utmost to ensure the restoration of the amount as soon as possible, bearing in mind that the bringing into taxation of the benefit is now receding further into the distance, probably as far as 1984?
    Mr. Rossi: I assure my hon. Friend that we are doing our utmost.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Irrespective of the economic position of this country, is it not intolerable that the weak in our community should pay for our errors?
    Mr. Rossi: Both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party when in office have been determined to bring these benefits into taxation. This is a first step towards that. Necessarily, it is a crude step until the Administration are able to deal with the main problem of taxation. We must wait for my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who may have something to say about this matter when he introduces his Budget.
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: When considering the very necessary uprating of the invalidity benefit, will my hon. Friend also consider increasing the death grant, which is crucial to many invalids and to all old-age pensioners?
    Mr. Rossi: We are very much aware of the widening gap between the death grant and the average cost of a funeral today. We are looking at the matter. I can make no promises, but it is receiving anxious consideration.
    Mr. Rooker: Will the Minister confirm that the method used to cut invalidity benefit has been so crude, in advance of taxation, that 400,000 people for whom that benefit is the sole source of income have total incomes below the tax threshold and would not even be paying tax if it were a taxable benefit? That being the case, will he cease the attempt that is before the House to take a further 1 per cent. from those benefits?
    Mr. Rossi: I am aware that some beneficiaries who are affected by the 5 per cent. abatement would not pay tax ordinarily. That is a problem, and that is one of the reasons why we are not continuing the abatement in the coming year. The 1 per cent. clawback was debated very fully on the Second Reading of the Bill, and we spent most of the morning on it in Committee.

    Pharmaceuticals (Manufacture)
    Mr. Sheermanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether the Medicines Inspectorate will inspect all radio pharmaceutical manufacturing units during 1981.
    Mr. Norman Atkinsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many licences to manufacture Pharmaceuticals have been granted by the Committee on Safety of Medicines during the last five years to hospitals before manufacturing inspections have been carried out.
    Miss Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many hospitals are currently approved to manufacture Pharmaceuticals; and how many hospitals are still manufacturing Pharmaceuticals in spite of recommendations by the Medicines Inspectorate for manufacturing to cease at these hospitals.
    The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): Although, as Crown premises, NHS hospitals are not subject to formal arrangements for the issue of licences or to the other requirements of the Medicines Act 1968, they are subject to similar administrative controls.
    All the 480 NHS manufacturing units in Great Britain have been inspected and inspections will continue in 1981, including radio pharmaceutical units as appropriate. Eighteen manufacturing units in Great Britain have been

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    recommended to cease manufacture and I am asking for an urgent report on why manufacture has not ceased at each of the eight hospitals in England. In considering the inspectors' reports health authorities must, of course, weigh the risks of continuing to manufacture against the benefits to patients from having preparations available from their own hospital laboratories.
    Mr. Sheerman: In view of the present public expenditure cuts, which hit every sector of our community, is the Minister confident that the Medicines Inspectorate is sufficiently staffed for this purpose? Will he bear in mind that there are a large number of establishments, that they should be properly inspected, and that the staff is rather small in number, although the work load is increasing?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman is right. There are difficulties in recruiting to fill some of the vacancies in the inspectorate under the Medicines Act, and this is a matter to which Ministers are giving urgent attention.
    Mr. Norman Atkinson: If the Minister will acknowledge that none of us on the Labour Benches would want to generate unnecessary fears among patients, will he at the same time accept that there are some reservations among the inspectors? They would like access to certain hospitals. Both in the report and in any statement that the Minister may make in the near future will he encourage those hospitals to invite inspectors—although recognising that they have no statutory powers—to come in and have a look at the facilities there?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am not aware that there has been any problem of inspectors getting access to hospitals that engage in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical preparations, but I take note of what the hon. Gentleman has said.
    I am not aware that there has been a series of incidents that would show that medicines manufactured in hospital are a special source of hazard to patients. I have no doubt that the standards of manufacture are a good deal higher than they were a few years ago, and I want to see them all brought up to the highest standard.
    Miss Richardson: Is the Secretary of State aware of the difficulties that must face the 18 medicines inspectors who have to visit the 480 hospitals, plus factories? The Minister said that he was concerned about recruitment. Is it a question of recruitment, or one of a lack of resources?
    Mr. Jenkin: I said that there was difficulty in filling posts, and that is precisely the problem. There are a number of vacancies, and there have been for a while. The Department has not been able to fill them with suitably qualified people, but we are trying to do that. I accept the hon. Lady's point that we need to keep the inspectorate up to strength.
    Mr. Paul Dean: I welcome my right hon. Friend's answer, but does he think that there is a real need for hospitals to manufacture Pharmaceuticals? Is it not the case that, in most instances, it would be cheaper for them to buy from established suppliers outside?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am not satisfied that all the 480 hospitals need engage in manufacture. Nor am I satisfied that they all take account of the full costs of manufacture compared with buying in medicines. My Department will be discussing the whole question of manufacture with the chairman of the supply council.
    Mr. Terry Davis: Is the Minister aware that the Opposition are more concerned about safety than about expense? Will he tell the House how often these hospitals have been inspected? Is it not appalling that the eight hospitals in England that should have ceased manufacturing have not yet done so? May we have an assurance that he will give us the reasons in due course?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman knows that there is another question on the Order Paper about the number of inspection days during the last five years. The answer to that will appear in the Official Report tomorrow. I share his concern. My Department has been engaged on this matter for some months, but questions from hon. Members have enabled Ministers to take a direct interest. That is why I have called for an urgent report.

    Social Security Benefits
    Mr. Marksasked the Secretary of State for Social Services in what circumstances those aged 16 to 19 years who are in full-time education are permitted to draw social security benefits.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): Benefit can be paid to pupils who have a child of their own; persons who are handicapped and have only poor work prospects, those who are orphans, or those who are estranged from their parents.
    Mr. Marks: Does the Minister realise that because of the regulations many children will leave school at Easter, a few weeks before they are due to take their CSE examinations? What consultations have there been between her Department and the Department of Education and Science about that? Were education authorities and teachers' bodies consulted?
    Mrs. Chalker: I am aware of the concern that has been expressed in letters to me. I assure the hon. Gentleman that about 65,000 copies of"Social Assistance", or the combined document, were issued by the Labour Government. The full report was received by educational interests, including the National Union of Teachers, the National Union of Students, the Secondary Heads Association, the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association, the National Association of Head Teachers, the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers, and many others. Consultations took place with the Department of Education and Science, but the Secretary of State for Education and Science and I are watching the matter most carefully.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Does my hon. Friend agree that anyone who chooses to leave school at Easter just to receive social security benefits, if only for a few months, is ill-advised and would do much better to stay at school to take the examinations and wait until the Government re-examine the position?
    Mrs. Chalker: I accept that people would be well advised to stay at school to take their examinations wherever possible, but I do not think that we can always say that the choice is as simple as that for many hard-pressed families.
    Mr. Flannery: Does the Minister realise—from her last few words I think that she does—that children who leave school without taking the examinations for which the

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    entrance fee has been paid are not ill-advised? An article in The Guardian last week dealt with that subject and resulted in correspondence. Does she realise that they know that they will not get a job but are driven by poverty to miss the examinations that will help them further? Is she aware that such children have to leave school by that date, otherwise they must do without receiving social security benefits? Will she try to exert pressure on her right hon. Friend to do something about that because, as she says, all the teachers' unions are discussing the matter?
    Mrs. Chalker: I must point out that all the teachers' unions were asked to discuss the matter. There were a limited number of objections and protests, and even in discussions on the Bill a limited amount of debate—not because of the guillotine—on this issue. I recognise the problem, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that where a family are receiving supplementary benefit there is no reduction in the financial resources during deferment. The family still get the same amount of money. It is those families with whom the hon. Gentleman is most concerned.

    Pensioners (Hospital Allowance)
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received about the difficulties created for pensioners by the small amount of"pocket money" allotted to them during their stay in hospital; what plans he has for increasing this"pocket money" allowance; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir George Young: Comments are received from time to time about the hospital downrating provisions, but no case has been made for a general and substantial increase in the"pocket money" rate. My right hon. Friend has no plans to propose such an increase.
    Mr. Roberts: Will the Minister look at the problem of the need for luxuries for such pensioners, their relatives and friends? Is he aware that the present sum is inadequate for those purposes? Will he look especially at the problems of those who have life policies, which are essential for funeral costs, but are forced to surrender them because they cannot keep up the payments? Will he offer some help to that group?
    Sir George Young: The principle of downrating has been enshrined in the rules since the inception of the national insurance scheme in 1948. The"pocket money" rate is considered to be appropriate where a beneficiary has no dependants and has been in hospital for more than 12 months. We increased the figure last November to the current level of £5·45. I am not aware of anyone being forced to abandon premiums on a life insurance policy.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: When the Minister is considering the benefits and the recent consultative document that he has issued, will he also consider carefully before he allows those benefits that are the property of long-stay hospital patients to be taken into use by the hospital authorities? Is he aware that on this difficult matter it might be better to consider giving a better rate to patients who are in hospital for a long time than to use the money for other purposes?
    Sir George Young: It is because the issues are complicated that we issued the consultation document on
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    patients' money. I accept what the hon. Lady says about the need to proceed with caution, but we were disturbed to find over £20 million in the accounts of long-stay patients in hospital.

    Sick Pay
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further representations he has received regarding the need to withdraw the Government's proposals to pass on the obligation to pay sick pay from the Government to employers.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I refer the hon. Member to my hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) on 16 February.
    Mr. Skinner: Why do the Government not get rid of this proposal altogether and consider reintroducing the matter again in the autumn? Is it not a fact that the Tory Government are filled with detestation of workers who lose money, unlike favoured groups such as Members of Parliament, when they fall sick? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Tory Government are prepared to hammer the small businesses that are still left, so much so that they will make them fill out forms and pay out the benefit which the Government are intending to cut? Why do the Government not get rid of the proposals altogether?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am surprised by the hon. Members newfound sympathy for small businesses. He will remember that both sides of the House have been committed for some years to the principle of bringing short-term benefits within taxation. The Government's proposals would achieve that purpose. They would also eliminate a substantial measure of overlap in administration and save staff in my Department. The great majority of employers have said that they support the objectives of the scheme. We are again considering a method of compensating employers for the new statutory duty that they will undertake.
    Mr. Chapman: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that had his proposal been implemented it would have been possible to save about £300 million to £400 million of public expenditure and reduce Civil Service staff by about 5,000? If that is so, will he consider that again with a view to meeting the real problems that small businesses feel that they face, to see whether an acceptable formula can be found?
    Mr. Jenkin: My impression is that it is not so much the small businesses that are affected, because we offered them a generous package of compensation and we are investigating an improved method whereby they might achieve that through a deduction from their PAYE payments. My hon. Friend is correct. These are valuable objectives and we want to achieve them. We shall introduce legislation early in the next Session.
    Mr. Cryer: Does the Secretary of State accept that many small organisations and businesses in my constituency have written to me to urge deep and sustained opposition to his proposals? Does he recognise that by shifting the responsbility to employers he is putting more burdens on the backs of small businesses and, because of the uneveness of the administration, more burdens on the sick?
    Mr. Jenkin: The complaints about the proposals on which we have consulted widely have been almost entirely

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    directed at the method of paying compensation to employers for their new duties. We are considering how to match the compensation more closely to the sickness experience that firms are likely to face. I believe that that will go a long way to remove the objections by large and small employers to the proposals, which the majority support in principle.

    Social Security Regulations
    Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied with the operation of the new social security regulations; and if he will make a statement.
    Mrs. Chalker: While I am not aware of any serious problems so far, we have set up an extensive programme to monitor the new arrangements and to warn us of any difficulties.
    Mr. Dobson: Is the Minister aware that the cuts in unemployment benefit to occupational pensioners come into operation on 5 April? If she is aware of that, why has she not arranged for explanatory leaflets to be available in Department of Employment and DHSS offices?
    Mrs. Chalker: The leaflets are being printed and should be in the offices in a week's time.
    Mr. Squire: In terms of the original question, is my hon. Friend aware that in my local offices the operation is running smoothly and that the expected problems have not materialised?
    Mrs. Chalker: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that comment. My experience is that local offices throughout the country have dealt in a first-class manner with the changes under the new supplementary benefit scheme. We always envisaged that minor amendments would be necessary, but these do not undermine the scheme or cast doubt on its value.
    Mr. Maxton: Is the Minister aware that as a result of the inability of local DHSS offices to pay special needs payments to discharge electricity debts the South of Scotland Electricity Board is refusing to accept direct payments schemes when a debt is over £150? Is the Minister aware that that means that there will be increasing numbers of cut-offs in Glasgow, with great danger to health and life?
    Mr. Ashley: It is disgraceful.
    Mrs. Chalker: I am grateful for that information. The figure assumed by other fuel boards is £300. I shall examine the matter, because I understand the implications.
    Mr. Rooker: I refer to the supplementary question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson). Has the Minister had any consultation with the private sector about the £35 cut-off? Is she aware that many large private sector firms are encouraging men over the age of 60 to retire early? Does she know that they are being told that for the first 12 months of their retirement they can claim unemployment benefit if they are available for work? Is she aware that neither they nor staff at Department of Employment offices know about the cut-off, which begins on 6 April?
    Mrs. Chalker: If the employers do not know about that, bearing in mind the publicity given to this matter
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    when the Social Security (No. 2) Bill was being considered, I am sorry. We shall have to bring the matter to their notice. Employers have been warned, through the press and by other notices. However, I shall examine what the hon. Gentleman says.

    Local Authorities (Social Services Departments)
    Mr. Dubsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is his assessment of the effect of the recent rate support grant settlement on the work of local authority social services departments.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: It is for individual local authorities to determine how their expenditure will be distributed between services. Details of their budgets are not yet available.
    Mr. Dubs: Given that this is the International Year of Disabled People, will the Secretary of State issue guidance to local authorities advising them against making cuts in services to the disabled?
    Mr. Jenkin: We have just issued a priority document called"Care in Action", which makes it clear where our priorities lie. In social services out priorities are with services for the elderly, the physically and mentally handicapped and those who suffer from mental illness, as well as with antenatal and perinatal services. The hon. Gentleman's authority in Wandsworth is increasing provision for the mentally handicapped, despite the cuts that it is having to make in its programme.
    Mr. Paul Dean: In view of the large and welcome increase in resources that have been made available to social services departments in the last decade, will my right hon. Friend encourage local authorities to follow the good example of those authorities that are finding it possible to make economies within services, rather than cut out services altogether?
    Mr. Jenkin: That is precisely the guidance that we are urging on local authorities. We have asked them to do their best to protect services to the most vulnerable. The returns show that, overwhelmingly, local authorities are doing just that. Indeed, expenditure in the current year on personal social services across the whole country is about 4 per cent. higher in real terms than it was in 1978–79.
    Mr. James A. Dunn: Will the Secretary of State review the guidance that he has issued, because a 4 per cent. increase in expenditure is insufficient to meet the demands of inflation? Is he aware of the many instances of local authorities making grants according to his request and thereby endangering voluntary organisations, which have given such valuable service over the years? I refer to Age Concern and organisations that cater for children, mentally handicapped and physically disabled people.
    Mr. Jenkin: I should have made it clear that the 4 per cent. increase over 1978–79 was an increase in real terms and took full account of inflation. The hon. Gentleman has perhaps missed the mark. I lose no chance to urge local authorities to follow my Department's example of maintaining the value of grants to voluntary bodies. That is one way in which we can maintain the quality and quantity of services to those who need them.

    Nutrition Education
    Mr. Shersbyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the extent of co-operation between the Health Education Council and the British Nutrition Foundation.
    Sir George Young: A joint committee which brings together the nutritional expertise and facilities of the Health Education Council and British Nutrition Foundation, and includes representatives from the Department and other interested groups, started work in 1979 and has examined a number of nutritional issues. I understand that its constitution is at present under review.
    Mr. Shersby: Will my hon. Friend consider urgently the possibility of arranging for the Health Education Council to subcontract to the British Nutrition Foundation its responsibilities for nutrition education? Will he accept that there is an opportunity to mobilise the considerable amount of expertise within the British Nutrition Foundation to do that important job?
    Sir George Young: It would be difficult to subcontract wholly what has to be an integral part of health education. I am interested in a more positive partnership between the two bodies. I am pleased that they are now working on a number of nutrition topics and plan to issue guidance on several subjects.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Does the Minister accept that both the organisations would agree on the need for pregnant women to have adequate food? Will he consider providing additional resources for women at risk, in order to reduce perinatal mortality and handicap?
    Sir George Young: The Government have responded to the Select Committee's report on perinatal mortality. They responded to those specific recommendations.

    Social Services (Expenditure)
    Mr. Ron Brownasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what percentage of the United Kingdom's gross national product is spent on social services compared with other members of the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Since there is no generally agreed definition of the term"social services", I cannot give the hon. Member the information that he seeks.
    Mr. Brown: It is clear from that lack of answer that the working people of Britain and the social services are under attack. Does the Minister accept that that is Government policy? Is that not a disgrace, bearing in mind that millions of pounds are spent on armaments? How do the Government justify their policy?
    Mr. Jenkin: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to take part in the debate on defence later this afternoon. The figures show that, in general, the higher a country's gross domestic product, the higher the share of its product that it spends on social services as we understand them. The reason why our neighbours do better than us with social services is that they operate stronger market economies. That is why they are more successful than we are. That is why they are so markedly more succesful than Eastern European countries, with which the hon. Gentleman is, perhaps, more familiar.
    Mr. Bagier: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that his answer amounts to flannel and a cover-up, and that he has not attempted to reply to the supplementary question of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown)? Does he accept that the indirect attacks on the social services by the Secretary of State for the Environment have had a drastic effect on social services?
    Mr. Jenkin: As I said earlier in reply to a supplementary question from the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs), it is too soon to know what the spending by local authorities on social services in the year ahead will be. I said that since 1978–79 spending on local authority personal social services had risen by 4 per cent. in real terms. That is not a bad record, considering the economic difficulties that we face.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Is not the right hon. Gentleman being rather sanguine in not taking account of demographic changes and the fact that more local authorities have many more old people for whom to provide services? Does he understand that local authorities are finding life increasingly difficult because of the cuts introduced by the Secretary of State for the Environment? Is it not true that the Government are cutting back social services at every level and in every real sense?
    Mr. Jenkin: There is an important issue which the House needs to get clear, and which the professions outside the House which comment on these matters also need to get clear. There are cuts against planned programmes that may have been planned against a much happier economic background. On the other hand, there are cuts in the absolute level of services. If we consider the country as a whole, we see that there have not been cuts in the absolute level of services. Indeed, there has been a 4 per cent. increase over the past two years.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we spend vast sums of industrial subsidies, in part for social reasons? When considering the total expenditure on social services, should not one define it extremely narrowly or include moneys being used for purposes other than social services?
    Mr. Jenkin: If my hon. Friend is inviting me to increase the budget of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry, I shall need to consider that.

    Nurses
    Mr. Wellbelovedasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many nurses registered by the General Nursing Council and employed by private hospitals in the Southern regional health authority were trained by the National Health Service.
    Mr. Easthamasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many nurses registered by the General Nursing Council and employed by private hospitals in Manchester were trained by the National Health Service.
    Dr. Vaughan: This information is not held centrally.
    Mr. Wellbeloved: Surely the hon. Gentleman must agree that it would be scandalous for profit-making private medicine to receive a massive subsidy from the taxpayer and ratepayer, because by and large, nurses and doctors are trained at public expense in Britain? Will he give an

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    understanding that he will ensure that profit-making private medicine pays an absolute contribution towards the training of nursing staff?
    Dr. Vaughan: I am glad to tell the House that the private sector is discussing with us how it can extend the amount of training of staff within its hospitals. We see great benefits deriving to the National Health Service from a proper partnership between the private sector and the NHS.
    Mr. Eastham: If it costs as much as £40,000 to train a nurse, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should introduce urgently some machinery whereby taxpayers are fully reimbursed for such a large sum?
    Dr. Vaughan: Discussions are taking place. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not been reading the reports in his local newspaper. The opening of a local private hospital will provide another 400 jobs in that area.
    Mr. Pavitt: Is it not becoming a scandal that 1,200 acute beds in London are draining areas such as the Southern region of skilled theatre nurses, renal dialysis nurses and other nurses who are in short supply? Will the Government do something about getting the private sector either to pay towards their training or to introduce a crash programme to get more nurses so that the NHS is not starved of these skills?
    Dr. Vaughan: There is a shortage in certain nursing specialties. We are doing our best to increase the number of nurses going into them. We are having discussions with the private sector.
    Mr. Aitken: Bearing in mind the record number now registering for private health insurance, not least because members of trade unions are opting for such insurance, does my hon. Friend agree that it would be wrong to disqualify nurses from operating and fulfilling a service in the private sector?
    Dr. Vaughan: Yes, I agree strongly with my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Terry Davis: Is not the Minister's idea of a partnership one that means that there should continue to be an opportunity for private business men to rip off the NHS?
    Dr. Vaughan: I do not accept that.

    Health Care (Inner City Areas)
    Mr. Severasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will cause a study to be made of the level of health care in the inner city areas.
    Dr. Vaughan: My right hon. Friend and I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the level of health care in inner city areas. We are taking a number of steps to try to improve this urgently.
    Mr. Sever: I am grateful for the fact that the Secretary of State is aware of the situation. Will the hon. Gentleman undertake to consider the range of facilities for primary health care in inner city areas when he receives the report of the primary health care study group later in the year, and prevail upon his right hon. Friend and ministerial colleagues to allow him to spend the budget that is needed for primary health care in cities such as Birmingham?
    Dr. Vaughan: Yes, we are examining the report carefully. The support that we are giving to the London
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    Advisory Group in the redistribution of acute beds in London is aimed at improving primary health care and the geriatric service in London.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Safety of Reservoirs (Departmental Co-ordination)
    Mr. Wigleyasked the Prime Minister if she is satisfied with the administrative co-ordination between Departments in relation to the safety of reservoirs.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Wigley: Is the right hon. Lady aware that, following the recent BBC2"Open Secret" programme, there has been wide-scale public concern at the non-implementation of the Reservoirs Act 1975, an Act that was welcomed on 22 January 1975 by the Conservative Party when in Opposition? Does she understand that the Act gives further powers to local authorities in terms of inspections and policy to make binding their decisions? Will she discuss the matter with the Department of the Environment, with a view to bringing in a commencement order for this important Act?
    The Prime Minister: I have had information from the Department of the Environment, which I think was communicated to the hon. Gentleman in answer to his previous question. I am informed that all the powers regarding the safety of reservoirs can be exercised under the 1930 Act, and that they are exercised under that Act by the district councils, whereas under the 1975 Act they will be exercised by the county councils. In both instances enforcement can be through the Crown courts. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will shortly be drawing to the attention of the district councils the fact that theirs is the responsibility for the safety of reservoirs.
    Mr. Hannam: As reservoirs are the responsibility of the water authorities, will my right hon. Friend congratulate the accountants who so quickly achieved a reduction of £86 million in the level of water rates proposed for the coming year?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. I think that both the accountants and the chairmen of the water authorities have done an excellent job. About £86 million less will be levied by water rates than would have been the case. Water rates have been reduced by an average of 6 per cent. I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is to be congratulated on the initiative that he took.
    Mr. Maxton: Is the right hon. Lady aware that members of the civil engineering industry, many of whom voted for the Conservative Party in the previous election, are now saying that unless large sums of Government money are spent the safety of reservoirs will deteriorate and sewerage works will be on the verge of collapse, as will water supplies? Only the massive injection of Government money will solve the problem.
    The Prime Minister: I am as much concerned about the safety of reservoirs as is the hon. Gentleman. The first step is to get the powers under the 1930 Act exercised by the district councils, so that we have a better idea of what is involved.

    Engagements
    Mr. Watsonasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 3 March.
    The Prime Minister: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty the Queen.
    Mr. Watson: Following the teachers' 7½ per cent. pay settlement yesterday, will my right hon. Friend confirm the Government's commitment to cash limits for public sector pay? Is it not the case that the 7 per cent. now on offer to civil servants will add £315 million to the Government's pay bill?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. I confirm that the cash limits already announced will be adhered to. I confirm also that the figure given by my hon. Friend is about correct. I hope that the members of Civil Service unions who have announced that some of them will go on strike next week will have regard to the views of ordinary people, many of whom would resent it very much if those who have good and secure jobs attempted to strike for even more pay.
    Mr. Marks: Will the Prime Minister take time to consider her Government's relationship with the United Nations? In her discussions there and with President Reagan, did she consider the United Nations resolutions passed at the 1978 Special Assembly? Have she and President Reagan considered what proposals they will put forward for disarmament at next year's conference?
    The Prime Minister: I saw Secretary-General Waldheim, but we did not discuss those matters. President Reagan and I also discussed arms control. We are concerned, as is everyone else, to see that the balance is struck at a much lower level than now, but any balance that is struck must be clearly monitored and verifiable.
    Mr. William Shelton: Will my right hon. Friend take time today to turn her mind to the hard-pressed ratepayers in boroughs such as Lambeth and Camden? Does she not agree that the time may have come for the Government to consider legislation to curb such boroughs?
    The Prime Minister: We shall consider what my hon. Friend has said. It is clear from some of the figures that are coming in that the most extravagant boroughs are those held by Labour.
    Dr. M. S. Miller: Will the right hon. Lady take a few minutes today to telephone her friend President Reagan in the White House and inform him, with regard to the British-American initative on the rapid deployment force, that John Wayne and Errol Flynn are dead, and that David Niven was 71 last Sunday?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Member's remark is cheap and unwarranted, and will do damage to this country.

    President Reagan
    Mr. Emeryasked the Prime Minister whether she will extend an invitation to the President of the United States of America to visit the United Kingdom.
    The Prime Minister: During my visit I renewed my invitation to President Reagan to visit this country.
    Mr. Emery: Will my right hon. Friend assure the President of the United States that he will have the warmest welcome in this country? Will she also tell the House what positive steps she can take, prior to his visit, to carry out that part of her statement yesterday concerning the American purchasing of British defence equipment? Has not that been a wish that has been frustrated previously by Congress or by the industrial lobby on Capitol Hill? Will not positive action be needed to turn that intention into reality?
    The Prime Minister: I discussed that matter with Defence Secretary Weinberger. We recently signed a memorandum of understanding for the United States to purchase Rapier. Secretary Weinberger told me that the Administration are giving their support to the development and production of the Harrier AV8B, which is for Congress to decide on. The Administration will also give their support to the United States rejoining the JP233 programme, which is an airfield denial weapon. We also took the opportunity to mention a number of other weapon systems to Secretary Weinberger, such as the Searchwater Radar, Sting Ray, the Wavell command and control system, Giant Viper and the Hawk jet trainer. The Government are concerned with getting orders for this country and with keeping people employed where we have excellent defence equipment. We are also concerned that while every member of the Alliance cannot become involved in the production of every weapons system, we should concentrate our research and development on those things that we do best. We put all those points to Secretary Weinberger. I should like to think that such a robust case would never have been put by the Opposition.
    Mr. Canavan: While agreeing that it is wrong for the Russians to use their military might to prop up a puppet regime in Afghanistan, may I ask why the Prime Minister is afraid to tell President Reagan that it is also wrong for the Americans to use their military might to prop up a puppet regime in El Salvador? Has the right hon. Lady been reduced to being President Reagan's puppet?
    The Prime Minister: I rather think that I was at it before President Reagan came to the White House. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman that the President does not need any warning about the Soviet system. With regard to El Salvador, I hope that the hon. Gentlemen will support the statement that we made before we went to the United States and will support the call that arms should not be supplied to guerrillas, because that is where the initial interference is coming from.
    Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Is my right hon. Friend aware that her visit to Washington has not only revived the Anglo-American alliance, but has created a much better climate for British trade, investment and jobs? However, bearing in mind that it is deeds and not words that count, will she hesitate before making further reductions in British defence equipment, because that could lead to our being unable to carry out in practice some of the undertakings that she gave to the Americans to assist them in defending freedom outside as well as inside Europe?
    The Prime Minister: In our first year of office we reached our target of spending 3 per cent. more in real terms on defence. This year we shall go over that target, possibly to 4 per cent. or even as much as 5 per cent. In

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    view of that performance we cannot order extra equipment, but I think that the performance speaks for itself.
    Mr. Foot: I refer to the right hon. Lady's answer on El Salvador. When she made the statement expressing the British Government's support of the American position, was she aware that the Americans were about to dispatch about £30 million worth of military equipment to El Salvador? Does she approve of that form of military intervention? Has she had a chance to examine the possibility of some form of mediation, as was originally suggested by the West German Government? Whether that was suggested by that Government or not, will the British Government seek some form of mediation in what has been described by the last American Ambassador in El Salvador as civil war? Will she take a constructive initiative in this matter?
    The Prime Minister: As my noble Friend and I said yesterday, extensive armaments are reaching the guerrilla forces in El Salvador. It would be most advisable if those were stopped. The people of El Salvador must then be left to sort out their own matters in their own way and have the chance to choose democracy. As I said to the right hon. Gentleman yesterday, I cannot comment on each and every action of the United States Administration. I fully understand their alarm and concern at any subversive activity in a country that is so close to them.
    Mr. Foot: The right hon. Lady has not sought to answer my question about mediation. She says that she cannot comment on each and every action of the United States Government, but did she not examine the amount of military supplies that were being sent to El Salvador before she made the statement approving their policy?
    The Prime Minister: To examine evidence is one thing; to comment on every particular action is another.
    Mr. Temple-Morris: When my right hon. Friend sees the President, will she invite him to welcome the release from Iran of the three missionary detainees? Will she make it clear to him and to the world that normal relations
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    between our two countries, let alone Western commercial confidence in Iran, cannot be restored until Mr. Andrew Pyke is also released?
    The Prime Minister: President Reagan was pleased at the action that we took to help secure the release of the American hostages from Iran. He was also pleased about the release of our three detainees from Iran. Normal relationships between this country and Iran cannot be restored until Mr. Pyke is similarly released and brought home.
    Mr. Leightonasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 3 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Leighton: Is the Prime Minister aware that in 1981 her East of Suez posturing and bombastic bluster at the Dispatch Box yesterday are pathetic and absurd? Will she answer the question that she dodged yesterday? Will she consult the Gulf States about the so-called rapid deployment force?
    The Prime Minister: We said that if the Americans create a rapid deployment force we will be prepared, in principle, to join it. A rapid deployment force is not meant for deployment in any particular region of the world or to be stationed in any particular region. If States did not ask for it, they obviously would not have it. The tragedy would be if certain States needed it and there was not one prepared and ready to go.
    Mr. Kilfedder: When the Prime Minister spoke to the President of the United States about arms, did she remind him that the RUC is still waiting for the second half of its order for sidearms, which was suspended as a result of pro-IRA sympathisers in the United States lobbies? Did the President have any comment to make on the capture of a United States machine gun from the IRA in Belfast?
    The Prime Minister: I did not discuss Irish matters with President Reagan. I understand from the Chief Constable of the RUC that the force has sufficient arms for its present requirements.

Northern Ireland (Prisons)
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Humphrey Atkins): I will, with permission, Mr. Speaker, make a statement on the latest developments in the protests by Republican prisoners in Northern Ireland prisons. On 1 March one of the prisoners at Her Majesty's prison, Maze refused food and declared himself to be on hunger strike. A statement attributed to the prisoners said that the action was being taken, once again, in support of their demand for political status.
Yesterday, the Republican prisoners still taking part in the dirty protest at Maze and Armagh prisons—439 in all—let it be known that they intended to stop fouling their cells. A total of 240 men prisoners have, accordingly, already been moved into clean cells and provided with clean bedding. The rest will be moved as quickly as further cells become available. The 28 women prisoners will all be in clean cells by this evening.
The Government naturally welcome the decision by the prisoners to put an end to the degrading conditions that they have imposed upon themselves. But, in another statement, the prisoners have indicated that their action is being taken in support of demands for changes in the prison regime which would give effect to their demand for political status. In that, they differ from the 80 prisoners who have stopped protesting altogether since the last hunger strike ended on 18 December. That group are now receiving the full range of privileges and facilities that I described in my statement to the House of 4 December, including that of association, and of wearing their own leisure clothing of an approved type, in the evening and at weekends. That regime remains available for all who choose to take advntage of it; nothing has been added to and nothing taken away from my statement of 4 December.
The claim for political status has been rejected in clear terms by the European Commission of Human Rights, by successive Governments, and by both sides of the House. I wish to make it clear once again, in case there is any doubt anywhere about the Government's position, that we shall not give way on the issue of political status under pressure of further protest action, whatever form that takes, and whether it is inside or outside the prisons.
Mr. J. D. Concannon: We thank the Secretary of State for making the statement and reiterating the Government's oft-stated position. We agree that it is the only sensible course for the House to take, and that it is right to move prisoners into clean cells. We welcome the decision of those prisoners.
Is the Secretary of State aware that the Opposition agree that Maze prison is the newest and most modern prison in the United Kingdom and that for conforming prisoners the regime is the most liberal in the United Kingdom?
Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that in our opinion there can be no one, including any member of the IRA and the UDA, who does not realise that there can be no going back to special category or special privileges for non-conforming prisoners? It is therefore clear—the actions and reasons of those who came off the dirty protest at the weekend substantiate this—that the further action is another IRA propaganda exercise.
It is our view that the House should in no way assist the IRA in its efforts. While thanking the right hon.
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Gentleman for his statement outlining the Government's views, we shall not be pushing him to make further statements—in fact, quite the reverse.
Mr. Atkins: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his expression of support from the Opposition Front Bench. I agree that there is no necessity to make repeated statements. The Government's position is clear and must be clear to all involved in any form of protest in the prisons. I confirm that Maze prison is one of the most modern in the United Kingdom and I believe that it compares favourably with any prison anywhere in the world.
Mr. Anthony Fell: Is it not a fact that a statement of this sort lends an importance to these criminals which they do not merit?
Mr. Atkins: It is my business to keep the House informed of the Government's position and actions in the part of the United Kingdom for which I have responsibility. The actions being taken are serious. They cause tension and difficulty in the Province and it is right that the House should know precisely where the Government stand.
Mr. James Molyneaux: Is the Secretary of State aware that we, too, would prefer to regard this as a once-and-for-all statement? There should be no need for it to be repeated at frequent intervals. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the resentment caused in the past by the publication of daily bulletins on the condition of convicted prisoners, when no corresponding bulletins were issued on the terrorists' victims?
Mr. Atkins: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's support of what we are doing. I take note of his view that this is not something with which I need trouble the House again.
Mr. James Kilfedder: The Secretary of State is to be congratulated on the determined stand that he and the Government have taken. It has forced the Provisional IRA to call off the dirty protest by more than 400 prisoners—terrorists—after a three-year campaign. Can the right hon. Gentleman or the Government do something about certain sections of the news media that are bombarding the public with propaganda issued by the IRA, which, no doubt, will increase as the hunger strike goes on until, perhaps, the man's death, which may lead to further violence?
Mr. Atkins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said. The Government have taken a stand and have been supported in that by the House. That has been a great help to us. I do not control the media in Northern Ireland or anywhere else.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the all-important conviction that the Government and the House will not give way on the matter of political status will be greatly strengthened if he is seen to be proceeding to take steps to eliminate the existing political status in Maze prison?
Mr. Atkins: There is nothing that I can add on that point to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister told the right hon. Gentleman on 15 January.
Mr. John Farr: I thank my right hon. Friend for what he told us, although most of it was in this

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morning's newspapers. Does he consider that such statements are necessary? They give credence and publicity to the Provisional IRA, without which it would probably fade into obscurity.
Mr. Atkins: I hope that it will fade into obscurity. I believe that it is my business to keep the House informed of what the Government are doing, but I note what my hon. Friend says.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call those hon. Members who have been trying to catch my eye since the Secretary of State made his statement. We shall then have to move on.
Mr. James A. Dunn: Is the Secretary of State aware that his statement will make little contribution of value? What would have made a great contribution would be a full disclosure by the Prime Minister of the discussions that she had on 8 December. That might have been more valuable.
Mr. Atkins: I do not think that the discussions that my right hon. Friend is having with the Taoiseach have anything to do with the hunger strike.
Dr. Brian Mawhinney: Will my right hon. Friend accept that he will have the support of the House and the Province if he continues stoutly to resist unwarranted demands, whether from Republican or IRA terrorists, reactionary Loyalists or electioneering politicians, whether British or Irish?
Mr. Atkins: What is needed most in Northern Ireland, from all sorts of points of view, is a period of peace and quiet. It is that for which the vast majority in Northern Ireland are longing. I hope very much that it will come about.
Mr. Stephen Ross: May I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and assure him of continued support from the Liberal Bench? Will he confirm that he found the statement by Bishop Daly helpful in this respect, and can the House look for further statements from Church dignitaries in similar vein?
Mr. Atkins: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support, which is valuable to us. I think that the statement made by Bishop Daly yesterday was undoubtedly helpful. Any Church leader or anybody else who lends his weight to persuading those taking this kind of action to give it up is always of value, and I hope that more will be forthcoming.
Mr. Wm. Ross: As the prison regime in Northern Ireland has already been described as the most liberal in the United Kingdom, will the Secretary of State give an undertaking that there will be no further reforms in Northern Ireland prisons until the rest of the United Kingdom has caught up? Will he undertake afterwards to see that no reforms are carried out in Northern Ireland ahead of the rest of the United Kingdom and that any such further reforms will be made only after a considerable period of preparation and will be announced long in advance of their application?
Mr. Atkins: The question of regimes in prisons in the United Kingdom is clearly something with which we must keep closely in touch in the various parts of the United Kingdom. At the same time, I do not think that it would
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be right, just because of the actions of one or two, or even a group of individuals, for the Government to cease their efforts to provide the best possible regime in prisons, wherever they are.

Dogs (Control)
3.41 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I beg to move
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the further control of dogs; and for connected purposes.
Some 12 months, ago I tried to bring in a similar Bill. Although at the Ten Minutes Rule stage that Bill had a majority of more than 100, it made no progress, due to opposition from the Government. On that occasion, as today, one of the supporters was my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, South (Mr. McNally). Over the past 12 months both he and I have been forcefully reminded of the need for proper control of dogs. Last summer, at Brinnington, in my hon. Friend's constituency, a motorist swerved to avoid a stray dog on the highway, ran off the road and killed a young person.
That was not a unique event. Sadly, the victim was just one of some 20 people who, over the past 12 months, have been killed in road accidents in which a dog straying on the highway appears to have been the cause. In any year, over 2,000 road accidents are caused by stray dogs on the highway. I believe that that situation should be remedied.
Not only does this cause considerable human suffering, it causes great misery to the dogs themselves. Only last week, I was driving along the motorway when suddenly an Alsatian dog dashed across from the side, immediately causing motorists to swerve and to brake. The dog suddenly became petrified and stood for several seconds on one carraigeway before darting back, being hit by a vehicle and running yelping away.
Stray dogs not only cause a nuisance on the road; they cause a nuisance to large numbers of farmers and others raising livestock. Nearly 6,000 animals—mainly sheep and cows, but also horses and other animals—are killed as a result of dogs worrying them. Anyone who has seen a pregnant sheep being chased round and round a field by a stray dog has some idea of the misery and suffering caused to the animals, and also some of the anguish and genuine anger felt by the farmer who finds his livestock destroyed in this way. Sadly, the Government's only contribution to this matter in the past 12 months has been to stop collecting statistics on the number of animals killed as a result of sheep worrying.
We are also all well aware of the nuisance caused by stray dogs fouling footpaths and playing fields. I remember vividly the description given by one of my constituents who complained bitterly that, having scored a spectacular try on the rugby field, he found that somebody had been exercising a dog at the point where he landed.
We are also increasingly aware of the number of diseases carried by dog dirt. Moreover, stray dogs bite a large number of people. Although only occasionally does a dog bite lead to loss of life, I am told by hospital accident departments that dog bites are treated extremely frequently. Indeed, one informant claimed that they were probably the commonest single type of accident. Anyone who has tried to calm a young child who has been bitten

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by a dog, whether seriously or not, knows that it is an extremely difficult process, and often leaves a scar on the child's attitude to dogs for many years. Certainly, when I brought forward my Bill last year I had much support from postmen, milkmen and newspaper boys.
The extent of the stray dog problem is illustrated by the fact that between 180,000 and 200,000 stray dogs have to be rounded up each year, and more than 60,000 have to be destroyed because no one cares for them. That works out at roughly 150 dogs per day which have to be put down because they have been allowed to stray and no one cares for them.
Last century, the control of dogs in this country was far stricter. In 1878, however, instead of being increased the dog licence fee was actually brought down to its present amount—then 7s. 6d., and now 37½p. We have allowed the dog licensing situation to become farcical. First, about 50 per cent, of dog owners do not obtain a licence. Secondly, the income from licensing amounts to about £1 million, while the cost of collection is £1·6 million.
All the problems that I have outlined and many more were put to the Labour Government in 1975. That Government set up an interdepartmental working party to investigate the problem. The working party reported in due course, but, sadly, neither the Labour Government nor the Conservative Government carried out any of the extremely sensible recommendations made in that report.
My Bill seeks to implement those recommendations. Briefly, it seeks to establish a local authority dog warden service in every area and to finance it from a realistic licence fee. It seeks to ensure that all dogs have a licence and that the licence is obtained when the dog changes ownership rather than at the age of 6 months. The dog licence should be fixed to the dog's collar by a tag so that it is clear for all to see whether a dog is licensed or not.
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There might be an exemption for guide dogs for the blind and possibly for those of pensioners living alone. Dogs would have to be on a lead if they were on a public highway or on agricultural land.
The dog warden service would not only be concerned with rounding up stray dogs, it would help to educate people, particularly children, and to teach them that the ownership of a dog should be a responsible task and not something taken up as a craze for a week or two and then discarded.
I do not wish to detain the House for too long. I believe that the Bill has widespread support in the country. It is particularly supported by organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I hope that the House will not only support the Bill today but will ensure that it reaches the statute book.
I leave the House with one last thought. We always fear that rabies may cross the Channel. I suggest that this country should have adequate control of dogs now rather than be forced to take draconian measures if rabies becomes a problem.
I believe that there is a major problem and I hope that the House will give me leave to introduce the Bill in order to deal with it.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Miss Janet Fookes, Mr. Clive Soley, Mr. Tom McNally, Mr. Tony Marlow, Mr. Bob Cryer and Mr. James Lamond.

DOGS (CONTROL)
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett accordingly presented a Bill to make provision for the further control of dogs; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 March and to be printed [Bill 83].

Nuclear Deterrent
Mr. Speaker: I have not selected for debate any of the amendments on the Order Paper.
Before the debate begins, I should like to inform the House that an inordinately large number of right hon. and hon. Members will be seeking to catch my eye in the debate. I know that already, before they rise in their places. Far more hon. Members will be called if those who are called bear their colleagues in mind. I can say no more.
3.49 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 the choice of the Trident missile system as the successor to the Polaris force.
It is my privilege today to open a debate on the gravest issue which faces any Government: the issue of peace, and of how we can best maintain it.
War has always been a bad and stupid way of doing business—as a current NATO commander said recently. But the lunacy of war has been hugely increased by the central security fact of today's world, namely, the existence of nuclear weapons.
The Secretary of State for Defence, for good or ill, has occasion to learn more, and to think more than most people, about nuclear weapons—and I can tell the House that I view them with total horror. No one should for a moment contemplate what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki with any milder feelings. It is therefore right that the Christian conscience should be engaged in thinking about these problems.
In ethical terms, the issues surrounding nuclear weapons are difficult, if not agonising. But in the debate between those who judge it better to keep those terrible weapons so as to use them as a shield for peace, and those who judge it better to discard them in order to maintain peace by some new, untried and, I would suggest, historically improbable route, the arguments are, I would suggest, on the side of deterrence. To engage the emotions—as the promoters of CND know very well—is an easy task. The showing of the film"The War Game" in a village hall in the evening in the presence of young families has a predictable outcome. To argue the choices before us so as to engage the intellect is a much harder task. But for those who take the view that the concept of nuclear deterrence is morally tenable, so long as we lack a better and surer way of avoiding the horrors of war, there is, I believe, wide support—not least among the Churches.
This country's determination-supported by all Governments of both parties since the war—to sustain adequate strength, including nuclear strength, has one quarter of a century of experience behind it. It is not a new policy. It is a tried policy that has succeeded.
The security responsibilities which Western Governments have towards their countries go wider, of course, than just preventing nuclear war. We must prevent any East-West war, for it is as well to remember that World War II took the lives, in one way or another, of around 50 million people before nuclear weapons were used at all, and today's conventional weapons are far more lethal now than they were then.
It is not an option for any Western Government to transport us all back to some pre-nuclear paradise. Nor is it an option, alas, to transform the Soviet Union into
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something other than what it is. We need have no quarrel whatever with the people of the Soviet Union. They doubtless want peace as much as we do; and though they probably envy us our freedom and our standard of living, I do not imagine that they think of acquiring these blessings by taking them away from us.
But we are not dealing with the Russian people, and the military power that confronts us is not wielded and directed by the Russian people. It is in the hands of rulers whose history and patrimony is that of Lenin and Stalin and the deeds they wrought; of rulers whose system has no more democratic safeguards now than it had in the bloodiest parts of that history, not so very long ago. We have to deal with the leaders of a closed totalitarian State of hostile ideology, huge military power, and a proven willingness to use that power without scruple when it thinks it can safely get away with it. They are capable of using—and, in my view, would use—nuclear weapons as a source of blackmail were we ever to give them such a chance.
Amid these hard realities the NATO Alliance — without which we have no security—can offer no security without nuclear weapons. The possession of these weapons, terrible as they are—indeed, precisely because they are terrible—is absolutely cardinal to deterrence. Deterrence means providing ourselves with the capability to exact unacceptable destruction, so that anyone thinking of attacking us is bound to calculate that the risks outweigh any possible gain.
Nuclear weapons are not the only component of deterrence—we must have conventional forces, too—but they are a central and crucial component; and every member of the Alliance recognises that. For the Alliance to renounce nuclear weapons, or to renounce a deterrent strategy in which they play a part, would be the ultimate foolishness; and for a country as central to the Alliance as Britain to attempt to wash its had of nuclear affairs while remaining in and protected by the Alliance would be a dishonest and dangerous pretence. I can see no ethical or moral arguments for unilaterial renunciation of nuclear weapons if we were to continue to shelter under the nuclear shield of our allies the United States and France.
Mr. Frank Allaun: Regarding unacceptable damage, while it may be true that with the Trident we could take out a dozen Russian cities, is it not equally true and apparent that the Russians could take out the whole of Britain and that, therefore, it would be complete suicide to use these weapons, and that they will never be used if we have a sane Government?
Mr. Nott: If these weapons will never be used, the policy has been successful. Indeed, the policy has been successful. There has been no war in Europe for 30 years.
I am keenly aware that there is at the moment a widespread concern about nuclear war—a concern perhaps more consciously felt than for several years past. What I have in mind is not so much the vocal unilateralists but, rather, non-campaigning ordinary people, without special theories but worried about their children's future. I also note and respect, too, the concern and uncertainties felt in the Churches, to which I have already referred. I can well understand and sympathise with this.
Events in the past year or so have reminded us that the world is a harsh and turbulent place—the brutal invasion of Afghanistan; the strife between Iran and Iraq; the

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menace that hangs over Poland. It happens to have been the Government's duty to grasp, whilst these events were happening, a number of nettles, all of which in their different ways remind us afresh of the realities of nuclear weapons—the updating of our theatre nuclear capacity by the stationing of United States cruise missiles in Europe, the need to start putting right the long neglect of civil defence, and the eventual replacement of Polaris, the coming together of all these things has aroused public concern. It would be unnatural were it otherwise.
But I strongly believe that these natural apprehensions are misplaced provided that we stick to our course and do not gamble wildly on some different one. The fact is that, in the East-West setting, deterrence plainly works. We have had peace for half a lifetime now, despite circumstances—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. What has made things different has been the plain and overwhelming fact of nuclear weapons, telling every leader on either side that no one can afford to let things come to blows.
To say this is not to be complacent about the nuclear scene. It would be better if we could make it more stable. It would be better if we could make it a great deal less costly. That is where arms control must come in. Nuclear arms control has done a good deal that is useful, more than it is sometimes given credit for. It can do more, which is why the Government welcome the clear intention of the new United States Administration to renew the SALT process.
But doing more by arms control requires genuine will on both sides, and the right conditions on both sides. One of those sides, like it or not, is the Soviet Union, which does not share Western standards or Western views of the world. We shall not strike good bargains, or any true bargains at all, by giving up or neglecting our strength while they keep and enhance theirs. Unilateralism—make no mistake—is the enemy, not the friend, of arms control.
In January last year, my predecessor, the present Leader of the House, set out the fundamental reason why our contribution reinforces Alliance deterrence. Its significance is not in its size. Formidable though our capability is, the vast American arsenal is quite big enough without our contribution, and I have little time for arguments based on prestige, seats at top tables and the like.
I admit that I would feel more than a touch of discomfort if France, with her clear policy of non-commitment to Alliance strategy, were the only West European nuclear Power and had a capacity to bring down Soviet retribution on her neighbour across the Channel in circumstances where we had no deterrent response of our own. But even that consideration would not, to my mind, suffice to justify an independent capability and its cost. The root of the matter is insurance for peace—insurance, above all, against Soviet miscalculation.
United States Governments could not have done more—by solemn declaration, by costly equipment provision, by large-scale forward deployment—to demonstrate their engagement to Europe, including nuclear engagement. I have great confidence in that engagement by the United States. But nothing short of the
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event can prove it absolutely. Meanwhile, other judgments are possible, as even some Western opinions have shown, from de Gaulle onwards. If they can question or doubt, so may the Russians, if not now, then in a future, that could be different and difficult. British possession of nuclear striking power, Alliance committed yet independently controlled, is an insurance premium against any Soviet supposition that the United States might somehow seek to insulate itself from nuclear consequences whilst abandoning Europe.
I refer to this as the Soviet perception of the situation. It is, of course, no more demonstrable of Britain than of the United States that we would use nuclear strength rather than accept defeat. Absolute certainty in these matters is simply not to be had. But our capability compels a would-be aggressor to face not one gamble but two, and two dissimilar ones at the same time.
A second centre of decision-making in the form of our strategic deterrent is a real reinforcement of Alliance strength and one which, for various reasons, written in history, we alone are in a position to undertake. It is by far the least costly of the four major contributions we make. We have been making it now for a quarter of a century. Our allies, notably the United States itself, the Federal Republic of Germany and Italy, have made it clear in private and in public that they value its continuance.
In the world as it is—a world of strategic nuclear parity between the super Powers, of mounting Soviet strength and readiness to deploy it—now would be a very strange moment, I would suggest, for us to lay aside the task.
Our nuclear capability has several elements and several levels, as, indeed, it must have if it is to fit properly into the Alliance strategy of flexible response. But the core of our capability, underpinning all the other elements and, indeed, vital to their deterrent credibility, is the strategic force—that is, the force which can plainly ride out any attack, even a pre-emptive attack without warning, and which could still, thereafter, if it had to, deliver upon the Soviet homeland a blow heavy enough to rob any aggression of its advantage.
Our strategic power is provided now by the four Polaris submarines. Their capability is soon to be modernised by the Chevaline improvement, rightly sustained by the former Labour Government, which will carry through into the 1990s the ability to penetrate likely ABM defences. The force will thus remain truly formidable.
Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Before the Minister turns to the nature of the deterrent, would not the argument that he has deployed for our having a nuclear deterrent of our own apply equally to many other countries, particularly West Germany? Why is it so important that we of all people should have a unique deterrent?
Mr. Nott: Because we do not start from here. By history, we happen to be a nuclear Power. We are, of course, in favour of non-proliferation but we are a nuclear Power. We have been one for many years. We have to deal with the world and the situation as it exists.
I was saying that our strategic power is provided by the four Polaris submarines, but it will not last for ever. The boats themselves were built in the 1960s and if we sought to keep them beyond about 25 years there would be mounting risk that refits, which are already taking longer and costing more, would have to become so extended, or that the growing number of unforeseen defects would

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prove so severe, that gaps would occur in the continuous readiness on patrol which we need to maintain. We have only one strategic deterrent force, and it is of minimum size. We cannot lightly take chances.
The boats, moreover, are built to 1960s standards or quietness, and the missiles have the range which 1960s rocket technology gave. In both these respects, the steady Soviet advance in anti-submarine warfare capability must be expected eventually to call into sharper question the ability of our present submarines to survive. Even Chevaline may not be proof against what might be done in the long term in the ABM field.
For all these reasons, taken together, it would be, at best, a very chancy gamble to rely on the present force beyond the first half of the 1990s. If we take our deterrent contribution seriously, and, still more, if we want our potential adversary to take it seriously, we cannot take that gamble. We must face up to the issue of modernisation.
When the decision was announced on 15 July last year in favour of the Trident MIRVed missile system, my predecessor published a special memorandum about the choice of system, reviewing the factors which bore upon it, the options which were considered and the arguments which, in the end, pointed decisively to Trident as the most cost-effective course. I wish that memorandum had actually been read by more critics of the system, because I believe, it is an impressive publication.
Since then, the House's Defence Committee, whose work in this field I much welcome, has further probed the issues in an extensive series of evidence-taking sessions. As the House will have seen from the published records, witnesses from my Department have responded positively to a wide range of questioning, and only a tiny proportion of the information has been withheld from publication on security grounds.
We have, in sum, been very open about the factors which we see as pointing so clearly to Trident, and I shall not burden the House with a further detailed recital of them now. I shall, of course, be happy to address any particular points of concern later when I wind up the debate. Let me try briefly at this stage to highlight three aspects of choice which I see as of key importance.
First, the choice of the platform from which the missile is delivered is driven above all by the need for invulnerability—for protection against a pre-emptive strike—so that we pose a credible second strike deterrent force, retaining the ability to hit back if they attack us first. We also want a system that does not depend on hair-trigger decisions in a crisis. Invulnerability provides that opportunity. Given this, the case for staying with a submarine system is plain, not least in the belief that the Soviet navy has never yet located one of our Polaris submarines on patrol and the range of Trident will give an even greater area of ocean in which to hide.
Second, there is the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles as the delivery system. The answer here is perhaps less immediately obvious, but analysis drove us clearly to the conclusion that, for a given weight of deterrent strike, the ballistic method was both surer and cheaper.
It is surer because it is less sensitive to uncertain assumptions about future Soviet defences and because it gives much longer range and therefore far more searoom in which to hide. It is cheaper, because cruise missiles carry only one warhead each, so that considerably more submarines—the most expensive part of the total system—are needed for a given strike capability. It would
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involve a considerably higher capital cost, much higher running costs, less invulnerability and less assurance of penetration if we were to choose submarine-launched cruise missiles.
The third aspect is the choice among ballistic missiles. I commend particularly to the House the review of the options in paragraphs 44 to 53 of the published memorandum. Two considerations are of especial importance. First, there is the matter of time scale. We are dealing with a major investment of resources on a system entering service over a decade from now, and required to last, we must expect, at least 20 years thereafter. We cannot afford more than one system, nor can we afford replacement at frequent intervals. When we take a step forward, therefore, it has to be a big enough step, not half a step or an inching forward. That is why spending billions of pounds on a force reproducing Polaris in new submarines, for example, would be foolish.
The second consideration, of which, for all its merits, Chevaline sharply reminds us, is that systems unique to Britain are very costly. There are very big advantages, in cost as well as in capability, in commonality with the United States. For instance, spares and servicing for Polaris decades after it had been replaced by the United States would become more and more hazardous.
Trident is a proven system, of great power, firmly in service with the United States. In short, if we are to stay in the strategic nuclear business at all, the case for Trident as the most cost-effective way of doing so is overwhelming. We have to face the cold fact that credible strategic nuclear capability for the 1990s and beyond does not come cheaper than this. If we are not prepared to afford Trident we had better get out of the business altogether. And I have explained why, in present circumstances, I do not believe that any British Government would actually make that choice, that is, of getting out of the business altogether.
That brings me to the issue of cost, about which I know many Members on both sides of the House are understandably exercised. Last summer we put the cost very broadly at some £4½ billion to £5 billion. Closer estimating depends on studies still in progress and decisions not yet taken, for example, on the precise size and characteristics of the submarine; but I am personally determined to keep costs as close as is sensibly possible to the original broad assessment.
Even at that, however, we are dealing with a huge investment. It is not uniquely huge; costed on the same basis, for example, our Tornado programme would be up to twice as high. Over the 15-year span of the investment Trident is likely to average some 3 per cent, of the total defence budget; perhaps 5 per cent, at peak. These are substantial figures, but neither unprecedented nor unmanageable.
Mr. Alan Clark: I would like to take my right hon. Friend back for one moment. He said that he believed that no possible successor Government could take us out of the business altogether. This forecast went totally uncommented on by the Leader of the Opposition, who has said on a number of occasions that that is his very intention. Perhaps he did not hear my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Nott: I am going to wind up the debate and I expect that during the course of it there will be a number of arguments about what I am saying. Perhaps I may deal with that kind of question when I wind up the debate.
Mr. Frederick Mulley: I would be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would make the costing clear. There has been a lot of talk about percentages of the equipment programme and of the total defence programme. As I understand the figures that the right hon. Gentleman has just given the House, it is 3 per cent., on average, of the total defence budget and 5 per cent, at peak. Could he give us a rough idea of what that means in terms of the allocation to equipment?
Mr. Nott: May I avoid answering that question for a few hours? I can give an answer to the right hon. Gentleman, but I would rather deal with it later, since much of the argument in the debate will surround the question of other equipment costs that we face over the next 15 years.
If I may give an idea to the House, people are taking the £5 billion and relating it to current equipment costs in the next few years. If we take the whole 15-year period, we anticipate that we will be spending between £80 billion and £90 billion on equipment. What we have to ask ourselves is whether, in a total equipment programme of between £80 billion and £90 billion, it is worth while keeping in the strategic nuclear business for £5 billion. My judgment is that it must be. That is a judgment taken by all earlier Governments, of whatever political party. I hope that in the debate we will be able to sustain this by the time the vote comes.
Mr. John Farr: My right hon. Friend has just said that it is important to keep in the strategic deterrent business if we can and that one must take into account the total cost of £5,000 million. Of course, that will be spent largely abroad in regard to Trident, whereas the rest of the defence budget will be largely spent at home. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that as much as possible of Trident's mechanics will be provided by British industry?
Mr. Nott: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. The submarines will be built in British yards, at Barrow. The warheads will be made in this country. Only the missile system itself will be bought in the United States. That will represent between 10 per cent, and 15 per cent, only of the total cost. So of the £5 billion estimated cost, the overwhelming proportion will be spent in this country.
There is, of course, as there is for every defence project, an opportunity cost; money spent on Trident is money not spent on something else. If I could have a certificate from my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that in the absence of Trident I could still have the same money, throughout the 15 years, to spend on something else—perhaps I may be allowed to entertain a slight element of doubt about that—my advisers could certainly suggest a wide variety of interesting and useful ways of applying it.
I told the House, frankly, on 20 January—and I stress this point—that while we did not face stark choices between major roles, resource pressures at the present time and before the costs of Trident really commence at all might nevertheless compel some hard decisions on adjustments to present programmes. Trident's average 3
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per cent, demand—and of course in the immediate future the demand is well below 3 per cent.—does not create the resource pressures; they exist already.
The abandonment of our strategic nuclear deterrent after what would by 1990 have been years in successful service—the removal of £5 billion out of a total 15-year equipment programme, as I said of between £80 billion and £90 billion—would not remove the resource problem, but it would certainly remove a central feature of our postwar deterrent capability and—with respect to the doubters—I do not think that we should come out of the strategic independent deterrent capability on the ground of cost.
Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: My right hon. Friend referred to the resource pressures that will be faced. He also made it very clear, as we know already, that the Trident programme will not really come into the major expenditure bracket until the latter years of this decade. It is surely conceivable that circumstances may change, whether in terms of the cost of Trident or the other resource pressures. Can he tell the House at what stage, in his estimation, it would be possible for us, if circumstances changed, to revise this decision without incurring substantial costs thereby?
Mr. Nott: I must tell my hon. Friend that the decision has already been taken. I see no point in speculating about the windows that open up in the future for changing our mind. It is a decision of the Government and, as I say, I see no reason to speculate about opportunities for making a change of course.
Let me summarise the case that I am putting to the House. All of us fear and abhor the idea of war, and, above all, of nuclear war. All of us have a common aim—to prevent it, but it must be deterred away or negotiated away; it cannot simply be wished away. Britain has a distinctive role in deterrence—one that our allies acknowledge and 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 may one day prove unimaginably expensive. The Trident decision reflects the Government's judgment of how best, amid harsh realities, to serve the common cause of peace and freedom.
I ask the House to endorse that aim by supporting the motion tonight.
4.20 pm
Mr. Brynmor John: As the Secretary of State said, this debate comes at a time of renewed preoccupation with the problem of armaments and the issues of war and peace. Unfortunately, it does not seem to many of us that the Government are giving equal weight to these matters either in this debate or in other debates. For example, I should have thought that, notwithstanding yesterday's attempted reassurance by the Prime Minister, the United States of America and the United Kingdom were showing insufficient urgency about testing and exploring Russian sincerity and flexibility in the matter of detente.
I accept that caution is inevitable on both sides. However, the restraint that the right hon. Lady urged upon President Reagan—who already showed a high degree of

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caution—was somewhat gratuitously discouraging. All of us, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, must face the fact that true peace will come only through a lessening of the nuclear arsenal rather than through piling up further weapons in an attempt to balance the terror. The Secretary of State gave a most unhelpful answer to the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne). If we are making a judgment about a weapons system that will come into existence in the 1990s, it must be right—as the hon. Member for Knutsford said—to take account of the economic and strategic factors and so on that are likely to affect the world.
This debate is the fulfilment of a pledge to hold a debate that would seek approval of the Government's decision to acquire the Trident missile system. We shall oppose the motion both in the debate and in the Lobby. Before I set out the reasons for doing so, I should like to comment on the timing of the debate, which—even given the Secretary of State's own tortuous logic—is most curious. The right hon. Gentleman gave lavish praise to the Select Committee on Defence, which has been studying this subject for several months. In a short time, it would have been able to assist us by publishing its conclusions. I understand that the Secretary of State is due to face the Select Committee either tomorrow or in the near future and to give evidence. Presumably, members of the Select Committee will look upon this afternoon's speech as a sneak preview or as a dress rehearsal. I hope that no one will think that I flatter the Secretary of State unduly if I say that members of the Select Committee will already be considering whether to award him the Quinlan medal for helpful obscurity. Those who have read Mr. Quinlan's evidence to the Select Committee will know that tributes do not come much higher than that.
Mr. Cranley Onslow: It is important, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I greet you with great pleasure—that the House should not be misled by the hon. Gentleman. He said that the Select Committee would, in a short time, be able to publish its conclusions. He has no authority to say that. It is not true. In addition, when he suggested that there was some convenience to the Secretary of State in the debate's timing, I should point out that the Select Committee deliberately chose to invite my right hon. Friend to attend after the debate rather than before it.
Mr. John: I share the hon. Gentleman's expression of pleasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at seeing you in the Chair. However, if the invitation was given deliberately, it shows that there are serious problems with the Select Committees. Midway through the considerations of the Select Committee on Expenditure, the Government announced their decision to acquire Trident. The Select Committee on Defence will face the indignity of seeing its report being reduced to a report that is of academic interest alone. The House will take a decision when only some of the evidence is available and when none of the conclusions has been published. That is not good enough.
It is time that the step-father of the system, the Leader of the House, considered the propriety of what has happened. Even if the natural father, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St John-Stevas), no longer has access to his children, some attempt should be made to ensure that they are treated properly.
The major thrust of the argument against the independent strategic deterrent, and in particular Trident,
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will be based on defence and economic grounds. However, there will be some—both inside and outside the House—who will direct their arguments solely towards the morality of the decision. Their arguments should not go unconsidered and should not be treated lightly. As the Secretary of State made abundantly clear, we are talking not about a simple Polaris replacement but about stepping into a new generation of nuclear weapons. We are passing from a simple deterrent system to a system that is designed to fight a sophisticated nuclear war with weapons that have warheads that are independently targetable, with a longer range and a bigger pay load. That means that they are capable of inflicting much greater death and destruction. No one should take such a step without some moral qualms and misgivings. If we were to subdue those qualms rather than overcome them, we should be nearer to thinking the unthinkable, namely, thinking about nuclear war instead of about deterring one.
In the main, I wish to direct my arguments to the defence implications of Trident. If I do not, the Government will escape easily—just as the Secretary of State has this afternoon—by expressing an understanding of the moral arguments but not sharing them. For such a subject it is unusual that many people—ranging from a former Chief of the Defence Staff to academic experts in defence and to defence correspondents—are totally unpersuaded about the lightness of the decision, or are hostile to it.
I turn to the economic arguments, which are not those of pure economic theory but of defence economics. In the Government's White Paper we have been told that the cost of the Trident missile system will be £5,000 million over a 15-year period. The Secretary of State has given a powerful hostage to fortune by saying, with his hand on his heart, that he will contain the programme within its stated limits. The history of defence weapons systems has not been a happy one when it comes to meeting cost targets. Only in Polaris—where the United States of America was suffering from a guilt complex over the cancellation of Skybolt—have we managed to contain a very large programme within its budget.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: Will the hon. Gentleman assist the House and set his remarks in the context with which we are all acutely concerned? Will he pay tribute to the far-sighted and courageous patriotism of the post-war Labour Government, who put the country's interests first? Will he tell us precisely where he stands on the issue of nuclear weapons and whether he believes in them? Will he tell us whether he thinks that the country should have them and whether he agrees with the leader of his party?
Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman's intervention was almost a speech and was unworthy of him. As he knows, the subject under debate is the independent deterrent system. I was proud of the post-war Labour Government. I do not remember the hon. Gentleman or his colleagues and forebears expressing an equal admiration of them. It is a bit hypocritical of him to express such great admiration at this stage.
I return to the problem of curtailing the large programme within its budget. Only 12 per cent, of Trident's budget is to be spent on ready-made items, namely, the rockets, whereas 88 per cent, of the budget is to be spent on work that has a development content. So

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there is ample room for cost escalation, and I record it as my view that the final cost of this project in real terms will exceed the upper figure that is being quoted at the moment, because far too many of the items in the programme depend upon uncertain technology for it to be otherwise. An hon. Gentleman asked"What about the jobs?". As the Government have created 1 million unemployed in 18 months, I regard that comment as sheer nauseating hypocrisy. He made it from a sedentary position, and I hope he remains seated.
Even the figure quoted in the Trident programme is double the cost in real terms of the Polaris programme, and that is not the only cost of the programme, although by comparison with these astronomic global figures the other costs may seem to be small beer.
Mr. Clive Soley: I wonder whether my hon. Friend could help by commenting on something which is the crux of the problem. For several years this country has been spending between 4 per cent, and 5 per cent, of its GNP on defence compared with between 3 per cent, and 4 per cent, for France and Germany and less than 1 per cent, for Japan. Even more important and crucial to this debate is the fact that about half our expenditure on research and development is concerned with arms compared with about 12 per cent, for Germany. Is not that one of the prime reasons for the economic decline and eclipse of this country?
Mr. John: Of course, the expenditure upon defence must relate to and mirror the performance of the economy. I proposed to come to that in due course in my argument.
What I was dealing with was the extra costs which have not at the moment been added to the £5,000 million estimate for the Trident programme. First, there is the cost of guarding the United States airfields here with the Rapier missile. Secondly, to free the Vickers shipyard in Barrow for the Trident submarine programme, the building of the Fleet submarine programme will have to be undertaken elsewhere, probably at Cammell Laird, with the improvement of the yard costing between £60 million and £70 million.
The next point I want to make with the utmost emphasis is that the £5,000 million of which we are talking must be found from within the existing planned limits of expenditure. There is no hole in the defence programme of the kind that enabled Polaris to be accommodated and there is no additional or special money to be allocated by the Government to fund the Trident programme. I say this because some have suggested—indeed, the Secretary of State, rather surprisingly, fell into the same error this afternoon—that if the £5,000 million is not to be spent on Trident it will be clawed back by the Treasury. But that depends upon the erroneous assumption that special funds are being devoted to Trident. They are not, so the decision will depend upon the size of the defence budget. If the Government are determined to keep it the same, or if, as we say, the budget should be cut to take account of the economic and social decline of this country, the question remains the same, namely, whether Trident by its existence is edging out other projects which together make better defence sense.
In the heady days of the first exchange of letters between the President and herself, the Prime Minister said that the money saved by acquiring Trident would be used
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to fund force improvements."Saving" is a word with a special meaning here. The nearest analogy I can think of is that of the housewife who comes back from the sales having bought a £75 coat for £50 and tells her husband that she has saved him £25. The question is whether the coat should have been bought at all. There is no saving in this particular scheme and there will be no money saved from the scheme to be available for extra force improvements.
The fact is that, as my hon. Friend the member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) has already indicated—it is a difficult fact for us all to face—our gross national product is declining and the coming decade will be fraught with economic difficulties. As a result of that, the percentage of our GDP spent on defence this year will at least equal that of the United States and may well exceed it. Our money will be found out of a declining production, and yet we may end up, by this yardstick of GDP, spending the largest amount in the whole of the Alliance.
That simply cannot go on. We have to reduce our spending and our commitments accordingly. The Secretary of State is fond of saying—he repeated it this afternoon—that hard choices have to be made, without ever specifying what those choices are. Certainly, spending £5,000 million at least on this system will only make those hard choices harder.
I looked at Mr. Quinlan's evidence to the Select Committee. It was excellent, in the sense that one had to approach it like a prospector panning for gold, namely, having to get through all the forms of words in order to get to a few nuggets of hard fact. But even he had to admit that the Trident programme would make the squeezes elsewhere in the Budget more severe. Of course it will. Other equipment and material will have to be cancelled or deferred to keep this project intact and we want to know quite clearly from the Secretary of State when he winds up this debate what the likely cancellations or deferrals are to be, so that this House of Commons in debating this matter can make a proper judgment on the balance of defence advantage and not be given the run around by a Government who pretend, in the words of President Truman, that they can have guns and the whole cow when they manifestly cannot.
The Government carefully quote the cost of the programme as a percentage of the whole defence budget, but the crucial feature for the years ahead is how much of the money available for new defence equipment the Trident scheme will pre-empt. In last week's debate in another place a memorandum to the Defence Committee was echoed by putting the share of the new equipment budget which Trident will pre-empt at 41 per cent. Others have put it at a lower figure of 15 per cent, to 18 per cent.
There are clearly differences among those who have analysed the new equipment budget, but they have not been contradicted or in any way answered by the Ministry of Defence and, whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, it will certainly amount to a very large percentage of what we shall have to spend, and other things will have to give way to it. One example that can easily be quoted is the displacement of the Fleet submarine programme from the Barrow yard already and the need to work up the learning curve again in the new yard.
Because of our current economies, we already have planes that do not fly, ships that do not sail, tanks that do not roll and an army that is demobilised for Christmas. Our straitened economic circumstances have already been recognised by the Government by the £200 million cut

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they announced last month. We are the only one of the major European Allies to have a presence in all four spheres of defence. We have a presence in the defence of the central front both on land and in the air, we have the defence of the home base, we have the naval defence of the Eastern Atlantic and of the Channel and we have at the moment the independent nuclear deterrent.
I had thought, frankly, faced with the Secretary of State's words about hard choices, that this year's debates on defence would concentrate on what money was available and which of the roles we at present fulfil could most easily be cut with least damage to our defence effort, but not a bit of it. The Government are rushing around talking not only about maintaining the present commitments but of taking on new ones. There was, first, the chemical weapons pronouncement by the last Secretary of State for Defence. Now, although the Secretary of State himself may be cautious about the budget available, he finds himself overtaken by the Prime Minister with her talk of the rapid deployment force. If that is not to be just talk, and if there is any truth in what the Prime Minister said yesterday about it being done without sacrificing our commitments on the central front, it must mean that there is an unquantifiable extra claim on the defence budget.
Moreover, as the Secretary of State has hinted, though not specified, this will be a decade when a lot of new equipment will be needed to keep up our other commitments. We need to replace our tanks, we need to replace aircraft such as the Jaguar and Harrier, and we need new ships. At the very time when the Trident programme will be peaking at the end of the decade, these other items of equipment also will need to be found. Therefore, eventually, even if the Government make up their mind what their defence policy is to be, the conflict between the projects of which I have spoken and the £5,000 million needed for Trident will inevitably throw up for the Government impossible choices. That is why we say that the amount of money involved in this project is not the sort of throwaway item or minimal expenditure as the Secretary of State spoke of it today. It will put a massive strain upon defence budgets which are already under pressure.
That sacrifice might be worth while if we were getting, in the independent nuclear deterrent, something which would compensate for our likely loss of other defence roles. But we shall not. In my view, in this debate it is a question not of which is the best such system but of examining the rationale for an independent strategic deterrent of a new generation.
As I understand him, the Secretary of State does not argue, in support of the independent strategic deterrent, that it will give us a place at the top table. That is abandoned. His case, therefore, rests upon two arguments. The first is the argument that there would be a situation in which Russia made an attack upon the United Kingdom so serious that we had to respond not merely with a tactical nuclear weapon but with a strategic—that is, a general—nuclear weapon of the kind which we possessed, yet it would be an attack by Russia not thought serious enough to involve the United States of America in coming to our aid.
In other words, in so arguing, we doubt the word of the United States and the value of the NATO Alliance, so that we have to be free to act alone. I find this imaginary situation both preposterous and incredible. [Interruption.] Hon. Members on the Government Benches may think that
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the NATO Alliance is not worth the fine words. They may think that they have to keep an independent capacity. But I believe in the words of the Alliance and I am content to rely upon them. But they certainly do not argue the necessity for independent action.
Mr. Michael Latham Mr. Michael Latham (Melton) rose—
The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (Mr. Keith Speed)The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy (Mr. Keith Speed) rose—
Mr. John: I give way to the hon. Member for Melton.
Mr. Latham: I am much obliged, but I am sure that the House would prefer it if the hon. Gentleman gave way to the Minister.
Mr. Speed: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. On the basis of the argument which he has just advanced, why did not his Government, when he was in the Ministry of Defence, abandon Polaris there and then? Why did they go ahead with Chevaline?
Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman whose maiden speech, and only speech, in this debate we greatly welcome, should know that the argument which I have just advanced about the new generation of independent—[Interruption.] Yes, the hon. Gentleman might not like the answer that he will get, but he will get it all the same. The new generation of deterrent is passing from deterrence to a capability to fight a sophisticated nuclear war, which is wholly different.
I was about to rehearse the Secretary of State's more recent refinement of the argument about the need to be able to act alone. He says that it is not necessary that we should actually act alone, but what is important is that Russia should be uncertain about whether we would act alone. That presupposes in nuclear weapon matters the argument that uncertainty of reaction is a good thing. I put it seriously to the Secretary of State that nuclear weapons are the last area in which we need uncertainty on anyone's part as to what a reaction should be.
Moreover, if the uncertainty caused by a second decision centre is so good as a deterrent, why not have three, four or five such independent centres of deterrence? The Secretary of State fell back on a curious historical argument. He said that we have always had the deterrent, so other countries will not therefore go by our precedent. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman's logic is driving him inexorably to argue for nuclear proliferation. This country has, rightly in my view, worked long and hard to try to prevent such proliferation from happening, and to go back on that would be criminal. The capacity which we would get for that independent response would be the capacity to inflict considerable damage but at the cost of the complete destruction of this country. I repeat that it is not a situation for independent action in which I find any credibility.
The Secretary of State has said on other occasions that our deterrent is not really independent but is a contribution to the Alliance. But in that case it is designated by the Alliance and is not independent at all, and, as he has conceded this afternoon, its addition to the Alliance's deterrent is minimal.
The Government say that our allies approved of the Trident decision. I very much doubt, if the allies were faced with the knowledge of what might have to be sacrificed to make way for the Trident programme, whether they would have given it wholehearted support. For example, I wonder whether they would have done so

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if they had known that some other part of our effort and our capability would have to be surrendered which would be very much harder to produce or replace than the independent deterrent.
To sum up, therefore—at a time when our whole economy is under great stress—
Mr. Latham: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. John: I gave way a few moments ago to the hon. Gentleman, who apparently then wished to pass. I am content that he should remain in dummy for the rest of the debate.
At a time when our whole economy is under great stress and when many other services are being axed, it is proposed to spend a great deal of money on a project which adds little to deterrence, and in order to afford it one would have to distort the whole of the rest of our defence effort. The country cannot afford it. It is advocated on wholly unproven grounds, and we in the Labour Party—[HON. MEMBERS:"Which Labour Party?"]—we in the Labour Party will not rest until this piece of nuclear nonsense is cancelled.
4.48 pm
Mr. Julian Amery: The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) has repudiated 40 years of a very fine record which the Labour Party has had in this field. Mr. Attlee was Deputy Prime Minister when we were co-inventors with the Americans in the Tube Alloys project of the design, development and deployment of the nuclear weapon. As Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition Government, Mr. Attlee gave his agreement to the use of that weapon against Japan. After the McMahon Act, it was Mr. Attlee, at a time when we had clothes rationing and food rationing in this country, who embarked on the development of a purely British deterrent, when the McMahon Act would have stopped us from so doing.
Lord Mountbatten has been often quoted by the Opposition in these matters. I asked him once what was his greatest achievement as Chief of the Defence Staff. He told me that it was convincing the right hon. Members for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) and for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) of the need for a British nuclear deterrent, and an independent one.
It was the last Labour Prime Minister who presided over the Chevaline development. The speech of the hon. Member for Pontypridd is a repudiation of a fine patriotic record by the Labour Party up to now. If I may say so, it justifies the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) in saying that it is not he who has changed but the official Labour Party.
Mr. Jack Straw: How can the right hon. Gentleman justify his statement when all of us on the Opposition Benches—including the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen)—are united in opposition to the Trident programme?
Mr. Amery: I was only saying what successive Labour leaders, Deputy Prime Ministers in the coalition Government and later Prime Ministers, have done. The record is clear. The speech of the hon. Member for Pontypridd is a repudiation of what I regard as an honourable record and something on which all of us to a great extent can agree.
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There are few here who would not agree that the American deterrent has been decisive in maintaining peace since 1945. I have personal experience of three Defence Departments and at the Foreign Office, and I believe that the British deterrent has given us an influence that we should not otherwise have had in our relations with the United States, with other powers inside NATO, and at disarmament talks. The investment that has been made by the French and the Chinese in this type of weapon system underlines its military significance. If they think that it has strategic importance, we should surely be unwise not to pay some attention to their view. I am afraid that in time others will develop such weapons.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about proliferation. It will happen whether we like it or not. After 40 years of investing British brains and money in this vital, perhaps crucial, weapon system, we should be taking on a heavy responsibility if we contracted out of it.
There are differences of opinion—and they are honourable ones—about which system we should have, but if we are to continue in this field we must have a sound delivery system. The V-bombers, for which I was responsible during my time in the Air Ministry, are virtually obsolete. In due course, Polaris, too, will be obsolete. If we had ahead of us a golden age of disarmament and peace, we should not need to think about a replacement for Polaris. I was Minister of Aviation at the time of the Nassau agreement, and I was very concerned about whether we should try to develop an entirely independent British system. We decided against that and to go in with the United States, and there was good reason for that. But, having taken that decision, we should be foolish not to keep in step with the United States in the process of modernisation.
We should never underestimate the importance that the United States Administration and Congress attach to nuclear matters. They devote more time to them than to perhaps any other aspect of foreign and defence policy. If we are to have a voice in their counsels on defence—this subject came up in the exchanges in the House yesterday—we need to be their partners.
What is the philosophy behind an independent British deterrent, apart from the historic justification? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a powerful case for the importance of there being a second centre of decision. The hon. Gentleman asked"Should we not trust the Americans?" I call to his attention the conversation that took place between President Kennedy and Mr. Harold Macmillan at Nassau, when President Kennedy said in effect to Mr. Macmillan"But don't you trust me to protect you?", and Mr. Macmillan replied"I trust you absolutely. I would not have trusted President Harding out of my sight with my pocket book." Who can tell what future Administrations will emerge?
There are now four centres of decision, not two, outside the Soviet Union—the Americans, the British, the Chinese and the French. That development naturally increases the risks, but it also imposes greater caution on the part of the potential aggressor. I am very much against proliferation, but if a responsible country such as Switzerland or Sweden had its own nuclear weapon, I believe that its neutrality would be a great deal surer than it is today.
There is one special argument why Britain should make sure of her own nuclear shield. There was a debate last week in another place which pointed out strongly the

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vulnerability of this country to Soviet airborne attack, cutting out the staging point between the United States and the Continental countries of NATO.
Sir Neil Cameron said in a lecture that he gave a little under a year ago—and others have warned since—that there is a real danger now that the Soviets have developed a capability not just to attack in central Europe but to launch an airborne invasion of this country outflanking central Europe. They have 50,000 airborne troops, with the necessary armour and artillery, and 1,000 transport aircraft to carry them, together with the necessary fighter aircraft cover. They have experimented in flights between the Soviet Union and Aden and East Africa, demonstrating their ability to deploy such forces. Could we contain them today with the garrison that we have here? Moreover, those Soviet forces will increase.
For 1,000 years this island has been free from successful naval or air invasion. Today the only sure barrier that we have is to convince any aggressor that an attempt to invade and occupy this island would meet a devastating response, far outweighing any possible gain to the aggressor.
Mr. Stanley Newens: Is the right hon. Gentleman seriously saying that he believes there is a likelihood that the Soviet Union will attack this country with airborne divisions of the kind he described? Is that one of the contingencies against which we have to defend and for which we must have the Trident missile system?
Mr. Amery: Yes, I was saying just that. Moreover, it is not just my opinion. Many serious students of strategy have debated the matter during the past few months. That is why I put the matter to the House. Certainly it may be new to the hon. Gentleman and to others, but the matter is very much under discussion today.
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: Is not the latest Soviet threat that the right hon. Gentleman has just described an argument not so much for a Polaris replacement as for a modernisation of our air defence system? Indeed, that argument was advanced in the debate in the other place to which he referred. The view that was taken by more than one contributor to that debate, and elsewhere, is that the failure of the Government to modernise our air defence system and their decision to stand down the third Lightning squadron are parts of that opportunity cost of the Trident system to which my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) referred.
Mr. Amery: I do not know how far our different resources could produce or maintain a home garrison that could meet whatever the Soviet airborne capability is likely to be in the decade that we are considering. All I am saying is that, if we have an effective independent deterrent, we can be sure that we shall never be invaded.
We are talking about a system that will come into service in the 1990s. Lord Carver said that he did not envisage any circumstances in which we could need it. However, the older I get the more struck I am by how little statesmen—and even field marshals—seem to look beyond their own lives, which are necessarily finite.
Who can say what the situation will be like at the end of this century? General de Gaulle once said that the trouble about treaties was that they faded, like flowers. Is it inconceivable that the Americans will go into isolation, that some of our Continental allies will go neutralist, that
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Germany will be reunited? All these things are possible. I am hoping that none of them will happen, but they could. Britain will not be a major conventional military power in the foreseeable future, but nuclear power is a great leveller, not only of cities but of aggressive pretentions.
In allocating the resources for long-term defence, we must always give the highest priority to the strategic nuclear umbrella. It is an area in which we can claim equality. It is not over-costly. If ever we had to use military power again on our own, we could not do so without confidence that we had a strategic nuclear strike ourselves.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has dealt adequately with the alternative options to Trident, but the argument that weighs most with me is quite a simple one. If those lynx-eyed boys in the Treasury accepted that this was the most cost-effective system, who are we to disagree?
The French have three systems—land, sea and air—and the French are not much richer than we are. If we are to have only one system, it has to be seaborne. I thought that my right hon. Friend made a convincing case that there is no other system which could be more cost-effective. None of those systems, of course, can be completely invulnerable, but there is an awful lot of sea on the map, and underwater detection is not yet very far advanced.
I end with the question of cost. It is marginal in terms of the gross budget, though significant in terms of the equipment budget; but I am not sure what greater security we would buy for ourselves as a nation, or in our contribution to the Alliance, by slightly beefing up other elements of our defence. In any case, one cannot measure—and here I address myself to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—what we spend on defence by the same yardstick as what we spend on our domestic need. What we spend on health and education and on encouraging industry must be measured against our resources. What we spend on our defence must be measured against the threat.
Mr. John: I am following the right hon.Gentleman's argument most closely. What diminution of the threat against us occurred last month to force a Conservative Secretary of State to cut £200 million out of the defence budget?
Mr. Amery: If the hon. Gentleman had either been in the House or had read the Official Report, he would know that I was not accepting that that may happen. Indeed, what I am saying now is an implied criticism of that decision, because it is the consensus of defence experts on both sides of the Atlantic that we are entering on the most difficult and dangerous decade since the war. Even if we were to re-establish a balance of power in these years, the situation will remain very precarious until either disarmament is agreed or the threat of Soviet imperialism fades out.
If, in the event, we should enter a period of peace and prosperity and the Trident expenditure were to prove superfluous, we could but smile on the money wasted. But if we were faced with a challenge which only Trident could deter and we had refused the opportunity to build it, we could never forgive ourselves, or be forgiven.
5.3 pm
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The strength of the emotions which surround this subject makes it both

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difficult and specially desirable to try to find some starting point from which a rational argument can be conducted. I personally find it useful to go back to the beginning of this argument; indeed, to the only occasion in experience when an atomic or nuclear weapon has been used.
It is as near certain as anything can be that if in 1945 Japan had possessed an atomic weapon and the means of delivering it, we would not have destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that we would have undertaken the necessary alternative ways of bringing Japan to surrender. It is fairly convincing to argue, but a good deal less absolutely so, that if known allies of Japan at the time who were still in the field had possessed a nuclear weapon, the same consequence would have followed, that Japan would not have been faced with the alternative of surrender—actually, she was not; it was the necessity of surrender—by that horrendous event.
It is the uncertainty of the link between those two propositions which lies behind the argument for the British independent nuclear deterrent—the doubt whether the existence of nuclear weapons in the hands even of an ally is sufficient guarantee against the exercise of the blackmail of an enemy who says"Do this or else". In that form, thus simplified, the argument appears easy enough, but I find great defects in it as it is examined.
The first difficulty is that, if that argument is valid, it does not apply only to this country. If that argument is valid, then, with the possible exception of France and China, all other nations concerned, apart from the two giants, are at the mercy of the same nuclear blackmail. That already casts considerable doubt and difficulty upon the initial deduction, since not merely has non-proliferation been sought after and hitherto achieved, but there has not been that desperate determination upon the part of other great nations round the world, for the sake of escaping the threat of blackmail, to supply themselves with the argued answer to it.
But I find even more difficulty than that in drawing a deduction to present circumstances from the simple equation of 1945. If the question were asked"Supposing the world of 1945 had been the world of today, when four, five, six nations have an immense nuclear establishment and capability, would then the attack have been launched upon Japan to bring the war to a certain and speedy end?" I would find the answer to it very doubtful indeed. The history of the last 30 years and the behaviour of nations in the supposed circumstances cast great doubt upon the validity of the deduction.
We were told only yesterday afternoon by the right hon. Lady the Prime Minister about the Soviet Union's campaign of expansion, about the alleged inexorable determination of the Soviet Union to advance in power and territorial command. That advance confronts nations which have no nuclear capability whatever. Does anyone really suppose that if a nuclear threat were addressed by Russia, say, to Iran, to Iraq or to Turkey, the result would be that a nuclear response would be unleashed on any other quarter?
If blackmail is so easy between a nuclear Power and a non-nuclear Power, it is remarkable indeed that in the world of the last 30 years we have not seen that blackmail exerted. The United States suffered a historic defeat and reverse in South-East Asia. The temptation upon it to use nuclear blackmail must have been immensely strong, if it
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has strength at all; for whatever view may be taken of the Soviet Union, it must be regarded as remotely unlikely that the delivery of a nuclear ultimatum to Hanoi would have evoked a direct, suicidal response from the Soviet Union. Yet the United States fought that war year after year to its own humiliating defeat.
I shall not cite minor examples, such as Afghanistan, which may be regarded as so minor that the question whether nuclear blackmail should be employed would be regarded as irrelevant; but in the world as it is, with the nuclear forces that exist, the proposition that nations which do not have that weapon in their possession are faced with the blackmail choice between surrender and annihilation does not correspond with probability or experience.
The argument thus ceases to be one of absolutes and becomes one of relativities. If that is so—in a moment I shall show that it is so for the Secretary of State for Defence—then this is not an argument in which one side of the House or one section of the House can say to another that, if it takes a different view on that question, it is not interested in the defence of our country. That is a retort and a taunt which, in that connection, cannot be used, for we are dealing not with absolutes but with relative choices.
The Secretary of State made that perfectly clear. He said that we were"keeping in the strategic nuclear business". I not only agree with that formulation but, speaking for myself, and given the dimensions involved, I regard it as adequate justification for the proposition that the Government have put before the House tonight; for we cannot isolate the use and possession of a nuclear weapon from everything else in the technology of war. It has its ramifications throughout military preparations. All the remainder of the military preparations of a nation, especially a maritime nation such as we are, is weakened if, supposing it to be rationally practicable, we do not"keep in the strategic nuclear business".
But the right hon. Gentleman's argument that it was not only desirable but practicable to do so rested upon percentages, however those percentages might be queried, as they were for the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John). He said that it was 3 per cent. to 5 per cent. of the defence budget year in, year out. Yet if we were to double it, still one could say that, if this is a technology of immense importance, there are rational grounds for attempting to find within our means the opportunity to"keep in the strategic nuclear business".
So the right hon. Gentleman has abandoned the absolute. What he says bears no relationship to the argument at the outset of his speech. If he argues in terms of 5 per cent. or 7 per cent., he can no longer say that this is life or death, that this and only this stands between us and surrender or destruction. If that were so, the notion of minimal percentages would be out of the window. We should all be saying—and he would be the first to say—that whatever it may cost, if it be 50 per cent. of the defence budget, that is what we must have. So those are relativities and not absolutes that we are debating.
Meanwhile, there is another dimension altogether. This is not wholly a nuclear or a military debate; it is also a political debate. It is a debate about the foreign policy of this country and about the position of this country in the world.
The title of the motion on the Order Paper uses the word"independent".
Sir Nicholas Bonsor: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the military aspect and moves to foreign policy, I wonder whether he would answer my question. Does he agree that in the examples that he has given, leaving aside nuclear blackmail, one comes back to the position of a balance of conventional power? In the example that he has given in the balance of conventional power the side which has been strongest has won. If one relates that to this country and our independent nuclear deterrent, whatever we spent on conventional forces we would never be able to put ourselves in such a position as to be able to stand up against a Russian attack in Europe. The advantage of an independent nuclear deterrent is that it gives us an additional strength which we could never achieve by conventional means.
Mr. Powell: I do not know whether the hon. Member is conscious of it, but he entered into a wide field and deep water when he left behind the basis on which the Government rest their case—defence against blackmail. For the hon. Member for Nantwich (Sir N. Bonsor) we are now to be fighting a nuclear war, or using the threat of nuclear war, as a substitute for what he calls conventional defence and protection. However, there is some relationship between that sphere, into which I decline to be further tempted by the hon. Member, and the aspects to which I was about to turn.
Although we speak about this as being an"independent" nuclear deterrent, it was noticeable that in the motion the Government did not include that adjective, and indeed it is doubtful to what extent that adjective is valid. The right hon. Gentleman referred to our nuclear weapon as our '"contribution" to the nuclear capability of NATO. When one considers the remainder of the nuclear capability of NATO—remembering that the French force de frappe and the rest have nothing to do with NATO—one discovers that it consists of us and the United States. In reality, ours is a minimal addition—an appendix as it were—to the huge nuclear armament of the United States.
Why is it, then, that the United States is so friendly and benevolent towards this relatively small addition—infinitesimal in quantitative terms—to their nuclear armament? It is because thereby the United States binds us, and we are bound, to its strategy, to its view of the world and to its concept of the politics of the world as a whole.
Mr. Robert Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman is learning a lesson and, I hope teaching it to Members on the Government Benches.
Mr. Powell: I am much obliged to the hon. Member. Learning and teaching have been the business of the lives of many of us; but this is not a doctrine that I have learnt recently, though I have pondered it for many years.
As we listened yesterday to the Prime Minister, fresh from her contact with the minds and thoughts of the American Government, we heard the authentic terminology of the American view of the world. It is, in the strictest terms, Manichaean. It divides the world into two monoliths—the goodies and the baddies, the East and the West, even the free and the enslaved. It is a nightmarish distortion of reality. Indeed, to call it a distortion is too complimentary to it. It is a view of the world which this country cannot possibly share, or can share only at its own greatest peril.
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For the last 30 or 35 years, consciously or not, Britain has been seeking a substitute, something to replace what it imagined that it had lost, looking in one direction and another for a surrogate for empire, for the means to believe that we are still strong and great as we used to tell ourselves in those years that we were.
All this time we have been looking in the wrong direction. We have been telling ourselves"Oh, if only we could get in with a really big show, then we would have influence, power and a big voice in the world. Let us find the big boys and get in with them." We looked not merely for alliances—alliances have always necessarily been the environment of this country—but for blocs, for the formal and final embodiment of this country in a great bloc of power. The development, which we see going on all too fast, of the European Economic Community into a foreign Power in its own right, evolving foreign policies and attempting to act like an empire in the politics of the world, is one manifestation of that. It was the wrong direction.
I believe that this country is inherently immensely strong. What we are and where we are make us in any case a formidable Power in the world and, above all, a formidable defensive Power. As the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) reminded the House, so far, through all the vicissitudes, through all the changes of armament and technology, we have that which is true of few other nations: we have proved invincible.
That power can exist, however, and be realised only at the price that it is accompanied by independence. Once we attach ourselves to the philosophy, to the outlook and to the purposes of other nations differently situated and differently constituted, we forfeit that importance, that greatness which is not boastful but rightly ours and which we still have.
The debate will not end with the vote that comes at Ten o'clock. It is a long debate which will go on. I believe that in the course of that debate we shall not be debating technology or even military strategy. The debate will be part of an attempt by this nation to rediscover its true self.
5.23 pm
Sir John Langford-Holt: Towards the end of the last Parliament the Defence and External Affairs Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee made a report to the House entitled"The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Weapons Policy". The last paragraph of that report stated:
"Your Committee had hoped to resolve the question as to when the decision whether to acquire a successor to Polaris has to be made, and to consider the options available to the Government. They were, however, unable to complete their investigations. Instead, Your Committee have laid before the House the evidence taken during the inquiry in the hope that it will be of use both to Members and the public, and be available for consideration by a committee of a new Parliament."
The Select Committee on Defence has not yet finished its inquiry into the nuclear deterrent. That is due to several factors. The first is that the Select Committee was not set up until this Parliament had been in existence for six months. Perhaps nothing was happening on the Committee front, but things were happening in the Ministry of Defence. Decisions were being taken. Decisions had to be taken.
There were unavoidable delays in the Committee's visit to the United States and there was a change of Secretary of State. It would have been unrealistic for the Committee

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to report before it had been to the United States. Only there could we talk to people involved in the development and operation of Trident.
The Committee made it clear in a special report to the House that it would have liked the opportunity to make a full and final report on the subject to the House. The Committee took a large amount of evidence and it was given a number of written memoranda from various sources. That amounted to about 13 publications of which 12 were of oral evidence and one of written evidence. Both the House and the Select Committee have been able to consult the report given to the House in the last Parliament.
I shall outline the evidence taken by the Committee. The conclusions drawn from it must be left to the House. The Committee will give its conclusions in its final report in about two months.
First, we were told that the present Polaris system cannot go on indefinitely. The life of the submarines at present in service cannot be extended much beyond the mid-1990s. Even if that were not a limiting factor, many items of equipment and replacement equipment will be needed before then. The replacements could be unreasonably expensive—the Secretary of State called it"hazardous"—in that they would have to be replaced by new designs and technology. The cost-effectiveness of the Polaris boats would be on a falling graph which would fall faster and more steeply as time went on.
If we are to maintain a nuclear deterrent, evidence shows that Polaris will have to be replaced by a modern system of some sort and be ready for service by the 1990s. British Shipbuilders, Rolls-Royce and the Ministry of Defence agree that, if a change is to be made to a new submarine-launched ballistic missile system, a decision and a start will have to be made very soon.
If the submarine system is ruled out on the ground of expense, the ground-launched alternative, although cheaper, will take about 12 years to come into service if it is manufactured in Britain. Therefore, in both cases an early decision is necessary.
We sought evidence on all the realistic suggestions, but the choice is limited by two considerations. First, the system must be as invulnerable as possible. The Secretary of State drew attention to that. It must be invulnerable if it is to be credible and perform its deterrent duty. In that particular an undersea-launched ballistic weapon is obviously better.
The second consideration is that of cost. If the inroads made by Trident—the more expensive choice—into the overall defence budget were considered unacceptable, the Government would be right to consider a cheaper, though perhaps less effective, alternative. The cheapness would be in the launching platform rather than in the missile itself. By their very nature, land-based launching platforms are more vulnerable and could perhaps invite a pre-emptive strike on the area wherever they are sited.
Mr. Stuart Holland: If the hon. Gentleman accepts the argument that land-based sites are more vulnerable and could invite attack, does he include in that category cruise missile sites?
Sir John Langford-Holt: I shall come to that. I am not trying to develop an argument; I am merely summarising the evidence that was placed before the Committee. Ground-launched cruise missiles similar to those which the
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Americans are due to site in Britain after 1983 might offer a nuclear deterrent at a much cheaper cost. On the other side of the coin, if we were to go to the land-based missile rather than the submarine-based missile, our shipbuilding capacity would suffer and in some instances disappear for ever.
The Government's motion is in two distinct parts. First, it endorses the decision to maintain a strategic nuclear deterrent. Secondly, it approves the choice of the Trident missile system. The Select Committee has chosen deliberately to avoid the question whether we should have an independent nuclear deterrent. In the Select Committee's view, that is so fundamentally a political issue that it was not suited for inquiry by the Committee.
During our inquiry the former Secretary of State, who is now the Leader of the House, announced the Government's decision to buy the Trident system on similar and, we hope, as favourable terms as those on which Polaris was bought nearly 20 years ago. We took much evidence on the implications of the decision as well as on the results that might flow from it. Whether one supports the sea-based or the land-based weapon, it is fan-to say that the evidence that we heard included no one who cast serious doubts on Trident's ability to do the job hitherto done by Polaris.
The system fulfils the criteria. It is the least vulnerable of the two systems. It offers the best target coverage and is a proven and tested weapon. British Shipbuilders and Rolls-Royce are certain that they can build the boats necessary to carry it.
There are three subsidiary and perhaps lesser questions to which we must have an answer. When the larger Trident boats are built at Barrow-in-Furness, we should know whether the Government will support British Shipbuilders in building nuclear-propelled fleet submarines at Cammell Laird at Birkenhead. The Committee felt that without the prospect of these contracts the future of Cammell Laird would be quite bleak and the planned expansion of the SSN force would not continue.
Secondly, we must ask whether the Ministry will make an early decision on the size of the Trident hulls so as to permit a smooth building programme. If the decision is long delayed, there will be many hiccups in the course of building the boats.
Thirdly, we must know whether the Government will support the rebuilding programmes at Barrow and Rosyth, which are necessary without Trident. Will they do that within the Trident programme?
The most important consideration is the effect of Trident on the rest of the defence expenditure. Will something have to go and, if so, what? The evidence suggests that Trident costs can, with the usual qualifications, be estimated with some accuracy. The Polaris concept was not dissimilar. It was finally procured in real terms for slightly less than the original estimate.
The Trident estimate may prove, as a percentage, to be more accurate than a normal defence weapon system percentage. However, the addition of £5,000 million to the defence bill, even if spread over some years, is bound to present the Government with major problems of adjustment. These could become most critical when the spending on Trident peaks in the late 1980s, at a time when the Ministry says that it expects overall expenditure to be increasing at an annual rate of 1 per cent.
The Ministry of Defence has accepted that there is an opportunity cost in buying Trident. Some equipment

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which might have been bought may have to go and some other defence roles may have to be reviewed. We have not yet been given any evidence on opportunity costs. Without that information we do not have a full picture against which to judge the Government's decision. However, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will shortly be giving evidence to the Select Committee. He is giving evidence to the Committee after the debate because of the request that I transmitted to him. I said that that should be the order of events.
The Government have linked the announcement of the Trident missile purchase with the sale of Rapier air defence missiles to the United States. The chairman of the British Aerospace dynamics group has referred to the Government's description of the deal as an"offset" as"the greatest load of codswallop I have heard in a long time". Although I do not fully agree with that description and view, we have in Trident made a major defence equipment purchase from the United States with little or no reciprocal sales. The process that has become known as the two-way street seems to be far more like a one-way street. The traffic appears to be going very nearly all in one direction. I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister say yesterday that the issue had been raised with the President of the United States. I hope that it will be raised again and again. When the Committee goes to the United States, it will certainly take the opportunity to raise it. It is vital in the long-term interests of our two nations.
I commend the evidence that the Committee has garnered for the House. I hope that hon. Members will study our evidence and the evidence of the Sub-Committee which studied the matter previously. I hope that we shall then be able to have a more informed debate on this extremely wide subject than we have ever been able to have before.
5.38 pm
Mr. Douglas Jay: The weakest point in the Secretary of State's speech was his failure to put more than a little emphasis on the need for the international limitation of arms and especially agreements on that between the Soviet Union and the United States. Throughout this controversy the first priority for any British Government or British Parliament must surely be the maximum effort to induce the Soviet Union and the United States to reach a new agreement both on strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. That means a fully ratified and possibly re-negotiated SALT II and a balanced agreement on the SS20s on one side and cruise missiles on the other. I hope that that is an objective that every hon. Member and everyone throughout Britain can unite in supporting. It is the United States, and the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons and not the British nuclear armoury that matters to the world if a nuclear catastrophe is to be avoided.
Nor is the pursuit of real agreement on nuclear arms limitation a hopeless quest. Both super Powers have a self-interest in avoiding suicide. The Soviet Union has an additional self-interest in lightening the enormous economic burden on its people which must be inflicted by its present colossal arms programme. If there is one moral to be drawn from Henry Kissinger's fascinating memoirs, it is the persistence with which the Soviet leaders worked for both SALT I and SALT II. I suspect that that was partly because they were conscious of the enormous cost to them of a limitless arms race with the United States.
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Already years of effort have been put into the achievement of SALT II. It was probable only the disastrous and tragic invasion of Afghanistan which prevented its being ratified last year. President Reagan now appears willing to try again. Although the Russians must be pressed to make a major concession on Afghanistan, it would probably be wise for us to let them save their face somehow in doing so.
What progress, therefore, did the Prime Minister make in Washington in urging President Reagan to re-start talks with the Soviet Union, both on SALT II and on the tactical nuclear weapons, on which one meeting has been held, but since when, apparently, nothing has happened? What are the Government doing to ensure some progress?
Whether or not, however, the super Powers negotiate—as I hope they will—this country must be defended. The greatest present threat to our defence effort, I believe, is the economic policy of the Government. By going far to dismantle the industries on which our future defence will depend, notably steel, shipbuilding and engineering, the Government are taking risks with that future. It is no good the Prime Minister addressing brave words to the Soviet Union and meanwhile weakening our long-term defence capacity.
If one lesson was learned in the last war on arms production, a lesson which is now apparently almost forgotten, it was that defence potential depends on industrial capacity. I believe that a wise Government in the present period of deflation or recession—whichever one prefers to call it—would at once preserve productive capacity in shipbuilding, for example, and strengthen our defences by using, instead of ignoring, the resources that we already have. With huge productive capacity unused as now, there is no economic cost to the nation in using those resources. That applies equally to houses, schools and power stations as it does to ships and tanks. With our present economic policy, I believe, the Trident programme cannot be afforded, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) said. But if the economy were being properly run and if capacity were being as fully employed as it was in the 25 years up to 1970, that programme could probably be afforded.
However, if the resources were available, would we be wise to expend a material part of them on nuclear weapons? The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said that that was the rational question on which we wanted rational debate. Anyone who asks himself that question must honestly admit that the potential threat to this country in defence terms is far greater than most of the British public have realised. Not merely has the Soviet Union a. crushing nuclear armament but it now has, to mention only one other factor, a submarine fleet which is many times larger than that of Germany at the start of either of the two great wars.
I noted what the right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) said about this country remaining unscathed for many centuries. But now, for the first time in modern history, this country cannot be sure of defending itself alone without allies. That is the hard truth, whether we like it or not.
Some may reasonably ask what evidence there is that the Soviet Union has any aggressive intentions. Throughout this debate, we are of course dealing with probabilities and not certainties. I would not call the Soviet Union an aggressive nation, but it is an expansionist nation. The theological doctrine on which the Soviet

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people are brought up—that history is on their side—encourages that expansionism. Therefore, we cannot safely base our defence policy on the assumption that the Soviet Union will never attack a country that is too weak to resist. I go no further than that.
But if that is true, as long as the Soviet Union has its present nuclear armoury, certain hard conclusions follow. Either one is willing to leave this country defenceless—I assume that no one in the House would propose that—or one is relying for deterrence and defence in the last resort on NATO and the nuclear capacity of the United States. That conclusion indubitably follows.
If one is relying on the Alliance, one then cannot advocate on moral grounds that this country should give up its nuclear arms. One cannot with any moral consistency tell the United States that the use of nuclear weapons is being abandoned by us because they are immoral, too dangerous or too expensive, but that the United States is being relied upon to be ready to use those weapons on behalf of this country. I am not suggesting that anyone has said that, but one cannot advance it as a moral proposition. That was what Nye Bevan meant in 1957 by not going
"naked into the council chamber."
He meant by this, not that he was not prepared to deprive this country of nuclear weapons, but that he was not prepared to deprive us of allies who would be nuclear-armed as long as the Soviet Union was. He thought that we could not abandon nuclear arms on moral grounds if we proposed to remain members of the Alliance at the same time.
For those reasons, if talks with the Soviet Union on the cruise missiles and SS20s do not succeed—I hope that they will succeed—we cannot tell the United States that we are relying on its nuclear strength in the last resort to deter any threat to this country but that we will not supply it with facilities to make those weapons effective. To say that would be neither good morals nor good politics. But in taking decisions on nuclear missiles and the SS20s there is no need for hurry, because it will in any case be some time before those prospective talks get under way.
If the objection to British possession of nuclear weapons is not a moral one, and if it were the strategic view of the British and United States Governments and defence chiefs that it would be better NATO strategy to concentrate all nuclear weapons, except presumably French weapons, in United States hands, the argument would be entirely different. There would be no objection to doing that, provided that we had absolute faith in not merely the present Government but future Governments of the United States. I disagree with the right hon. Member for Down, South, at this point. I would at least rather be dependent for our defence on the United States than on most other governments in this imperfect world.
However, if I am asked to make this country not merely largely dependent but wholly dependent on the United States, I cannot ignore two facts. First, there are many in the United States, even today, who understandably ask why they should take all the risks for the sake of Western Europe. Anyone who doubts that should read Henry Kissinger's memoirs. Secondly, I cannot foresee what sort of Government the United States will have 25 or 30 years
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hence. Because I cannot foresee that, and because perhaps I am by nature a sceptic and pessimist, I am not prepared to inflict that risk on this country.
So for goodness sake let us concentrate all our energies on achieving agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union on SALT II and similar agreed control of theatre nuclear weapons. I hope that that will be coupled with an agreement with the Soviet Union leading to a withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the United States can reasonably expect. However, until at least that has been achieved, I would not support any further weakening of our defences. For that reason, I cannot vote against this motion tonight, though I do not believe that the Trident programme can actually be carried out until we return to sane economic policies.
5.52 pm
Sir Frederic Bennett: The concluding remarks of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) save me from having to make critical comments about the earlier part of his speech. After a rather convoluted series of statements, he declared his intention, and I thank him for that.
No hon. Member would oppose the right hon. Gentleman's plea for disarmament, but I hope that those in the Kremlin will listen to him as attentively as we did, because those gentlemen are putting SS20s into Europe week after week and month after month while we have not even got round to discussing when our new TNF weapons that can reach the Soviet homeland should be put in position. One hopes that somewhere there are Russians who will be impressed by the right hon. Gentleman's arguments, because the issue is in their hands alone.
I am delighted that the debate is taking place. I can say unashamedly that I pressed the former Secretary of State for Defence as hard as any Back Bencher could to hold the debate many months ago, even in July of last year, because once the Government had made their intentions known and taken a decision, nothing was to be gained by not seeking and obtaining parliamentary ratification of that decision. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the decision has been taken, and I assume that Parliament will ratify it tonight.
I have regretted the months that have been allowed to go by, because those who wish, politically speaking, to sabotage the Government's defence policies have had a field day. Ex-Ministers, ex-Shadow Ministers, former generals and field marshals, commentators and experts have had a wonderful time at one conference after another explaining the various possibilities that could be undertaken as alternatives to the Government's proposals. I hope that after tonight the media will pay less attention to the views of those who do not have the responsibility of carrying out a policy that Parliament will have ratified. I shall be pleased to be able to watch BBC and ITV without seeing experts arguing for the adoption of one weapon against another and whether we can wait to modernise weapons or should act immediately.
Mr. Kenneth Marks: Does the hon. Gentleman include the Select Committee among those whom he wants to shut up?
Sir Frederic Bennett: The Chairman of the Select Committee has already said that we have taken evidence on various aspects of the Government's decision. We were

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able to do that because Parliament had not ratified the decision. After tonight, a different situation will arise, but it will be for the Select Committee, of which I am only one member, to decide what action to take.
Mr. John: The hon Gentleman's remarks reinforce my argument that it was a curious decision of the Select Committee to interview the Secretary of State for Defence on the day after the decision was taken when, according to the hon. Gentleman, no more controversy or questioning should be permissible.
Sir Frederic Bennett: I accept many responsibilities, but I will not usurp the position of the Chairman of the Select Committee, who invited the Secretary of State to come to the Committee after the debate rather than before it. The Chairman has given his reasons for that decision and the hon. Member for Pontypridd, (Mr. John) and I must share the conjecture over whether that decision is curious. I loyally uphold it.
I hope that I shall be forgiven if I do not give way again. It is not that I do not like giving way, but I do not want to take up the time of other speakers. The past few months have shown that there is a wide variety of sorts of opposition to the Government's policy. I shall deal with them briefly.
The first can be dismissed as the orthodox Soviet and Soviet lobbies' opposition. They receive and carry out their orders and bitterly oppose any rearmament by this country, whether with air pistols, nuclear weapons or anything else. We can always rely on them. Secondly, we have what I call the fellow traveller lobby, which follows not precisely the Soviet line but adopts the argument that it is immoral to spend such sums on armaments of any sort, but particularly nuclear armaments, when there are so many social needs to be met. We know all about that argument.
The third group are the genuine pacifists. One meets them more often on the Continent than here. They argue that it is"better to be Red than dead". They say"We do not want to be under Russian rule, but that would be better than building wicked nuclear weapons for killing people". One cannot do anything about those lobbies, because, for reasons best known to themselves, they are set on the policies and aims that they pronounce.
There is then the fourth lobby of what I would call the alternative strategists. They have been in the other House, they have been in the media, they have been everywhere saying either that we need new weapons quickly, or that we can keep the old ones longer, or that in the event they would rather have a different kind and so on. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Sir J. Langford-Holt), who spoke as Chairman of the Select Committee, will agree that any hon. Member reading the evidence that we received—not just from the Ministry of Defence, but from everyone—would have to agree that the evidence comes down conclusively in favour of the view that, if we are to have a new generation of nuclear weapons, it should be the Trident. To my mind, the evidence on that is overwhelming. We shall see tonight whether the House agrees that that evidence is overwhelming, as I believe will prove to be the case.
I thought that the most effective part of the Secretary of State's introductory speech was when he pointed out the advantages, apart from whether the Trident was a good weapon for what we are really trying to do. We are not
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seeking simply to provide our general armoury with yet another weapon. It is primarily a deterrent, so that from the Soviet point of view an attack on this country would be unduly expensive in terms of the damage with which we could reciprocate. With great respect, therefore, talk of mutual suicide is nonsense. The whole aim of these weapons is that they will not be used, so that situation will not arise.
As regards centres of decision being increased, I think that this was the most valid point that the Secretary of State made. I can certainly envisage circumstances, however far ahead, in perhaps 10 or 15 years, in which the fate of Britain might have to be left in British hands. I therefore wish potential or actual enemies to conclude that perhaps after all they had better not take a risk that they could otherwise avoid.
I turn to the criticisms that have been made with regard to other countries in Europe wanting the same. The Western European Union, of which I am a member, had a committee on this very matter consisting of Members of Parliament of all political parties from the seven nations of Western Europe. A resolution was passed in that committee on which even the Italian Communists voted with us—and that, for me, is a rare instance—to the effect that for their own security they would prefer the United Kingdom to maintain an ultimate deterrent separate from that of the United States. In those circumstances, therefore, far from wanting a nuclear capacity of their own—I refer not to France, which already has one, but to the others—those countries voted heavily to the effect that they believed that their security would be increased as a result of our keeping our own deterrent. That only goes to support what the Secretary of State has said.
I make two final points. First, the Secretary of State was careful today to miss out the figures for the number of Tridents. I shall be less discreet. I shall say bluntly that I want five, not four. I want them, not through any belief that it will necessarily make the Kremlin shiver in its shoes at the thought that Britain has a fifth submarine, but for the good and valid reason that, due to the re-fit programme, only with five submarines can we be sure of having two at sea at any one time. If we are to spend £5,000 million or £6,000 million, it is not worth spending all that money and then putting ourselves in a position in which one single accident or unlikely incident will remove altogether the deterrent effect at any given time. That would be extremely unlikely to happen if there were two at sea, but it could happen if there were only one.
For that reason, I hope that the Secretary of State in his concluding remarks will say something about that. Whereas I support the programme 100 per cent., I can think of nothing worse than putting ourselves in the position in which, in the ultimate event, all that money would prove to be wasted because at the most critical moment we did not have the deterrent, which is the sole reason why we support this aim.
Secondly, and lastly, I hope that what has been said today, even if the Secretary of State does not feel able to comment on it in his reply, will not remove the chances of reconsidering whether we develop for our own forces an additional weapon in the Alliance—or, if necessary, outside it—namely, the neutron shell. If we are to ask British soldiers to be along the Iron Curtain and to face armoured superiority of 3½:1 or 4:1, we have no right to ask them to do so with inferior weapons. I certainly would not wish to take that responsibility. I regard the neutron

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shell as the most defensive weapon yet developed. Unless they plan to cross the Iron Curtain, the Russians have no reason to fear it. It is a short-range shell most usefully fired out of a howitzer, although there are other ways, and it is solely for the purpose of defeating and countering massively superior armoured formations coming from the Soviet Union. If there are any who believe that we can do that by increasing our conventional weapons, with the talk about cost, or suggest that we could increase our tank armoured formations in the conventional sense in a way that would directly counter the Soviet Union, those people are talking complete nonsense, and they all know it.
I read with great interest an extract in which an American President said to a senator:
"The enhanced radiation weapons, then, would be designed to enhance deterrence, but if deterrence fails, to enhance NATO's capability to inflict significant military damage on the aggressor while minimising damage and casualties to individuals not in the immediate target area, including friendly troops and civilians".
That sentence was written by President Carter in 1977 before he lost his nerve. Not even President Reagan or my own Prime Minister could have said it better.
6.6 pm
Dr. David Owen: The defence of this country—
Mr. Gavin Strang: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I am sure that he will forgive me if I do not welcome him as the new Social Democrat Member for Plymouth, Devonport.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Did the right hon. Gentleman give way before he started?
Mr. Strang: This is an interjection.
Dr. Owen Dr. Owen indicated assent.
Mr. Speaker: That must be for the Guinness Book of Records, I think.
Mr. Strang: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way just before launching on to his speech, as I believe that he is likely to make reference to the 1979 Labour Party manifesto.
Dr. Owen Dr. Owen indicated dissent.
Mr. Strang: I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that the justification which he and his colleagues are advancing for not seeking a fresh mandate from the electorate is tenuous if not fraudulent—
Mr. Churchill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it really in order for the hon. Gentleman to intervene in a debate of this nature without a speech even having been started by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen)?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know how many words the right hon. Gentleman had said. We have been having a very serious debate on defence. I think that the right hon. Gentleman must decide how long he can allow the intervention to go on.
Dr. Owen: Very briefly.
Mr. Speaker: It is clear that the right hon. Gentleman feels that he has given way for long enough.
Dr. Owen: I was saying, until I gave way to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang), that the
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defence of this country is a charge laid upon all Members of this House. A particular onerous charge is laid upon the political parties in the House. We are debating today an issue which has very important ramifications for the defence policy of this country, not just for the next decade but for the next two decades, and also for the foreign policy of this country.
I wish to say from the outset that I shall be voting againt the decision that the Government have asked us to endorse, namely, that in 1981 we should make a decision to go ahead with the Trident missile system. I say that as someone who studied this issue extremely carefully in 1978 and 1979. I came then, even against a much better economic climate, to the conclusion that this country was not able to afford the expenditure on the Trident missile system at that particular moment and, what is more, that it was premature to make such a decision on the Trident system.
I shall try to develop my argument in some detail later. I should like, first, to deal with the question raised by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—the question of absolutes and relativities.
I believe that the right hon. Member is right, in that the choice of whether to continue with a strategic nuclear weapons system is a matter of some relativity. What is, however, not a matter of relativities and what is an absolute choice is whether this country lives within the NATO Alliance and accepts the commitments of that Alliance. Those commitments are very clear: they are to detente, through multilateral disarmanent negotiations and arms control, and to deterrence, through conventional defence forces and nuclear defence forces.
That is the issue about which we now must ask anyone who speaks in this debate for the Labour Party. Are such Members endorsing a commitment to membership of NATO, which accepts nuclear deterrence? The reason why we must ask that is that the Labour Party outside the House is committed by resolutions to unilateral disarmament. Furthermore, in fairness to the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), his amendment on the Order Paper is fully compatible with the conference decisions that have been taken. I never thought that I would live to see the day when what one might call the Tribunite motion would be the policy of the Labour Party.
What we have not heard and what we have the right to hear, and what the country at large has the right to hear, is whether the Parliamentary Labour Party accepts the decisions of that conference.
Mr. Robert Hughes: That has nothing to do with the right hon. Gentleman.
Dr. Owen: It has a lot to do with the people of this country. Will the Parliamentary Labour Party be defying that decision? In particular, are those who are voting against the Trident missile decision also voting against the Polaris weapon system? Are they saying that the Polaris patrols should cease, should the Labour Party ever form the Government again? Are they saying that a cruise missile decision has been taken now irrespective of what happens in any theatre nuclear negotiations—which it is hoped will ensure that it is not necessary to deploy cruise missiles in either this country or Europe because of a major decision by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries relating to their theatre nuclear weapons

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systems, the SS20 and many other missile systems? That is the decision that needs to be told to the House from the Labour Front Bench.
Is Polaris to continue in 1984 if a Labour Government were to be returned to office, and in 1985, 1986 and 1987 Or is it a decision that the present Parliamentary Labour Party, were it to be elected and to form a Government, would endorse unilateral nuclear disarmament?
That is an absolute decision. All other issues are relative. It is those relativities that I now wish to discuss. Let it be very clear that a Social Democratic Government in 1984, were they to be elected, would carry on the Polaris weapon system, would put cruise missile systems into European theatre nuclear arms limitation negotiations, would commit themselves to strategic arms limitation talks, and would do their utmost to persuade the United States and the Soviet Union.
Here I believe that the Government have missed an opportunity—one of the many opportunities that they have missed. In standing four square for the defence of the country, as they are right to do, they have neglected over the last two years their other commitment, which is to stand four square for genuine disarmament and arms control.
In President Brezhnev's most recent speech, there are some aspects which deserve to be taken up—in particular, the statement about confidence-building measures being possibly extended into the Soviet Union, which could unlock the door to a European disarmament conference, a proposition which has been pushed for some time by the French Government. It also needs to be recognised that President Brezhnev has accepted the realities of life in the United States and that SALT will have to be reopened, and he is not sticking by the absolute letter of the treaty that had been negotiated by the previous American Administration. That is a hopeful sign. It is a sign that should have been seized on by the Prime Minister when she went to Washington, when she should have encouraged President Reagan to respond positively to the speech of President Brezhnev.
So it is in that wider context that I believe that the Government are seriously at fault. They have talked much about the need to protect against nuclear weapons but not enough about the need to negotiate a much lower balance of nuclear weapons. They have not given a sufficiently clear lead to the country that they do not believe in limited nuclear war, that they do not believe that one can have an exchange of nuclear weapons in the European theatre without it spreading forward into a much wider exchange. The Government need to be very much clearer that, even if they were to have to accept, as a result of failure in the negotiations over European theatre nuclear weapons, cruise missiles, mobile cruise missiles are not a first-strike weapon system, and that they must accept that they are a second-strike system. That needs to be made very clear.
I wish now, however, to deal with the more detailed questions about Trident and to say why I believe that this decision is premature. In his speech, the Secretary of State fairly said that one of the major issues to which he attached importance was that the Polaris vessels should be on continuous patrol. In fairness to the hon. Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett), he has argued for five new Trident missile submarines, and it is an undoubted fact that that is one of the easiest ways of ensuring that one has continuous patrols. I have never held the view that with Polaris, which is a contribution to the NATO Alliance and
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to the NATO deterrence, it is vital for all weeks of the year for there to be a British Royal Navy Polaris submarine submerged beneath the waters.
The fact is that it is a contribution to the NATO Alliance. I believe that it is a marginal but, nevertheless, an important contribution to the NATO Alliance. I believe that that Alliance is strengthened by the fact that no single nation within the Alliance makes the sole contribution to nuclear deterrence. It is a strength that there is another European country contributing to it, and I believe that it is seen as so by other European allies and by the United States.
The question that must be asked of the House, however, is what price it is worth paying for us to make that particular contribution to the Alliance. The Secretary of State has not given the House some of the basic information. He has not told us how many submarines he thinks are necessary, but presumably it is five on his own argument that a continuous patrol is essential. That is only essential if one holds to the rather strange interpretation of an independent nuclear weapons system. Let us be clear about this the control of any nuclear weapons system must be held by the politicians. There is no way in which one can commit Royal Navy submarines to NATO and allow the decision as to their employment to be made by a SACEUR or a SACLANT. The decision has to be made by a political leader. It is inconceivable that any Member of this House would wish a Royal Navy Polaris submarine to be put under the command structure of the President of the United States. To that extent there must always be control within our political democratic system.
But it is not necessary to have a continuous patrol. It is not necessary for us, in my judgment, to conceive of this weapons system in terms of independent action. It is inconceivable that it would ever be used in an independent sense. Where it does make a contribution to the Alliance is not just in the number of missiles but in the decision-making framework within the Alliance. That is an important contribution. It means that any decision taken by a United States President has to take account of the fact that there is another nuclear contribution within that Alliance.
Mr. Robert Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman telling us that he is delirious with joy at the fact that there is joint control of nuclear weapons by President Reagan and the present Prime Minister?
Dr. Owen: I am not delirious with joy at the fact that this world has to have any nuclear weapons at all. I long for the day when we are able to have complete abolition of nuclear weapons as once happened over gas. The one successful multilateral arms negotiation that has succeeded is the eradication of all biological weapons. To those who are wholly sceptical about all forms of multilateral disarmament, I would say that there has been a record of achievement.
I wish to come to the detail of the Trident missile decision. The life of the Polaris submarines has been extended beyond the initial 20 years to 25 years. Many people believe that its hull life could continue for over 30 years. Furthermore, there are good grounds for believing that, with a little negotiation with the United States, the Polaris missiles themselves could last certainly to the end of this century. It is also true that even if it was decided that the Polaris missile system could not be extended—this

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matter has not been dealt with in anything like sufficient detail—there are other options for Britain which are less sophisticated and less effective in a strictly military sense but which nevertheless would allow Britain, should it decide to do so in 1990 or 1995, to retain a nuclear option.
I believe that the Secretary of State must apply his mind to this matter. I share some of the scepticism of his hon. friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne). I believe that the budgetary pressures on this decision are mounting. If there are to be five submarines, the cost will escalate considerably over that given to the House. We know from the excellent investigation carried out by the Select Committee on Defence that it is an open question whether or not we go for the Ohio submarine, a very much larger submarine. Were we to go for that, the cost would again be increased. The right hon. Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) shakes his head. I know that he has studied the matter carefully. If we go for a smaller submarine we shall incur some cost for adaptation of the American machinery which we would be able to purchase directly if we went for the larger submarine. There is a balance of advantage. We have not yet been given the costs.
All the evidence, in every single arms programme we have undertaken, shows cost escalation with the one exception, I admit, of Polaris. Polaris has been one of the best deals that this country has ever had. It was delivered to time and to cost. I do not have the same confidence in the Trident missile system. The evidence already exists. If one reads through the Senate records on the Trident missile, one sees repeatedly cost escalation both in terms of the missiles and the submarines. The House is under a delusion if it reaches a decision tonight on Trident on the basis of the very sketchy costings put before it. Those of us who are every bit as committed to our contribution to NATO as the Secretary of State have the right to ask what else in the programme is likely to be sacrificed if the cost escalation continues. What aspects shall we not be able to fulfil?
I think that our new tank replacement will come under serious questioning. I believe already there is a strong feeling that the build rate of the SSN, the hunter-killer submarine, will start to be sacrificed, I have often argued in the House that the number of hunter-killer submarines is not sufficient for the tasks imposed on the Royal Navy at this time. This is why I believe that the House should look at another option that has not been given sufficient scrutiny.
The right hon. Gentleman will know that I insisted in 1978 and 1979 on the option, which was examined in some detail and with some care, that a decision need not be made for at least another eight or nine years about whether to fit cruise missiles using the torpedo tubes of an SSN. It is not, of course, as sophisticated as a Trident missile system. If one does not believe that the Moscow criteria are a crucial element and one believes that it is not necessary for us to have a deterrent that can penetrate ABM defences, there is a serious question whether it would not be wiser, more economic and more in keeping with Britain's economic position if we were to keep open the possible option of building more SSNs, putting cruise missiles into those SSNs and having that as a submarine platform—a second
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strike that may be less effective but still a contribution to the NATO Alliance which we could afford while still carrying some of the other aspects of our defence budget.
We are being pressed to make this decision now. I believe that it has a great deal more to do with the Prime Minister's wish constantly to project herself as the Iron Maiden and the lady who makes all the tough decisions.
Sir Nicholas Bonsor Sir Nicholas Bonsor rose—
Dr. Owen: I do not wish to give way any more. I believe that this decision has been rushed. It is known that there are people inside the Government, experts, who have considerable doubts about this decision. We have heard the voices of many people outside who have doubts about the decision.
There is another final and much more important reason why I feel that the decision is premature. In the next two or three years, there is the chance, if President Reagan and President Brezhnev can seriously start to grapple with arms control, that we shall enter into a major change—a quantum change—in what happens in arms control negotiations. It would be the height of folly for the House to agree to commit precious parts of the defence budget to an endeavour that it might not be necessary for this country to undertake. To those of my hon. Friends who say that they have grave doubts about whether President Reagan can make a contribution I would only say that it should not be forgotten that it was President Nixon who signed the SALT I treaty. We should not forget that there is growing pressure now—I am grateful for it—from people all over the free world and the Western democracies to insist that their Governments take arms control and disarmament seriously. Many of us wish to see the special session of the United Nations in 1982 as the launching pad for some major, constructive negotiations. The French Government, who have taken little interest in disarmament for many years, have now started to take an interest.
The Secretary of State showed in his speech a welcome recognition of his other responsibilities to detente and to arms control. The right hon. Gentleman did not speak with the same degree of scepticism about it as we are accustomed to hear from the Prime Minister. He will carry a great deal more conviction with the House, even on his controversial decision over Trident, which I believe is not justified, particularly at this time, if he shows the same commitment to trying to pursue detent and disarmament. This is what the House expects of him. This is what the country expects of him. If we are to win the argument among those many people who believe that no progress can be made in multilateral arms control, who have given up the possibility of negotiation, who have taken refuge in unilateralism, who have absorbed the mush and slush of unilateral disarmament, if we are to convince them that multilateral disarmament and arms control offer a safer path for this country—.
Mr. Frank Allaun: It is common sense.
Dr. Owen: It can easily be mush and slush if it is accompanied by neutralism and hostility to NATO and to the United States. There is a serious arms control argument that needs to be faced.
Mr. Allaun: There will be no votes for the right hon. Gentleman in that.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman must be allowed to speak without being subjected to barracking.
Dr. Owen: Perhaps the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) might remember that one does not always go out for votes. It needs to be said that challenging appeasement was not a popular policy. It would have been easy for those Members who opposed appeasement in this House to have said,"We could go out and get more votes by being in favour of appeasement". Appeasement was upheld by the people of this country and by public opinion for a long time. Fortunately there were people on both sides who held out against appeasement.
It needs to be said that the defence of the country is not something that can be determined on the question of whether one can win votes. A political party and Members of the House have to pursue a path on defence which they think is in the best interests of the country. I am sure that is what the Secretary of State is doing when he advocates this course. It is a difficult choice. It is not all black and white. One should or should not go for Trident. Were we a rich country, I would agree with the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). There is a case, were our economy responding, to have the best and most sophisticated. But we are not in that position and have not been for some time.
That is why I believe that the decision for Trident ought to be examined with a great deal more care. It is premature. I advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against Trident but not in any way to use that as an excuse to endorse unilateral disarmament. I hope that the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) will come to the conclusion that it is not in keeping with his responsibilities to continue to peddle the doctrine of unilateral disarmament. I hope that when he votes against Trident he will be voting in the full knowledge that, were he ever to become Prime Minister, he would continue Polaris and he would not send cruise missiles back without having put them into the forum of multilateral negotiations and made his contribution in those debates as a member of NATO, committed to nuclear deterrence as part of an overall strategy of detente and deterrence.
6.32 pm
Mr. Antony Buck: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) made a speech to which we all listened with great care. I respectfully suggest to the House that he is deluding himself if he thinks that a postponement of this decision is possible. Let him look at what is stated in the Government's White Paper dealing with this whole matter. In the exchange of letters between the then President of the United States and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, let us note that this was said:
"As you are aware, the United Kingdom attaches great importance to the maintenance of a nuclear deterrent. It will be necessary to replace the present Polaris force in the early 1990s and in view of the options the Government have concluded that Trident I best meets the need to maintain the viability."
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, that document was prepared on the advice of the people who advised him when he was Navy Minister, as they did me when I, too, had that role. It is made clear in that document that decisions have got to be made now and cannot be long postponed. The idea that these difficult decisions can be put off further to enable the right hon. Gentleman to get
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his own affairs and those for his colleagues in order is one which deludes the House. There cannot be a case for further postponement.
I am glad however, that the first question on which the House has to arrive at a determination tonight is one on which the right hon. Gentleman is clear, namely, that there should be a maintenance of our independent nuclear capacity. I wish indeed that a speech of a similar character had been made by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John). I have great respect for him, but he made a speech which I found extraordinarily disappointing. He is a man who was devoted, I had thought, to the cause of the defence of this country. Yet he made a speech very dissimilar to that which we have just heard from the right hon. Member for Devonport from below the Gangway. It is interesting to see new faces below the Gangway. The right hon. Gentleman is not what we usually associate with below the Gangway, but we shall get used to that.
I wish that the speech which has just been made by the right hon. Member had been made from the official Opposition Front Bench. The right hon. Member for Pontypridd—the hon. Member, I beg his pardon; I am sure it is only a matter of time, in spite of the speech—made it clear that the official Opposition are going away from the idea of having a British independent deterrent. That I find tragic from the point of view of the country's defences. There has always been able to be the basis of a cross-party agreement on defence. Judging from the Opposition Front Bench speech which we have had today that has clearly gone, though perhaps not for ever.
This debate resolves itself into two parts. There is, first, what might be described in defence terms as the overall strategic decision whether we as a nation should remain in what one might call the nuclear game, whether it is right that we should seek to maintain that which we have had for a quarter of a century and more, namely, our own independent deterrent. It is a deterrent which certainly is integrated with NATO, but in the last resort it is independent.
Then there is the second half of the debate. If we arrive at a determination that it is right for us to maintain the basic defence posture which we have had for a quarter of a century and more, we have to decide whether it is right to go for the Trident rather than other options which might be available to us.
As to the first matter, in the debates which we have had in the past on the independence of our deterrent I have found that my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), now the Leader of the House, made very convincing contributions. The first and most important factor is that there should be another centre of decision-making. We have to look at these matters through the eyes of the Kremlin. It might well be that in years to come there will be a change in the presidency, and in the whole of the political attitude in the United States of America, which might make the Americans, in the eyes of the Russians, not such sure supporters of this country as they are today.
I welcome greatly, as I think all hon. Members on this side of the House do, the rapport which seems clearly to have been established between my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the President of the United States, Mr. Reagan. We all hope fervently that that rapport will continue. But we have to consider the situation which may arise in five to ten years' time. My right hon. Friend will, I have no doubt, still be Prime Minister of this country but

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constitutionally it must be that there will have been by then a change in the presidency of the United States.—[AN HON. MEMBER:"NO".]—Unless there have been constitutional changes, I think two and a half terms would be beyond the realms of possibility, but there are those who perhaps know more about that than I do. It is unlikely that it would then be the same President of the United States even if that were constitutionally possible.
Whilst we can now rely, no doubt, on the American nuclear umbrella, we have to look at what the situation might be a decade and a half or two decades ahead. I am not completely confident that we can be assured absolutely that always and for ever the Americans will provide us with a totally effective nuclear umbrella. When one talks among friends in the United States of America one finds that they similarly are realistic about this matter. Be that as it may, it is surely wise for us to have the capability of defending ourselves in the last resort.
Our relationship with the United States of America, close though it is and closer because of the efforts of my right hon. Friend, is a family relationship. From time to time there may be quarrels within the family which might lead those in the Politbureau to think that the nuclear umbrella is not available to us. If hawks were to take over there, it might cause them to take risks such as to precipitate a holocaust.
The first question is whether we should remain in the independent nuclear business. I answer in the affirmative. It would be unwise to change the tactics and strategy that have helped us to contribute to the longest period of peace in Europe that has ever been seen. It would be wrong for us to change that strategy now. Indeed, it would also be irresponsible to change our strategy now. Therefore, it is right that we should remain in the nuclear business.
The second question that the House must consider is whether the Government are right to go for Trident or whether they should go for some other option. Tomorrow, I shall read with care what the right hon. Member for Devonport said. I understand that, along with others who have spoken, he suggests that we should run on the Polaris system. The right hon. Gentleman once had responsibility for the hulls of boats, but not for their deployment, just as I did when I was Minister for the Royal Navy. He knows that those boats are beginning to get old. Although they may retain their credibility for another decade or so, that credibility will become suspect thereafter.
If we had done something that the right hon. Gentleman's party did, we should have been accused of being Machiavellian to the nth degree. It updated the potential of the Polaris weapon, by going for Chevaline, without telling the House. From time to time the Labour Party Front Bench has the nerve to talk about open government. I do not quarrel with what the Labour Party did, because it was right to update Polaris and to make it more credible. It was right to alter the delivery system in order to make it a more credible and viable deterrent, but let no Opposition Member ever dare to talk to this Government about open government. The Labour Party did that without telling anybody. It rightly spent hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money, but it should have told the House about it.
Sir Nicholas Bonsor: As my hon. and learned Friend was dealing with a point raised by the right hon. Member
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for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), I thought that he might like to recall that the Minister in the other place, my noble Friend Lord Trenchard, dealt with the suggestion that Polaris could be prolonged. He said that it would certainly be ineffective in the late 1990s and that it would probably be more expensive after 1995. He also said that until then it would probably be at least as expensive as Trident.
Mr. Buck: I had the advantage of listening to a considerable part of my noble Friend's speech. I understand that I might be in certain difficulties if I were to quote in depth from that speech in another place. However, I commend the speech to those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who did not hear it or read it. It was a valuable speech. We look forward to the fact that our noble Friend will come to talk to some of us in the near future.
The House would be wise to endorse the Government's firm decision to remain in the nuclear business in present circumstances. That decision has been endorsed by certain Opposition Members. I hope that the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) will forgive me if I mention him in his absence. He has always been robust on defence matters. I did not understand the drift of part of his argument, but I shall read the full report of what he had to say. The right Gentleman and other Opposition Members have been moderately robust on defence matters. I am not one of those who think that the Conservative Party has a monopoly of concern over defence. There are some Opposition Members who care about such matters. However, I wish that they would sometimes concede that they do not have a monopoly of concern on compassionate matters.
There are Opposition Members who consider these matters realistically. It was a bitter disappointment to hear the Opposition Front Bench spokesman say from the Dispatch Box that the Labour Party rejected our nuclear role in the world. It would be a terrible misfortune if there were to be a Labour Government, because the very safety of our nation could be put in jeopardy. I am sorry to have to say that, and I do not say it lightly.
Mr. John: At one stage in his curious speech the hon. and learned Gentleman said that he did not claim to have a monopoly of concern over defence matters. I hope that he will agree that I have shown my concern about defence. The hon. and learned Gentleman means that everyone has the freedom to agree with whatever he is espousing. My argument was that other defence commitments that are vital, or more vital, to this country would be distorted beyond measure if we were to go through with the Trident project.
Mr. Buck: The hon. Gentleman has gone in for intellectual gymnasticism. He was a member of a Government who decided to update the Polaris system at the cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. They did not even tell the House about it. He has changed his view about the credibility of Polaris and about the updating of a new generation of weapons despite the fact that the same arguments apply to the new generation as applied to the old.
So far, this has been an interesting debate. Perhaps the time allowed is too short and I apologise for having to rush my remarks. I commend what my right hon. Friend said when he opened the debate and I look forward to what he has to say at its conclusion. Perhaps he will reassure the

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House on one point. The cost of retaining our independent deterrent is considerable. Therefore, I should like my right hon. Friend to comment on the exchange of letters that took place between the former President of the United States of America and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. My right hon. Friend will be aware of what was stated. The decision to go for Trident and the deal with America was taken on the basis that it would enable extra funds to be made available for the updating of our conventional forces. That is set out in black and white in the exchange of letters, which has been published. There is a letter from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and a response by the former President of the United States of America which laid special emphasis on the need to do that. There is almost unanimity of support on this side of the House for the Government's decision. However, we are a little worried about the cost and we wish to ensure that it will not in any way truncate the efforts in the more conventional spheres that are emphasised in that exchange of letters. I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend would deal with that point as a necessary complement to the admirable speech that he made when he opened the debate.
6.47 pm
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Everybody can agree with the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport, (Dr. Owen) that the defence of this country is a charge that is laid on every hon. Member. We are discussing the best way of defending this country. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) rightly made the point that this was a complicated matter and that it was not a good idea to hurl abuse at one another. There are different attitudes and approaches towards what hon. Members may feel to be the best way of defending our country. Therefore, we must start by accepting that hon. Members, whatever their point of view, are sincere in their belief that they know the best method of defending our country.
The right hon. Member for Devonport seemed to base his argument on the ground that the Labour Party had departed from its policy. I want to tell him that he is wrong. The Labour Party has not departed from the policy upon which it fought the general election. Let me quote what the manifesto said:
"In 1974, we renounced any intention of moving towards the production of a new generation of nuclear weapons or a successor to the Polaris nuclear force; we reiterate our belief that this is the best course for Britain."
We did not say, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that there was another option. His option, of course, was cruise missiles. We did not say that in our manifesto, yet the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that he is arguing on the ground of the party manifesto. He is not, and it is not true to say that the party has moved from its manifesto.
On the other hand, in another part of the manifesto we said:
"We think it is essential that there must be a full and informed debate about these issues in the country before any decision is taken."
Did we have an informed debate in this country? Did not the present Government take their decision without a debate in the House of Commons? In fact, we are only now having the debate in the House of Commons to agree to the decision that the Government have already made.
The situation has changed considerably, because Labour's manifesto was never put into effect. We did not
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win the election. Therefore, although we pressed the Government to accept the need for a full debate in the country, it never was accepted. Is every manifesto frozen for all time in a certain spot? Is that what the right hon. Gentleman is saying? Does not the situation move on? Can any hon. Member put his hand on his heart and honestly say about every manifesto that it has never been changed during the lifetime of a Parliament or that political parties have not moved on from a form of words that they used during one election as against another?
Is it not a fact that when the Labour Party conference discussed this matter of defence and nuclear weapons it took into consideration precisely the fact that this Government had made a decision without a full debate in the country, had made a decision behind the backs of the Members of this House and behind the backs of the people?
Therefore, the argument that the right hon. Gentleman has used about basing his policy on the Labour Party manifesto for the last general election is, with all due respect to him, a phoney argument and an excuse used in order to find reasons why he and a few of his colleagues should break with the Labour Party and form some sort of new grouping that they call the Social Democrats. I could say something about what they mean by Social Democrats, but of course that would be outside this debate.
Mr. Strang: Is it not a convention that when a political party loses an election it is no longer bound by its manifesto, and that is why it is fraudulent for a new political party to use the Labour Party manifesto as a justification for not seeking a fresh mandate from the electorate—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order. I think we had better get back to the motion.
Mr. Heffer: Hon. Members are laughing, but I can well remember the right hon. Lady the Prime Minister making all sorts of statements about getting rid of rates. I can also remember many other commitments.
Sir Nicholas Bonsor: I wish to draw to your attention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the fact that the hon. Gentleman is using the debate on the Government's missile policy as a method for having a battle between the old and the new Labour Parties, and those parties can fight this out elsewhere.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to make his speech in his own way.
Mr. Heffer: If I strayed from the subject of the debate it was only because I was invited by Conservative Members to express my opinion about Social Democrats I do not want to stray, because we are discussing the most serious question facing this nation.
I agree with the Secretary of State that the next decade will be a most difficult and dangerous period. Only fools would treat this debate in a silly, sniggering fashion. We are concerned with the very future of mankind. We are concerned with the defence of our country. In fact, we are concerned with whether we shall have a country, whether we shall have people in it. That is why we must treat this debate with the utmost seriousness. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we are all concerned about the defence of our country, and what we have to decide is the best way to defend it.

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Over the years the Labour Party has argued for multilateral disarmament. That has been our position. We have wanted to roll back the frontiers of war in Europe by trying to wind down both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. That is still our position. But we are also saying that we cannot now tolerate the existence of nuclear weapons of the most destructive kind on our shores, because we are likely to be the prime target in any nuclear war in Europe in which our entire country and people could be wiped out.
I know the argument on deterrence and there may well be a great deal of truth in it, but nuclear weapons get more and more destructive with each one that is built. The right hon. Member for Down, South said that we ought to hark back to the first bombs, those which were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and he argued that they would not have been dropped had the Japanese had similar bombs. Neither he nor anyone else can know whether that scenario is correct; we shall never know. Had they had a nuclear weapon, they might have dropped it. Certainly, had it been Germany under Hitler, the Germans would have dropped it. So there is no point in saying that we can be definite or sure that that is the correct scenario.
Is that not the situation that we are in now? The right hon. Member for Devonport asked"Is the Labour Party in favour of being in NATO or not?" He knows the answer to that. The answer is that the Labour Party conference voted for our remaining in NATO. So it is no good trying to pretend something different, although of course some of my colleagues think we should come out of NATO, just as some of them think that we ought to have a successor to Polaris. But that is because we are a democratic party, and there is no need to run off and form some other organisation to argue this matter. It can be done inside the Labour Party.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South that this has been a continuing argument. It has continued for many years, and it will continue further, unless, of course, some madman actually puts his finger on the button, at which point there will be no argument but only utter destruction.
I ask the House to look at a different scenario, since we have to start somewhere. I must tell the right hon. Member for Devonport and his friends that even in the German Social Democratic Party there has been a great argument on this question, and the party almost split as a result. The Dutch Socialist Party takes the same view as the Labour Party does. The Belgian Socialist Party also is not happy about nuclear weapons. One of my hon. Friends shakes his head at my reference to the Dutch Socialist Party, but I have been studying this matter pretty closely and I know the view that it takes. I am a member of the international committee of the Labour Party and I meet Dutch Socialists. I happen to know. Perhaps others have not been following the matter quite as closely as I have.
Throughout Europe not only are there Socialists and Social Democrats who take the view which I have described but there are many other people who are now deeply concerned about the future of Europe.
Mr. Robert Atkins: So are we.
Mr. Heffer: Of course. I said at the beginning of my speech that I accept that everyone in the House is perfectly sincere in his approach to the question of our defence and nuclear weapons. What we are now discussing—seriously,
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I hope—is how we should deal with the problem, how we should settle the best way to defend our country, and whether nuclear weapons offer any defence in any case.
Some of us argue that the nuclear weapon is not a defence and that it is in no way helpful to the defence of our country, because of the character of the weapon, because of its destructiveness, because of what will happen if it is fired and we end up in a nuclear war. It is no laughing matter; it is most serious. We can all be laughing when the first bomb goes off, but then there will be no more laughter in the world—and certainly not in Britain, because only about three bombs are needed and Britain will not exist. So obviously we must be concerned.
So let us start in our country by fighting for an international agreement. As the Labour Party manifesto said, that must be our objective. But within that we can begin the process, in each of our our European countries, of getting rid of the nuclear weapons from our soil as a positive move towards ending the prospect of nuclear war. That is the way we should proceed.
Someone sneered at neutralism. I am not opposed to neutralism, because I do not want to be ruled and dominated by the Soviet Union. But neither do I want Mr. Reagan to determine our policies. I want neither of them. I want us to take our own decisions in our own way, in association with our colleagues from all the European countries, whether in the Common Market or outside it. That is what we should be aiming at, so that we might have a neutralised Europe, with no nuclear weapons. That is a much more positive way to defend Britain than the way presented in the proposals which have been advocated this afternoon.
7.4 pm
Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I entirely recognise the sincerity of approach of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). However, I do not think that I ought to follow him too far down the path which principally engaged his attention, because he was much concerned with the content of various Labour Party manifestos, and that is a matter on which I do not feel myself well qualified to judge.
Nevertheless, I must put to the hon. Gentleman the question whether he is well entitled to complain about the absence of debate on the Government's decision to purchase the Trident system in view of what happened when his own Government decided to embark upon Chevaline to sustain Polaris. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) said, as far as we recall there was not a word of debate or discussion about that. I do not, therefore, think that we should hear such comments from the Labour Party.
On one aspect of this debate I feel a twinge of personal relief. I refer to Mr. Speaker's decision not to select the amendment in the names of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) and his hon. Friends. I have that sense of relief because—I freely confess it—there is a certain amount in that amendment which I find attractive, and, having listened to the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I found much that was very persuasive in it. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman on many other things, but I agree with him, and with the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), that we are here discussing a matter of relative choice, not of absolute choice.

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I have promised to be brief, and I can express my anxiety quite shortly. My anxiety is that we may find ourselves in the late 1980s and on into the 1990s with an extremely sophisticated nuclear deterrent system which will in the event turn out to have stripped us of the resources to maintain at full competence and efficiency our conventional defences. That is my prime concern tonight.
There have been references to the debate in the other place. In that debate some figures were given of the relative cost at its peak of the Trident system as a proportion of expenditure on new equipment. They were given by two people with whom I do not regularly agree—Lord Chalfont and Lord Carver—but I have to say that I do not think that they had an altogether convincing reply from my noble Friend Lord Trenchard. My noble Friend said that their figures were greatly exaggerated, but he did not give any alternative figures. There may be some difficulty about that, of course, and I respect it, but I think that we are entitled to ask ourselves, to put it no higher, whether there is at least a danger that a combination of what my right hon. Friend referred to as resource pressures and a possible escalation in the cost of this weapon system will find our conventional defences most dangerously squeezed.
It was with that in mind that I put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State my question as to the time at which it would still be possible for us to review this decision without involving ourselves in massive expenditure. I have seen references in the newspapers in the past few days to the fact that, in practice, no extensive cost would be involved until perhaps the mid-1980s. It seems to me that perhaps by that stage we shall be in a better position to judge what the relative pressures upon us and the relative strength of our economy to sustain those pressures will have become.
Mr. Buck: In considering the balance in these matters, will my hon. Friend take into account the exchange of letters between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States, in which she referred to the economies made possible by the co-operation of the United States in making the Trident I missile system available in order to reinforce its efforts to upgrade its conventional forces? There is the question of the economies which are coming up now because of that decision. Will my hon. Friend turn his mind to the economies that the Prime Minister referred to in that correspondence?
Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am most grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Colchester for drawing our attention to that exchange of correspondence. I readily accept that the best estimate that is now available to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is that this weapon system can be accommodated within the evolution of our conventional defence equipment. Nevertheless, I am anxious about the possibility of escalating costs and the possibility of other pressures from the evolution of the economy.
However, after careful thought, and in the light of the fact that Mr. Speaker did not select the amendment of the right hon. Member for Devonport and one or two other hon. Members around or below the Gangway—I am not quite sure how we should refer to them—and also in the light of the fact that I am greatly relieved to see that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put his names to the motion standing in the
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names of my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence, I have decided, not without anxiety and uncertainty, but in the conviction that there will be time at a later date, if need be, to review these matters again, that with those reservations I can support my right hon. Friend.
7.11 pm
Dr. John Gilbert: For the first time since I came to the House, I shall not respond in the Lobby tonight to a three-line Whip. It is not because I have made up my mind on the issue before the House, but because I am paying the Secretary of State for Defence the compliment of not having made up my mind before hearing his evidence to the Select Committee,, tomorrow. The fact that the Government's business managers are holding this debate now is a discourtesy to the Select Committee of which I am a member, and it is a discourtesy to the House which appointed that Committee to advise it. It is also a discourtesy to the Secretary of State, although he would be the first to deny that.
I do not object—nor have I ever objected—to the United Kingdom having a strategic nuclear capability. These things are beastly weapons, and there is no need for me to regale the House with details of their beastliness. However, in my view, they have helped the world to keep the peace since 1945. I can think of several occasions since then when the tanks might well have rolled in Europe had there not been a balance of terror within Europe. One has only to think of the East Berlin riots, the Berlin blockade, the Czech crisis, and even the recent Polish crisis, to realise that all these matters could have been discussed in very different terms if both sides of the Iron Curtain had not possessed a strategic and tactical nuclear capability. We must accept that this beastliness has preserved some stability in Europe, and we all crave peace and stability.
So far, therefore, nuclear weapons have been stabilising, not destabilising, factors. I know that I do not carry all my hon. Friends with me, but I do not consider that the acquisition of Trident in itself would be a destabilising factor. Trident procurement is merely intended to replace a system that is being withdrawn.
There are many serious destabilising factors, at the head of which I would put the conventional arms race, particularly the conventional arms race outside Western Europe. The spread of battlefield nuclear weapons is distinctly destabilising, because of the difficulty of exercising political control over their use. In the strategic sense, I am particularly concerned about the continuing research programmes, in the Soviet Union and in the United States, into anti-ballistic missile systems. Worst of all would be the possibility of the present anti-ballistic missile treaty not being renewed when its present validity runs out.
On none of these subjects have we heard a word today from the Secretary of State for Defence. I find that sad, because these are crucial ingredients in any system of arms control that he can negotiate. I hope that in his reply he will say something about anti-ballistic missile systems and the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said that we could not rely on the United States for ever and I entirely agree. It is not right to accept the shelter of the United States nuclear systems and then denounce any contributions made to them, by ourselves, however marginal, on the ground either of morality or of

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fear of the military consequences of partaking in a shared responsibility. We have heard ominous murmurings from the new United States Administration about how long they are prepared to defend Western Europe if Western Europe is not prepared to make a greater effort to defend itself.
Trident procurement is simply a question of costs. If Trident were available for £1,000 million instead of £5,000 million, I do not believe that many hon. Members, other than those who are completely opposed to all nuclear weapons systems, would oppose that procurement. On the other hand, if the system were to cost not £5,000 million but £25,000 million, few hon. Members would want it at that price, though some of the cavalier remarks made by the Secretary of State—which I shall scrutinise with care in tomorrow's Hansard—made him appear extraordinarily equivocal about that. So it is a matter of costs. Is £5,000 million a reasonable price, and will it be the final price at 1980 prices?
One of the most extraordinary things—it was made very clear in the evidence to the Select Committee—is that the Ministry of Defence does not know what size of boat it wants or how many boats it wants. It will not say yet whether it is trying to conserve an ability to procure later a Trident 2 system. It has not even decided how many missiles or warheads it wants at sea at any one time. It is a most flimsy basis on which to make a procurement decision of this magnitude. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) said, until such decisions are taken, the cost estimates that have been made can only be vague and variable in the extreme.
I do not believe that the Ministry of Defence will want an Ohio size boat. We are told that one extra boat will cost £600 million, but we have not yet been told what size of boat that £600 million represents.
At the prices on offer—I emphasise that phrase—I believe that Trident 1 is good value for money. The questions are: do we need that value, and, can we afford that value? Whether or not we need it, Trident 1 offers this country, over and above the capability that we possess with the Polaris system, greater range, greater accuracy, more warheads and more throw-weight. One might think that any one—if not all—of those increments to nuclear capability was otiose. If the present system has been an efficient and an effective deterrent—and we are told that it has been—why do we need considerably to enhance it? The trouble is that there are very few options available that give somewhat less than Trident.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Devonport talked in terms of running on Polaris. It is a subject which has attracted me, and hon. Members may have noticed the line of questioning that I pursued in the Select Committee. But the saving, on the evidence given, would be of the order of only £400 million, and the shortfall of capability would be so great that I am persuaded that Trident 1 is better value—at the prices on offer, I emphasise again.
The other question is whether we can afford the value. Here I am talking not in terms of pounds and pence but in terms of opportunity costs. I say straight away—mainly to my hon. Friends—that if one were to scrap the Trident programme one would not be thinking of an extra £5,000 million available for schools, hospitals and housing. That is a very sad fact of life. We would have to invest very
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heavily in additional conventional defence capability, and that might be even more expensive than the capability that we would be forswearing.
Here I come to my biggest indictment of the Ministry of Defence on this issue. Witnesses from the Ministry of Defence have been uniformly forthcoming to the Select Committee in terms of the technical and military capability of the Trident weapon system—more forthcoming than the Select Committee might have expected them to be. But in the matter of opportunity costs—what the defence of this country is having to forgo in order to acquire Trident—the witnesses have been uniformly most evasive.
The Secretary of State has told us today that over the lifetime of the Trident system he—or he and his successors—will be spending about £80 billion on equipment, if he is lucky. The high point of Trident expenditure comes after the time when the Government have committed themselves to increasing expenditure on equipment by 3 per cent. per annum in real terms. It will be coming at a time when, as far as we can see from Ministry of Defence evidence, increments in defence equipment expenditure will be of the order of only 1 per cent. per annum in real terms. If the Secretary of State knows that he will be spending £80 billion on equipment over the lifetime of Trident, he should lay out the entire equipment budget over that period for scrutiny by the House and by the public.
It is no good saying—as Ministry of Defence witnesses have said time and again—that the menu of opportunity costs is infinite. The Secretary of State must know what are the options that he has discarded. If he does not know, he is derelict in his duty, because he must surely have looked at what he will have to give up in order to acquire Trident. I am not talking about the other strategic nuclear options; I am talking about conventional options.
The other strategic nuclear options are set out very clearly in the Ministry of Defence publication DOGD 80/23. I found the arguments in that publication very persuasive. I thought that it was one of the best produced documents to have come out of the Department. I emphasise that I am talking about the conventional capability that the Secretary of State will be forced to give up in order to procure Trident. He will have difficult choices in front of him, heaven alone knows, even without Trident. I simply do not think that there is an easy option for him down the cruise missile route, as has been suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Devonport. In my view, it is, quite simply, a ballistic system or nothing.
The escalation of equipment costs is horrifying, even without Trident. We are now in the days of the £1 billion system. One torpedo procurement, of which we are buying only penny packets, will cost about £960 million. That is for a handful of lightweight torpedoes. The cost of the next generation of naval helicopters will be in the order of over £1,000 million. These are relatively minor items in the arsenal of military equipment that this country has to maintain. From one generation to another the capital cost of new equipment is, rising, for tanks by a factor of the order of 2; for frigates by a factor of the order of 2½; for planes by a factor of the order of 4; and for electronic equipment by a factor of the order of 7.
There is simply no way, arithmetically, in which one can contain real increases in costs of that order within a 3 per cent. followed by a 1 per cent. increase in the defence

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budget in real terms year by year and slide Trident into it as well. It is simply arithmetically impossible, and we are already seeing the effects in defence procurement.
When I was at the Ministry of Defence, there was a project called MBT 80—the new main battle tank for the 1980s. It is now called MBT 90. In the days when my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) was Secretary of State for Defence, it was MBT 60 or MBT 70. So it goes on and on.
The Harrier Jaguar replacement programme is clearly in the most serious difficulties. The fact that there has been a recent reallocation of the Tornado IDS force from its maritime role to a land role strikes me as very significant for the light it casts on the practicabilities of getting a Harrier Jaguar replacement through in the near future. The SSN programme and the SSK programme, the diesel submarine programme, to mention only two of the more conspicuous items, are also in difficulties.
It is quite clear to me that, if the Secretary of State is to have any hope at all of sustaining a Trident programme, there will have to be major surgery in his Department. I am not talking about the salami slicing away of little bits here or there, ordering five fewer planes or 20 fewer bombs or 50 fewer torpedoes. There will have to be a major strategic reassessment.
Mr. Duffy: Hear, hear.
Dr. Gilbert: In my view—my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy), who has just said"Hear, hear'' to me, will, I fear, probably not endorse what I am about to say—the major surgery would have to fall on the surface fleet and on our anti-surface ship warfare capability. In my view, the investment in anti-surface ship systems is quite excessive. Most of the tasks that will be undertaken by the new through-deck cruisers, now unveiled as aircraft carriers, could be undertaken from land bases, and as high value units they are extremely vulnerable.
The Secretary of State must have two objectives tonight. First, he must seek to win the vote. That, for him, will be easy. His second and far more important objective must be to carry the country with him, and that will be much more difficult for him. He must take the whole of the country into his confidence in a frank disclosure of the options that he is rejecting, what his opportunity costs are, and what are the full strategic implications for our defence posture of going ahead and maintaining a strategic nuclear capability. To my mind, he has yet to do it. I am still prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt until I have heard his evidence tomorrow, but unless he carries the country with him in 1984 or at some subsequent election, the whole project will be scrapped and he personally will have contributed to its fate.
7.30 pm
Mr. Churchill: It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert), who brings to our debate a great depth of knowledge and understanding of the subject of defence and whom I had the pleasure of shadowing in opposition for a couple of years. The issue before the House has been crystallised by the speeches of the right hon. Member for Dudley, East and his right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen).
Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: He is no longer his right hon. Friend.
Mr. Churchill: The right hon. Member for Dudley, East took the right hon. Member for Devonport as his friend even though some other hon. Members did not. The question is whether the Labour Party is to take the path of appeasement and to deny its honourable part over the past 40 years in our national defences. There has been a bipartisan policy ever since the war—indeed, since the beginning of the war. That bipartisanship has extended not merely to the generalities of defence but specifically to the independent strategic deterrent of the United Kingdom. It is thanks to the British Labour Party that Britain today has an independent strategic deterrent.
It was Clement Attlee and a small, narrow group of Cabinet colleagues who took us down that road. He was followed by the right hon. Members for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) and for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), both of whom played a major part in devoting upwards of £1,000 million of defence resources on the Polaris improvement programme, code-named Chevaline. They did so without mentioning it to the House of Commons.
Tonight it would appear to be the intention of the new leaders of the Labour Party to jettison that bipartisanship that has served this country and its people so well for so long. No wonder Radio Moscow hailed the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), on his election as leader of the Labour Party, as the standard bearer of the Kremlin's policy towards this country for securing the unilateral nuclear disarmament of Great Britain, the removal of United States bases from this country and the withdrawal from NATO of the United Kingdom. I firmly believe that, in the very unlikely event, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues ever holding high office again, once armed with the facts, even the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale will find that his patriotic instincts will lead him to recognise that for Britain unilateral disarmament would be a dangerous gamble.
Mr. Peter Snape: I hesitate to refer to any speech made in the House by any hon. Member as hypocritical claptrap, but that is the description that best fits what the hon. Member has said. In the seven years that I have been a Member, I have never heard him do anything other than castigate Labour Defence Ministers because of what he said were their failures to defend the nation. Let us hear no more nonsense about bipartisan policies. It is all too sadly typical of the hon. Gentleman that he should make such a deplorable personal attack on the patriotism of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) when my right hon. Friend is not here to defend himself.
Mr. Churchill: If the hon. Member had listened he would have realised that I was saying that I firmly believe—I repeat my words—that, in the unlikely event of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale ever becoming Prime Minister, his patriotic instincts will lead him to reject the position which now he apparently holds.
I firmly believe that, far from being a path of safety, the path of unilateral disarmament, if pursued by this country, could be the thing that would precipitate a nuclear world war, which so many well-meaning people who lend their support to the pacifist cause are so anxious to avoid. My reason for saying that is that for the last 35 years there has been some sort of balance in the relationship between West and East. That has been based on the fact that, although the Soviet Union has had a preponderance of two

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to one, and more recently three to one in tanks, tactical combat aircraft and manpower, none the less the West has had the offsetting advantage of supremacy in nuclear weapons. Today those advantages have been lost. We are moving into a new era where there is inherent instability that can only be a matter of great anxiety.
Nothing could precipitate a disintegration of the NATO alliance more rapidly, or more closely invite adventures by the Kremlin, than for Britain to choose this moment of all moments to throw overboard its policy, let alone throw overboard, as some would suggest, our alliance with the United States, and the provision of nuclear bases in this country. It should never be forgotten that the only occasion when nuclear weapons have been used in anger was against a non-nuclear Power. No one in the House would ever have heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki if the Japanese had had nuclear weapons in 1945 and the capability of delivering them on the United States. It is self-evident that the United States would never have dared attack in those circumstances.
No one visiting Hiroshima—as I and no doubt many other hon. Members have—can fail to ponder the full horror of nuclear weapons, especially bearing in mind that one weapon system, the Soviet SS18, has a destructive power equal to 1,500 Hiroshima bombs. I came away from Hiroshima not only with feelings about the horror and awesomeness of the new weapons that exist, but with a determination, as far as I might have any small contribution to make in this matter, that never should the people of Britain be placed at risk from nuclear-armed Powers in the way that the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were at the mercy of a nuclear-armed Power in 1945.
The build-up that confronts us today is massive. In spite of the restraint by the United States and the Western Allies—indeed, since 1967 the United States has not added one single nuclear missile to its strategic inventory, which has been constant at 1,710 submarine and silo-launched missiles—every 72 hours the Soviet Union has added a new missile to its inventory, increasing from 600 systems in 1967 to 2,400 today—40 per cent. more than the United States. It is this relentless build-up of two or three nuclear missiles a week, each equal to several hundred Hiroshima bombs, that brings us to the debate tonight.
The question before us is not merely the generalised question of whether we should retain our strategic nuclear capability but what that capability should be. What steps should we now authorise to be taken to maintain the validity of that deterrent?
I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on his maiden speech in a defence debate. It is quite an achievement for a Secretary of State for Defence to make his maiden speech on defence matters as Secretary of State.
I fully endorse everything that the Secretary of State said in support of the Trident decision. Without question it is the most cost effective of the systems available. I also endorse my right hon. Friends who suggest that we should have a five-boat force rather than a four-boat force. The extra cost will be only 10 per cent., but it will double our capability. Only with five boats will the Royal Navy be able to guarantee two Trident vessels on station at any given moment.
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It is right for hon. Members who welcome the part played by the United States in NATO and who look to the United States to be the major support and strength in the defence of Western Europe to acknowledge our debt and appreciation to the United States Government for their generosity in making the system available. We should express our appreciation to the United States for making the system available, not at a bargain basement price, but at a price which does not reflect the full development costs attributable to the limited number of missiles which we have in mind to purchase.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said that the Polaris fleet and, following it, the Trident fleet, was but small beer compared with the massive nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union. That is true. However, he should not overlook the fact that none the less it will have the effect of making the United Kingdom a prickly hedgehog which no one will wish wantonly to tread upon. The cost involved in going conventional by disbanding our nuclear capability and relying solely on a conventional defence, particularly one that is not closely linked to the United States, would be colossal.
The Soviets have deployed 30,000 tanks west of the Urals. They are increasing their tank strength at a rate equivalent to outproducing Britain's entire inventory every three months. How on earth can we even begin to compete in terms of a conventional defence capability, let alone safeguard our vital national interests?
That is why I firmly believe that Trident is not only essential but by far the cheapest of the options available—and that includes the option of a purely conventional defence, which would be infinitely more expensive.
Trident is the right choice, above all, for its invulnerability. The invulnerability of the system is the most important aspect of any strategic second strike capability. It is reassuring to have the Secretary of State's confirmation that up to this moment the Soviet Union has never been able to detect a Polaris vessel in its deployed station.
However, one should not neglect the fact that the Soviets are devoting enormous resources to underwater detection systems. Out of a budget which is 50 per cent. greater than that of the United States, they are devoting twice the proportion to research and development in the military sphere. They are spending 28 per cent. compared with the the United States' 14 per cent.
Many resources are going into research in the Soviet Union. They are devoted in large measure to anti-submarine warfare. It would be foolish to underestimate the Soviet capacity to make a breakthrough as it has made a breakthrough in missile accuracy and the MIRV-ing of their missiles in recent years.
The greater range of the Trident—4,000 nautical miles compared with 2,500 for the present Polaris—means that the new submarines will have 10 times as much sea space in which to lurk and evade Soviet detection as the present Polaris force, while still being able to strike at targets in the Soviet Union.
I turn to the question of cost. My hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) and the right hon. Member for Devonport made cost their major themes. The cost of £300 million a year over the next 15 years is a small insurance premium to pay. It represents one-third of what the House is providing this year for

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British Leyland and one-third of what we are providing for the British Steel Corporation. I believe that £300 million a year is a very small price to pay for the maintenance of peace and freedom in our land.
7.46 pm
Mr. Stephen Ross: I was in Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of 1945, so I saw them just after they had been flattened, whereas the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) saw them only five years ago. My experience had a considerable effect on me.
There has never been any doubt about my party's attitude to the independent deterrent. The Liberal Party has consistently opposed its conception and naturally it opposes the replacement of Polaris by Trident.
Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman says that his party consistently opposed the independent deterrent. Archibald Sinclair, in the coalition Government, was a party to Tube Alloys and the development of the weapon was associated with the decision of the then Secretary of State for Air for it to be used against Japan.
Mr. Ross: That was before my time, but I accept the correction.
Since the decision to purchase Polaris we have been opposed to it. We have made that clear on every possible occasion. We instigated a debate in the House on 4 August 1980. However, we have always supported Britain's membership of NATO and the obligations which that implies. We reiterated that support at our annual assembly only last September when we reafirmed our continued support for NATO as the best means of protecting Western democracy.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Only just.
Mr. Ross: No, we achieved a better majority than I thought we would. We had a majority of over 100 in a vote of about 1,000. We called for the strengthening of our conventional forces in the face of the increasing Warsaw Pact superiority and supported, subject to greater urgency being devoted to arms limitation agreements, the deployment by NATO of the latest tactical nuclear weapons. In other words, if we cannot make real progress over the withdrawal of theatre nuclear weapons, we agree that we shall have to deploy cruise missiles in one form or another, if necessary on this country's soil. Therefore, we obviously oppose the Government's motion.
Apart from the reference to Polaris, we would have found the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) acceptable had it been called. It is particularly strong on its emphasis on disarmament. That is reassuring. I only wish that the Government had said more on that subject. I hope that more will be said later. If it had been called, the amendment of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) would have been perfectly acceptable to us. We are, however, rather mystified about the view of the Labour Party Front Bench and we hope to hear more about it. It has remained a mystery so far. The amendment of the Social Democratic group has been the subject of comment in the press.
I see a limited continuing role for Polaris under full NATO control. It is obvious that a dangerous vacuum exists that will not be filled until updated theatre nuclear weapons are deployed or we have meaningful progress on disarmament. To my mind, it would be foolish and utterly
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irresponsible to disband our Polaris force, which has just been updated at a cost of about £1 billion, because as a party we happened to be opposed to its creation in the first place. Any new Administration would be obliged to assess the world situation. They should phase out Polaris only as our defence circumstances permitted. To do otherwise would surely be not to safeguard the true interests of our nation.
I refer the House to the debate that took place in another place last week. I think that there are some excellent debates on defence in another place, but this, incidentally, is the best debate that I have sat through in this place since I became responsible for defence matters on behalf of my party. In another place Lord Chalfont said that Polaris could go on to 1993, if not longer. That is 12 or 13 years away. We still have time. Trident itself could be almost out of date by that time. I have always been convinced by the arguments of Lord Carver, whom I heard personally on the subject only recently. He gave a lecture on defence policy that was lucid and understandable. It was the finest that I have heard. I think that no one would deny that he is an expert, irrespective of whether one agrees with his conclusions.
According to figures published about 12 months ago, the cost of acquiring the missiles that we are likely to obtain from the United States will be about £1,250 million. I do not know what the figure is today, but no doubt it is slightly higher. I suspect that there are still some Chevaline costs to be met, if not the full cost. I hope that we shall be told about that. The cost of the warheads is put at another £1,750 million. Research and development will probably amount to £500 million. If we have four submarines, the cost will be about £2,250 million. The estimate of the cost of base facilities ranges from £500 million to £750 million. I suspect that the total cost already is about £6,500 million. When the system ultimately arrives, it may be more than that.
What about the current problems at Aldermaston? Will the Government make a statement on Aldermaston, which has a crucial role to play in the development of a warhead to fit the Trident C4 missile, not to mention improved warheads for other weapons? When will the plant be safe once more for use following its almost total closure due to radiological hazards? How much will the safety work cost that will be necessary before the plant can be reopened? Will it be as much as £500 million? Why should Councillor Trevor Brown be penalised for bringing these problems into the limelight? I think that he did a service to the nation.
We have only one naval shipbuilding yard that can build the submarines, namely, Vickers.
Mr. Patrick Wall: There are two yards.
Mr. Ross: Vickers is already committed to the fleet submarine construction programme. If it is suggested that Cammell Laird could build them, are we intending to reactivate Cammell Laird? Are we intending to spend a fair amount of money to enable the yard to take on the project? I hope that that will happen. I have been to Birkenhead, and if we are to have these vessels I hope that Cammell Laird will get part of the job. Merseyside is a depressing place at present.
What will be the cost of updating the Cammell Laird yard? The proposed ship construction programme, which surely is necessary, has already been delayed by the cuts

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announced on 20 January. We hear Conservative Members talking about employment, and the Minister who is responsible for the Navy is now on the Front Bench. I am especially concerned about what is to happen in our naval shipbuilding yards in the years immediately ahead. If all the resources are to be diverted to the Trident programme, I suggest that yards such as Vosper Thornycroft and others will find life extremely difficult. Work forces will be run down if there are not new orders and replacement orders in the coming year for the destroyers, frigates and minesweepers that are so necessary.
We must also consider the Army replacement programme and the new generation of aircraft for the Royal Air Force. What will happen to those programmes if so much of the budget is to be expended on Trident? There are the extra costs of the rapid deployment force. Apparently that programme is to be accelerated. If we are to have such a force, I hope that it will employ a few hovercraft. The Russians have some very large hovercraft and they are able to land troops very quickly on beaches. We have been wondering about that for at least 10 years on the Isle of Wight.
How is it all to be done? Our forces are already restricted on fuel supplies and necessary exercises are having to be cut out. Much of the equipment within BAOR is outdated or on its last legs. I gather that there is to be a programme on television on that very subject tonight. I suppose that such sophisticated new weapons are necessary. They are extremely sophisticated and desperately expensive. I suppose that we are right still to go for the best. I have been converted to that belief only recently. I suppose that we still have to pursue that policy.
The one heavy cost which in my view is expendable is Trident. I do not believe that there is a sane scenario in which we would independently fire our ultimate nuclear deterrent. Why do we need it? I heard the Prime Minister say only recently that she rejected extravagant spending on projects that showed little or no return. I think that she probably had Concorde in mind. I wish she would review Trident and comment on it in the same way.
7.57 pm
Mr. Alan Clark: It would be very difficult to argue in a rational manner against the lucid, concerned and analytical presentation of the case of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
The contributions, with certain exceptions, from the Opposition have been based on a kind of emotive reaction which we all of us respect, which is deeply founded in the beliefs of the Labour Party, but which—and I pay regard to the speech of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), in which he cautioned us against any imputations of motive to Labour Members, and of course his own speech was quite outstanding in presenting a perspective of a wholly different kind—in the main has been relevant in a critical sense only where Labour Members have concentrated on the aspect of cost.
Here it seems that the speakers fall into two categories. There are those who make the mistake of arguing—and the right hon. Member for Down, South cautioned against this—that one should object to the weapon system because it costs X, or plus or minus X. The question is not about the detailed minutiae but about the percentage variations in the cost. Either we have to have it or we do not. In my
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view, the arguments presented by the Secretary of State were conclusive in that respect. The other argument, presented in particular by the right hon. Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne), relates to how the costs should be distributed within the overall limits of the defence budget.
It was agreeable to hear the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) trying to sort out his former colleagues on this subject, but I felt that there were certain inconsistences in his speech, and in particular in his advocacy of running down the existing weapons systems and ignoring the Trident system because of cost. That seemed to me highly suspect. We both have constituents who work on the same project in the naval dockyard at Devonport.
It is not long since a party of laggers was faced with a difficult and highly dangerous task in which much blue asbestos lagging was breaking down and there was a serious danger to health. The gang withdrew from the engine room in which it did the work and objected to the conditions under which it had been charged with the job. A series of negotiations took place. The workers then agreed to finish the job because they would be paid time and a half. Writ large, that is exactly the same error. A fundamental decision of security and of life and death is at stake. It cannot be settled by considering relative costs in the margin. The way in which the costs must be distributed within the confines of the defence budget is another question. It is something to which the House should devote itself in all seriousness.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) has frequently and persuasively argued that this country cannot sustain a quadrangular defence responsibility: we cannot manage the air defence of the United Kingdom, our maritime responsibilities, our strategic nuclear deterrent and our commitment to the Rhine Army on the mainland of Europe. Of those four commitments, there is only one that is not, in the last resort, essential to our security. It is highly expensive and greatly encumbered with incidental costs in terms of infrastructure, foreign exchange and support costs of every kind. The only responsibility which is dispensable or long overdue for revision is the Rhine Army commitment. To say that that must be considered is not to say that we must withdraw from NATO or end our presence in Germany or that we must adopt any of the other extreme solutions which, although attractive in some quarters, are not realistic. But there is now a clear need, which cannot be postponed any longer, for a greater specialisation of roles within NATO.
We have had indications of that possibility from Ministers and most lately from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in her enthusiasm for our participation in the rapid deployment force. Anyone who can add two and two can see that to that existing quadrangular obligation one cannot, within the confines of the defence budget, add a fifth—the expansion and deployment of a rapid force to trouble spots all over the globe. Therefore, our commitment to the Rhine Army, with all that it has entailed in skills, infrastructure, projects and so on, must be scrutinised and adapted.
The right hon. Member for Dudley, East mentioned the main battle tank. Let us face it that to be flexible in that matter is simply to accept reality.

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The old dispositions on the mainland of Europe date from and follow the occupation zones in which we took stations in 1945. Was their pattern set immutably—surely not, I hope—at the time of the 1948 Berlin airlift? They have performed a useful function. The right hon. Member for Dudley, East and other hon. Members said that tanks might have rolled during earlier crises, but I believe that those dispositions are now out of date, expensive, cumbersome, and due for revision, and greater flexibility should be imposed.
My hon. Friends may have some misgivings about that suggestion. One could also suggest that the intentions of the Soviet Union in central Europe are not necessarily as aggressive as many of my hon. Friends claim. The inventory of the Soviet Union's weapons has risen to a high level. That is partly a function of the greater sophistication of equipment with advancing years and partly a function of a genuine paranoiac fear of possible developments in the future. However, I ask the House to consider the proposition that the Soviet Union in central Europe, measured in terms of policy, achievement, territorial aggrandisement or adventures, has been consistently on the retreat since 1948.
If one measures the extent by which the strength of the Soviet Union has been eroded in central Europe by defections of one kind or another since that high point at the time of the Berlin airlift, one sees that effectively, it has lost Austria, half of which it occupied, and Finland over which it exercised almost complete dominance. It has lost, irreparably, Yugoslavia. It has lost Rumania in all but name. In Hungary, the regime has become more relaxed and more inimical to Soviet influence. Finally, there are threatening developments for the Soviet Union in Poland. Seen from the Soviet side, this shows a steady pattern of retreat and disintegration.
Therefore, one can argue that it is necessary, in the parlance and from the viewpoint of the military industrial lobby in the Soviet Union, to maintain high force levels in central Europe, because without them there could be a risk of a conflagration and a major defection within its eastern European empire spreading and getting out of control. Unless it has a high force level in central Europe, it will be difficult for it to prevent developments in the medium or distant future by the West Germans or some other Power, which might take an opportunist and possibly aggressive posture against it.
My hon. Friends have been tolerant in letting me put that argument, with which they may not sympathise. I put the argument because I believe that one must comprehend it, not in coining to the conclusion that the Soviet Union is not a threat, not concluding that it is not a totally repressive and alien ideology which in other parts of the globe is expansionist, adventurist and highly dangerous, but concluding that in central Europe the dangers are limited. The West has been winning most of the shots. We should urgently consider that, within the limits that resources impose, forces must be deployed elsewhere on the periphery.
The Wehrkünde conference at Munich, which I attended two weeks ago, was the forum in which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force first aired in public the principle that the European countries must consider the possibility of taking on additional responsibilities on the periphery of the Soviet expansionist arc. I do not say that it was received in an atmosphere of uniform sympathy, but it was followed by
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my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's conversations with the President of the United States and their joint agreement on the overriding need and priority for a rapid deployment force. That cannot be compressed within the existing confines of available resources. It can be made up only by taking units and equipment and making a general redeployment of what is available to us in the European theatre.
There are considerable diplomatic tasks ahead in persuading our European allies to accept the idea of such a force and persuading possible host countries to appreciate that our intentions are protective and nor colonialist, but the concept of a rapid deployment force is here to stay and it is a thesis which involves acceptance of the facts that resources are limited, that Europe is no longer the key threshold sector, and that perspectives in defence and foreign affairs have altered.
The leading article in The Times today said:
"The present European security system, imperfect though it is, has prevented war for a … long time… It will … have to be modified over the years to reduce tension and bring eastern and western Europe closer together".
It is my belief that the Trident option, which I believe that the House will endorse, will have the effect, in addition to updating our strategic deterrent capability over the next 20 or 30 years, of forcing us away from the unnatural position of maintaining an expeditionary force on the mainland of Europe—something which was discarded by the Angevin dynasty in the fifteenth century on the ground of expense and left alone for 500 years. It is plainly utterly inappropriate to the military, diplomatic and foreign affairs postures of this country; and we shall be forced into adopting a more flexible and, at the same time, more effective policy of peacekeeping.
8.12 pm
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark). He addressed the House with his customary freshness, cogency and candour and I am sure that I am not alone in claiming that his speech was once again stimulating and important.
The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) said that the debate was important, and he was correct. There can be few more important decisions before us than that set out in the motion. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Sutton thought that the approach of many of my hon. Friends had been emotive and that they were critical only on the ground of cost. I shall try to steer clear of those two indictments.
When we address ourselves to the future of Britain's independent strategic deterrent, we are on very important business. It is a question which has been with all of us throughout our political lives and, in the thinking of hon. Members on both sides, it has always involved the security of the nation and our relations with allies.
I submit that, to a much greater extent tonight, it also involves complex issues, some of which have scarcely received an airing in the debate. We heard a powerful speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert), and anyone who heard it will agree that it was a tremendous contribution. I am sorry that the Secretary of State was not able to be here for that speech. No doubt he will read it, but he would have benefited from hearing it.
Much of the rationale for replacing Polaris with the more advanced Trident system is, as the Secretary of State

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reminded us, that Britain has been a nuclear Power for nearly 40 years. That has been the policy of successive Governments, both Labour and Conservative. Nuclear power has become a crucial factor in deterrence strategy—arguably the most important from the point of view of the West, given the preponderance of Soviet conventional arms. Yet NATO is demonstrably successful. All too often we tend to take that for granted or perhaps not even appreciate it. NATO has worked and does work. Europe is at peace and member nations enjoy unprecedented conditions of stability, mutual trust and voluntary integration.
One of Britain's contributions to the deterrence that has made that possible and has helped to nurture that unique development is the Polaris squadron. It needs to be said that in 12 years' deployment of our submarine-launched ballistic missiles the United Kingdom has sustained a continuing patrol and the highest level of performance. The Polaris squadron can act as an independent centre of nuclear decision-making within the Alliance. Its essential ingredient is uncertainty—keeping the other side guessing about one's own capacity and intentions.
What has not been said but needs to go on record is that it is difficult to assess Polaris's deterrent function because it operates within the overall strategic umbrella of the United States strategic forces, but nuclear deterrence is more about political perception than military hardware. If it were not, we would all have been incinerated a long time ago.
Polaris is also less expensive than conventional programmes, such as the Tornado aircraft programme. It is less vulnerable, too, and less demanding of manpower than are conventional arms. It is also the most cost-effective element of the British maritime force. Finally, it is manned by men of the highest quality and with a personal dedication and sense of public duty that always filled me with pride when I was privileged to meet them. I am in no doubt that they are equal to their awesome responsibilities and fully deserve the trust and confidence of the people of this country.
Nevertheless, the Government cannot expect the House to acquiesce uncritically in the decision to acquire a successor to Polaris, because the proposal before the House raises questions about strategy, costs and the impact of the costs on conventional arms which do not apply to Polaris. Perhaps I could look at each of those aspects in turn.
On strategy, Polaris is basically an area weapon, suitable for striking at large targets such as cities or industrial complexes, but only as an ultimate weapon when we have been abandoned by the United States. Trident, on the other hand, is designed to strike specifically at pinpoint targets, such as enemy missile sites or high command headquarters. In short—the Secretary of State did not bring this out sufficiently clearly—Trident is designed to fit the current American strategic doctrine which calls for nuclear missile systems to have a war-fighting capability as well as simply a deterrent capability.
I have to ask the Secretary of State whether he can truly envisage any conceivable contingency in which it would be necessary for the British independent nuclear striking force to be able to attack such pinpoint targets. He must know that in order to acquire that kind of strikeability we should have to enter into new dimensions of strategic
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confrontation and strategic analysis. In short, we should be in another ball game. That has not been brought out sufficiently by Conservative Members, although the point was made by my right hon. Friend in opening for the Opposition.
Secondly, the cost of replacing Polaris will be out of all proportion to the purchase of Polaris itself in 1963. I know that this point has been made, but it needs to be made again and again. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East reminded us of some of the implications of agreement to what may yet turn out to be an open-ended commitment. The Government state that the total cost represents about 3 per cent, of the total defence budget between now and 1995, or about 5 per cent, of the equipment component of the defence budget.
What will happen if the same escalation in cost takes place as has afflicted the Tornado programme? The Government have said that they are considering a fleet of four or five submarines to provide a fully effective force on station at all times, and I am bound to agree with Conservative Members who have said that a fifth submarine will almost certainly be needed. The suggestion that the Trident programme will cost only 5 per cent, of the equipment element in the defence budget is therefore, if I may say so, misleading, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), the previous Secretary of State for Defence, suggested earlier in the debate. Indeed, the table shown as figure 22 on page 88 of the 1980 defence statement suggests that Trident will consume not 5 per cent, of resources dedicated to new equipment but between 30 per cent, and 40 per cent, by the end of the 1980s. That calculation is based upon Ministry of Defence figures. I ask Conservative Members who listened to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East to imagine some of the programmes that may prove to be casualties before the end of the 1980s.
Thirdly, what will be the effects of these costs on the rest of the defence budget? One way to find the money would be to reduce Britain's contribution to the defence of the eastern Atlantic and the Channel, which would mean savings in the shipbuilding programme and in the Royal Air Force's maritime patrol squadrons. Another might be to reduce the number of armoured divisions in Germany from four to three, as was recognised by the hon. Member for Sutton. He might also have argued that we could reshape Royal Air Force, Germany, and cut the provisions for reinforcement in wartime. Yet another way might be to make even slower progress on the long-term development programme, although improvement in certain of these cited priority areas—I have in mind particularly reinforcement, maritime posture, electronic warfare and air defence—may yet prove by the mid-1980s to be crucial to our security.
The Government will be increasingly tempted to raid all of those programmes for scarce resources. It has already begun with the £200 million cuts. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East has suggested that surgery will yet be a practice of the Government. The NATO exercise"Elder Forest 80" showed how vulnerable our air defence system might yet prove to be. Instead of carrying through the strengthening of Britain's air defence embarked upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved), the previous Under-secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force, the Government have stood down the third Lightning squadron. I know that that has not met with agreement

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from all Conservative Members. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force—I hope that he will not mind my singling him out, now that he has returned to the Chamber—only a few days ago publicly called for Britain to assume additional global responsibilities. With the greatest good will for the hon. Gentleman, I cannot imagine how he could possibly make that speech, given his knowledge of the present pressures and demands on the defence budget.
In evidence to the Select Committee on Defence, Mr. Michael Quinlan, the Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Policy and Programmes at the Ministry of Defence, admitted that
"squeezes elsewhere in the budget may be more severe."
Are the Government therefore not at risk, at least in logic, of being tempted to reduce substantially our military capability in such vital areas as our maritime NATO command areas outside the missile fleet, and therefore to reduce our maritime contribution to the defence of Western Europe?
The Government have already cut shipbuilding orders to the bone. In their first year in office, they placed only three orders, only one of which was for the sharp end. Can the Minister deny that a decision to proceed with the Polaris replacement will inevitably reduce the number of jobs in yards building surface warships, unless the Army and the Royal Air Force agree to an increase in the defence vote assigned to shipbuilding?
What will be the impact of the Polaris replacement decision on the construction of submarines? More people than I are raising this question. Will the Secretary of State tell the House when he winds up what specialist warship building capacity will be available to provide Trident submarines as well as our nuclear attack submarines? Where is the yard? The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy, who is present now, knows that Vickers cannot do both, and that is the only yard that we have which can provide those advanced hulls. The hon. Member for Sutton raised the possibility of Cammell Laird, as did the hon. Member for Isle of Wight. But the Under-Secretary of State knows that Cammell Laird has not built submarines since 1969 and that at present it does not have the capacity. I wish that it did, and I hope that it will yet be able to muster it. But, as the Under-Secretary of State knows, it is not just a question of yards. Incredibly, at a time when there are 2½ million people unemployed, there is actually a shortage of tradesmen. There is actually a shortage of men required for outfitting our specialist ships. We therefore do not have the capacity in men any more than we have it in yards. Where, too, is the capacity that will provide the SSKs, the diesel electric submarines, to which my hon. Friend referred?
The dilution of the quality of conventional forces seems inescapable at least so long as there is the insistence on keeping up the appearance of an all-round contribution by the United Kingdom to the Alliance, instead of a balanced contribution, based upon balanced priorities. Furthermore, any conceivable deployment to the Gulf, such as the Prime Minister called for in Washington last week, can only cast the Trident programme in an even more questionable light, for Gulf deployment can only be at the expense of commitments elsewhere. There are hon. Members on both sides of the House who are well aware of that truth. For example, the crisis in the Gulf a year ago actually sucked in one carrier from the Mediterranean and one from the
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Pacific. But in advance of that crisis the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic was already reminding us that he was short of carriers.
In short there is no fat upon which to call. The plain fact is that forces earmarked for tasks outside NATO have to be drawn from those which may already have been assigned and which in some cases have been assigned twice over in Alliance plans. The penalties, then, of any Gulf deployment will be real and painful, and Trident will then add to them.
The first requirement of our defence policy is to get our priorities right—otherwise we run the risk of lowering the nuclear threshold.
The second requirement is to keep the United States in Europe—not to insure against its intentions and integrity. What the Americans want from us, given the speech 10 days ago by Mr. Carrlucci, the United States Deputy Defence Secretary, is a greater effort in the conventional field. A marginal increment in the capacity of Alliance submarine-launched ballistic missiles is not even on their list of priorities in the maritime sphere. They are looking for more ASW capability, more escort vessels, more hunter submarines, more maritime patrol aircraft, more small carriers, more mining capability—all of which the United Kingdom could provide, but not with Trident.
The third requirement is to be more mindful of the wishes of our allies. More and more of them now view Trident as a needless duplication.
The fourth requirement for the Minister is to be more sensitive to feeling within our own Armed Services. The Army does not want Trident. It wonders whether it will ever get its new battle tank. The Royal Air Force does not want Trident. It is worrying too much about the replacement for its Jaguars and Harriers. Everyone in the Royal Navy does not want Trident. There are many men within the Royal Navy who have a different order of priorities.
I conclude, therefore, that Trident is both unnecessary and undesirable. It is unnecessary because it does not really replace Polaris but presupposes a new role, a duplicating role. It is undesirable because it means that fewer resources will probably be devoted to conventional forces. It is undesirable also because it encourages proliferation when, mindful of the Pope's recent pilgrimage to Nagasaki, we ought to be redoubling our efforts on behalf of multilateral international disarmament.
We ought not, therefore, to be taking steps to increase the numbers and types of new weapon systems of this category. We should be exploring every avenue and taking advantage of every opportunity to halt the arms race and then begin to lower it. In no other way can we accord President Brezhnev's recent overtures a constructive response.
8.31 pm
Mr. Patrick Wall: The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) is pro-NATO, as we all know. He sang the praises of the Polaris squadron, quite rightly, but he came down against Trident, for two basic reasons. One of them relates to its accuracy. That is an argument that I cannot follow, because surely it is better if a missile can take out the Kremlin without wiping out the whole of Moscow.
The real reason, however, why the hon. Member came down against Trident was its cost and the effects on the

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conventional arms programme—as did his right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) in a major speech on which I shall comment later.
I want to take up two points mentioned by the hon. Member for Attercliffe. He referred to the Select Committee and said that maritime capability would have to be sacrificed if Trident continued. If the hon. Member reads the Select Committee report carefully, he will see that the nuclear deterrent is outside the three Service Estimates and therefore should not affect them. Admittedly, it may affect the global sum, but it certainly will not affect just the Royal Navy, which seemed to be the burden of the hon. Member's remarks.
Secondly, the hon. Member talked about capability for building nuclear submarines. The Select Committee has visited both Cammell Laird and Vickers, Barrow. Cammell Laird is perfectly capable of building SSNs, the hunter-killer submarines, if Barrow has the orders for the SSBNs. In fact, it is in a better condition in some ways than Barrow because it has a covered building site, which Barrow does not have, submarines having to be assembled in the open. Scott Lithgow could perfectly well build the SSK, if and when we go on to that programme.
However, at this time of the evening it is only necessary' to summarise some of the arguments that have been made and to concentrate on those that have not yet been made.
The first question is: why have a nuclear deterrent? The Secretary of State says that it is because it is insurance of peace. Many hon. Members have said that it is because we cannot always rely on the United States—our best ally at present, although no one knows what may happen in the future. Having recently visited the United States, I would say that if Europe does not do its stuff and does not pay for its own defence rather more than it does now, there is a grave danger of isolationism in the United States, and that would alter the whole strategic balance.
Thirdly, there is the question of French leadership. I remind the House that the French have not only six nuclear ballistic missile submarines, but 18 IRBMs on the Plateau d'Albion and nine in the Haute Provence, and the force de frappe based on the Mirage IVA. The French will not give up their nuclear deterrent. France would certainly lead Europe if we gave up ours. I would not like to see that happen. We are a key member of NATO and the only European Power fully integrated with NATO that has a nuclear capability. I believe that we should retain that capability.
The question that arises is, why Trident? Most of the reasons have been given. Polaris is 25 years old. The life of the missile engines will not continue for ever. Even with Chevaline, it will not be effective in the 1990s, which is the period we are discussing.
What are the alternatives? First, there is the airborne cruise missile. A new air fleet would be needed to carry it. That would be more expensive than submarines. Secondly, as the right hon Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) suggested, there is the submarine-launched cruise missile, using tubes of existing submarines. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, with his naval experience, put forward this proposal. He must know that a ballistic missile submarine hides in the depths whereas a hunter killer submarine attacks surface ships or enemy submarines. To carry a ballistic missile in
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a hunter killer submarine would be a negation of the rules of this kind of warfare. If it did happen, it would mean a much larger number of submarines and higher cost.
The final alternative is the ground-launched cruise missile, to which the House has not addressed itself fully. I believe that we need to consider the time of flight of the various weapon systems. A ballistic missile takes about 30 minutes to cover the distance from this country to Moscow. The ground-launched cruise missile would take three hours. That is a big difference. To use cruise missiles would mean flooding the enemy's defences because of the slow, subsonic speed and the time taken to reach the target. As the Select Committee report stated, one would probably need 10 cruise missiles to one ballistic missile, bearing in mind that the ballistic missile is MIRVed.
The cruise missile also depends on satellite maps. We have no satellites. We cannot be sure that they would always be available to us.
The ground-launched cruise missile is also cumbersome. It is accompanied by control centres and other vehicles which, I believe, would be easily detectable by enemy intelligence satellites. It would also be vulnerable to sabotage or fifth column work. It would be far better to have a submarine hidden in the depths which, as yet, is virtually undetectable.
I believe that we should give more consideration to having the Pershing 2. The Pershing 1 is a ballistic missile with a range of about 700 miles. It is being stretched to 1,000 miles. The hon. Member for Attercliffe will agree with me that we are told it could be stretched to 2,000 miles or more, roughly the range of a cruise missile. It is a ballistic missile and could therefore travel as fast as a submarine-launched ballistic missile. It is much less vulnerable to satellite reconnaissance and much more mobile than the ground-launched cruise missile. It should be given serious consideration. Pershing 1 and Pershing 2 are, however, infinitely inferior to the proposal before the House for the Trident missile.
The North Atlantic Assembly has been carrying out a two-year study of anti-submarine warfare. It is fair to say, I believe, that there have been considerable advances in allied anti-submarine warfare but that there is most unlikely to be a major breakthrough in the next two decades. The submarine, the SSBN, although not necessarily the SSN, lying in the depths and avoiding enemy vessels, is likely to be as invulnerable in 20 years' time as it is today.
One aspect of vulnerability has not been mentioned. There are developments in particle beam weapons that are said to be able to bring down ballistic missiles. They are a long way ahead. Probably satellites can be used to bring down other satellites. But the actual destruction of ballistic missiles in the air is a long way ahead. On the other hand, there is an article in The Daily Telegraph today about British Aerospace which says:
"The company's Dynamics Group can now spot hostile aircraft out of sight from the ground without the planes knowing they have been detected."
It goes on to say that the company is:
"well advanced in developing a passive infra-red surveillance system with no detectable emissions from the ground equipment. Heat signals emitted by the aircraft itself are used to alert the air defence system."
Presumably that can be used against aircraft and also against cruise missiles. Therefore, if there are developments in particle beams or any other form of defence based on heat emission they are more likely to be effective

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against cruise missiles with a time of flight of three hours than they would be against ballistic missiles with a time of flight of 20 seconds and a much higher trajectory.
On the question of manufacturing capability, which I have already mentioned, there are two yards in this country with this capability. Unless we go ahead with this programme, I fear for the future of Cammell Laird. It would be dangerous for the country if we had only one yard which was capable of producing nuclear-propelled submarines.
As other Conservative Members have said during the debate, we must have five submarines, for the reasons that have already been given. When they are built, these submarines should be big enough to take Trident 2 if in the future we should decide to fit this more modern type of weapon. That is well ahead. We were rather foolish, when we decided on Polaris submarines, not to have them big enough to take Poseidon. If we had, we might not be having this debate. The Government should recognise that.
In regard to the effect on conventional weapons, it has been said that in the present five years 1·5 per cent, of the defence budget will be allocated to this; in the next five years, 1985–90, it will be 5 per cent.; and in 1990–95 it will be 1·2 per cent. That will not have a very great effect on the defence budget. It is much the same percentage as for the Polaris force. That did not have a very great effect on the defence budget and it has kept the peace since those submarines were built.
There is one point I should like to raise following the speech by the right hon. Member for Dudley, East. We should have a greater offset for Trident. We have virtually no offset. According to the Select Committee, we are spending £1,350 million to £1,500 million on American equipment, missiles and guidance. What offset do we have? I know that we have no direct offset, but what about indirect offset—combat boats, £40 million, Rapier for United States airfields in Britain, £140 million?
There are other offsets which I believe we could get. There is the new American rapid deployment force. They could take tracked Rapier and the Scorpion light tank as they do not have light tanks. They could take Sea Wolf, particularly the light-weight Sea Wolf for the defence of both merchant ships and warships. They have only one mine hunter; they might buy one or two of ours. In the long term, the real answer is co-operative projects. The future developments of torpedoes should be a matter for Anglo-American co-operation. The same should happen with the naval training aircraft and the AV8B, about which I hope we shall have an announcement in the not-too-distant future. There is also the question of the joint development of Smart shells, which are very accurate guided shells.
There are plenty of ways in which we could have an offset. I hope that my hon. Friend the Prime Minister, when she was in Washington, discussed this matter with the American President. I believe that we should have Trident and that we should buy these American missiles, but there should be some offset. I think that Congress understands this and will do its best. Of course, when the pressure of American industry is put on individual Congress men it is not quite so easy. However, if there were savings, whether they would go towards more conventional defence expenditure is doubtful. They would probably be siphoned off by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in some other way.
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There are no amendments from the Government side of the House. I shall, therefore, refer to the amendment tabled by members of the Tribune group, because it reflects the way the Labour Party seems to be going. It seems to be based on two fallacies. The first is that the Soviet Union has a peaceful intent. One needs only to remember events in Czechoslovakia and Hungary and other activities in Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Aden and Afghanistan. What about the future of Iran, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Saudi-Arabia and Poland? There is not much peaceful intent towards those countries.
Perhaps the amendment is based upon the Soviet desire to negotiate. For how long has the conference on security and co-operation in Europe gone on in Madrid? For how long have the negotiations on mutual and balanced force reductions been going on in Vienna? Of course, we want the SALT negotiations to succeed. The Americans have made it clear that SALT II is dead but that they are prepared to enter into SALT III negotiations. We wish them well and support them. However, we should not think that the Russians want to negotiate. The evidence of the past six or seven years proves that the contrary is true.
Today the danger is more acute than it has been for many years. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) gave the simple reason, namely, that the Soviet Union was collapsing. Its house of cards is gradually falling apart. The Russians cannot feed themselves. The Soviet economy is deteriorating. The satellite countries are restive. Even the component parts of the Soviet Union are restive. That makes the position dangerous. When dictators are faced by such situations they tend to turn towards the offensive in order to take the thoughts of their people off their own troubles.
An article on unilateralism has already been quoted from The Times. It states:
"instability increases the risk of war, and unilateralism increases the risk of instability."
I go further than that. The Tribune group believes that there should be no more nuclear weapons and no more American bases in this country. That means that Britain would have to leave NATO, because we could not throw the Americans out of Britain without leaving NATO. The effect on Europe would be devastating. It would mean that the Americans would eventually withdraw to their own continent. In 1940, we saved Europe. In the 1980s, are we to betray it?
Some Opposition Members would like to see this country become a Soviet satellite. I would not, and I am convinced that the people of Britain would not.
8.47 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer: The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) made an interesting observation. He said not that the Russian State was collapsing, but that it had—over the past few years—received setbacks. That has not been the tenor of the debate. However, it reinforces my point, namely, that if we went into the conference chamber, we would be far from naked, although a Conservative Member has suggested that that would be so. For example, the United States of America has deployed more strategic warheads than the Soviet Union. As regards nuclear warheads, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has said that there is a ratio of 2:1 in favour of the NATO countries in Europe. Therefore, there is patently no need for Trident.

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It is worth reflecting—although no one has so far done so—on what sort of weapons we are dealing with. Between 1939 and 1945 both sides dropped about five megatons of high explosives against each other. One Polaris submarine carries more megatons than that. The Home Office—which is not the most reliable source of information—suggests that in a nuclear interchange this country would be on the receiving end of about 200 megatons. In any nuclear exchange the country would be turned into a radioactive cinder heap.
That is the sort of thing we are talking about and we are possibly talking about a nuclear interchange because the point of mutually assured destruction was reached in 1963 and since then, when both sides could blow each other off the face of this planet, we have been building up nuclear weapons to the point where this is an extremely dangerous planet on which to live.
The counter force strategy under presidential directive 59 now suggests that people in the Pentagon are talking seriously about a limited nuclear war, and what might to the Pentagon be a limited nuclear war would, for us, be a holocaust and turn us into a radioactive cinder heap. At the same time as the Government are talking about massively increasing expenditure on Trident, they are cutting back on education, social services and everything that this country holds dear in the provision of a Welfare State.
Of course, the Conservatives will say that the Russians are spending more and more money, and they say that because the Ministry of Defence says that and puts it in the defence White Paper, and the MoD says that because the Pentagon says it. It is purely on the basis of prejudiced estimates. Indeed, Senator Nino Pasti of Italy, a former member of the NATO military committee and former NATO nuclear affairs deputy allied supreme commander wrote in August 1979:
"The truth is that NATO forces, both conventional and nuclear, are stronger than those of the Warsaw Pact countries. During the last ten years, the Soviet military budget has remained stable. My colleagues were unhappy about this situation because they could not justify an increase in their own expenditure. So they invented a 'pricing system' … it is easy to see how the figures were inflated to show higher Soviet expenditure."
That source is, to say the least, one that should be reckoned with, and it certainly has not been reckoned with by the Government in embarking on this massive amount of expenditure.
Indeed, paragraph 111 on page 6 of the White Paper says:
"We have no reason to believe that the present Soviet leaders are deliberately planning to attack NATO."
Even on that basis, with the massive nuclear weaponry that already exists in Western Europe, it is absolute nonsense to embark on the expenditure of £5 billion for a potentially even more devastating weapon, and a weapon, moreover, which, because of its increased accuracy, fits in very well with counter-force and the Pentagon strategy under directive 59.
The arms race is developing, not only through Trident but by the Government's decision to embark on a process of turning the United Kingdom into a parking lot for American cruise missiles, which is mentioned in the amendment which I and some of my hon. Friends have tabled. It is worth pointing out that if the Government are serious about disarmament and if some people who have
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splintered off into a political desert are serious about disarmament, they should be considering the matter of verification, because cruise missiles are not easily verifiable and therefore represent a dangerous escalation of the nuclear arms race, in addition to the step taken on Trident that we are debating tonight.
The development of those two weapons makes the United Kingdom a more dangerous, not a safer, place; we have become an absolute certainty for attack in any nuclear exchange. The decision by the last Labour Government to spend £1 billion on updating Polaris, which has been mentioned several times from the Government Benches, is not a decision that I defend. I think it is quite wrong for any Government to spend any amount of money for which it does not account fully to the House. But, since the Conservatives have raised it, it is worth pointing out that they are following a precedent that was set by Attlee and Truman in 1951 and endorsed by Churchill in 1952, and that in October 1952 the then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, said that he was surprised that the money had been spent in secret on developing a British atomic weapon but intended that the Government should follow the secret ways of their predecessors.
So, once again, the expenditure on the updated Polaris was very much a result of a consensus among the parties. But when people say that the Labour Party is moving away from that consensus position on defence, they are right. Some of us fought for many years to establish that situation in the party and reach policy decisions which meant that the next Labour Government would take defence seriously and attempt to put a brake on the arms race, which is developing its own momentum.
No hon. Member can guarantee that by the end of the next 30 years we shall all be alive to tell the tale. I know that it is argued that we have had peace for 30 years in Europe and it can therefore be said that nuclear war has been avoided and nuclear weapons represent the security of that guarantee. But the truth is that we cannot guarantee the future so long as nuclear weapons are around.
A multilateral agreement is made up of a number of unilateral decisions. It is not something like jam spread everywhere. It means a number of individual countries coming together and making an agreement. But somebody has to take the initiative. If we remain members of NATO, as is Labour Party policy, and we abandon nuclear weapons, we shall not be the first country to do so. Canada has already laid down that path and operates in that way. So it would be nothing startling or unique. But it would be an encouragement to all those countries of Europe where there are hundreds of thousands of people—in fact, millions—who, because of heightened international tension, for a variety of reasons, are beginning to wake up to the nightmarish danger which faces the world today.
I shall oppose nuclear weapons for as long as I have breath in my body. I am opposed to nuclear weapons here, in NATO, or anywhere else in the world. I do not say that our initiative would lead to the abandonment of nuclear weapons by Russia and America, but I believe that it would send waves of concern and support within those two countries so that they, the two super-Powers, would move towards a disarmament posture. [HON MEMBERS:"Why?"] For one thing, because in America it might give heart to all those who forced the American Government to get out of Vietnam when they were waging the fiercest war ever inflicted on a tiny agrarian country.

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Such an initiative would also give heart to those millions in Eastern Europe who also want to see disarmament, people such as the Poles and others in the East European countries mentioned by the hon. Member for Sutton. The hon. Gentleman says that there are cracks appearing in the East European bloc. It will give heart to those there also who want to see freedom from the nightmarish fear of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Alan Clark: The substance of the hon. Gentleman's amendment—that it is better to be red than dead—is a strong argument, and I think that there is a lot in it, but the catch is that one is likely to end up both red and dead. If one disarms completely, the probability is that one's country will be occupied by one of the contesting Powers, and that means ending up dead as well.
Mr. Cryer: If that were true, it would mean that there was no possibility of a long-term future for humanity. All the arguments used for the United Kingdom's retention of nuclear weapons must apply to every other country throughout the world. The possession of nuclear weapons being regarded as a prerequisite for peace could be argued by every Middle East country, by India and by Pakistan, and we should have proliferation. One of the reasons for unilateral disarmament is to call a halt to proliferation and say that, as the beginning of a move towards a European nuclear-free zone, we can at last see a way to live without nuclear weapons.
If we do not do that, if we do not at some time take an initiative, then by accident or by design—the recent computer errors are an indication of the sort of accident which looms as reality round the corner—we may find ourselves in the middle of a radioactive cinder heap.
I do not accept that any Government of any party have a right to determine the lives of myself, my wife, my family, my community and my nation. The truth is that, perhaps on a false reading, perhaps because they think that international tension is such that they must support presidential directive 59 and make a strike on military targets, or because they feel that retaliation is required, those who send these weapons off will know full well, as we know, that at the very minimum they will exterminate 40 million citizens of the United Kingdom. They have absolutely no right and no justification for that. I do not hand over that right or power to any man or woman in any Government.
9 pm
Mr. Peter Snape: The interest engendered by this topic has been amply illustrated by the attendance of hon. Members on both sides of the House during the whole debate and by the quality of the contributions.
I remember the first speech as Secretary of State for Defence made by the present Leader of the House, when he said that the Government's own estimate of the cost of Trident—that is, four submarines over a 15-year development and construction period—was"up to £5 billion". He said that on 15 July 1980. During the same debate the same Secretary of State announced his decision in favour of Trident.
It has taken from July last year until today for us to debate the project. It would perhaps reflect greater credit on the House if these matters were occasionally debated before being decided, though I do not say that the result
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would be different However, the decision has been taken, and presumably Conservative Members, whatever misgivings many of them may have, will therefore be bound by a three-line Whip to support their Government tonight.
When the present Leader of the House made that estimate, he was already erring towards the top end of the estimate for the Polaris replacement programme, which he had provided in the debate on nuclear weapons policy debate six months earlier in January 1980. He had then said:
"I think we can accept it as reasonable to discuss the matter on the basis that a total capital cost in the range of £4,000 million to £5,000 million at today's prices might be a realistic estimate."—[Official Report, 24 January 1980; Vol. 977, c. 682.]
Such reasonableness and caution was, of course, well advised in the light of experience of the unreliability of such estimates. Perhaps their only reliable aspect is their invariable and inevitable growth.
During our debate today many hon. Members have mentioned cost and the likely effect of the Trident programme on other vital aspects of Britain's defence budget. Let us consider the history. Let us consider a matter that will be of interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy)—the through deck cruiser. The estimated cost of that project in 1974 was £60 million. In 1979, it was £167 million. In 1981, it is £210 million. Then there is the multi-role combat aircraft, Tornado. In 1969, cost per copy was projected at £1· 5 million for the IDS version. In 1979, the cost was put at £9 million. In 1980, the IDS version was costing £10·1 million. The cost escalated tenfold in just over a decade.
If such massive increases do not worry the present Secretary of State or the Ministry of Defence, they certainly worry other people, including our allies—for example, West Germany. On 21 February this year The Economist reported:
"the total shortfall for 1980 and 1981"—
for the Tornado project—
"is now running at DM 1·3 billion (£260 million at current exchange rates)."
The article continued:
"But it is now reckoned that the Tornado project will be short of at least £160 million next year and possibly £140 million in 1983, without allowing for inflation in the project, which the Germans at present put at 13 per cent."
Let us take the Chevaline renewal programme, which has been mentioned by hon. Members on both sides during the debate. It was projected originally in 1974 at £200 million. By 1976, the cost had leaped to £450 million, and by 1977 it was being costed at £800 million. Now its cost is put at the nice round figure of £1,000 million. That is a fivefold increase in almost as many years.
Doubtless the Secretary of State awaits with bated breath the next instalment in this unfolding saga of rocketing expenditure. Indeed, the worrying thing is that the record of uncontrolled and uncontrollable expenditure is endemic to the defence effort. The blunt fact is that all experience goes to show that major weapon systems—and in European terms they do not come much bigger than Trident—are critically prone to cost escalation. As the right hon. Gentleman must be fully aware, there are vast areas of uncertainty associated with the submarine aspects of the programme, and considerable opportunities for precisely the kind of cost escalation to which I have referred.

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Estimates are never particularly accurate, sometimes because, with the best will in the world, military men are inclined to underestimate the technical difficulties of doing things; and sometimes because they and occasionally their political masters calculate that if they come along with a low figure at the start of a project, they can beef it up later after the commitment has been made and it is too late to turn back.
The penalties are clear for the taxpayer and should be clear, too, for the politicians. I quote again from the same article in The Economist, which refers to"the hapless Mr. Apel", the right hon. Gentleman's West German counterpart, and predicts the Tornado affair,
"could cut short the once promising career … of the man once regarded as the successor to Mr. Schmidt as Chancellor".
I do not know whether the Secretary of State has any great ambitions to take over from the right hon. Lady, but he ought to reflect on what has happened to his counterpart in West Germany. But however terrible the fate likely to befall the right hon. Gentleman, there are other more serious implications of the West German experience with Tornado, and they do not relate solely to the matter of cost escalation.
I quote for the last time from the same article in The Economist:
"It seems inevitable that if the deliver)' of the German Tornadoes is to go ahead as planned, new equipment for the Navy and Army will have to be delayed or even cancelled."
Indeed, by 1984 Tornado alone looks like swallowing up more than a quarter of Germany's defence equipment programme. The article went on to conclude:
"Defence specialists are now beginning to ask whether it is worth sticking with the Tornado project through thick and thin at the expense of the other services".
During the course of today's debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said that he could not bring himself to support his party's three-line Whip this evening unless he could be assured that further damage to Britain's defences, as he saw them, would not be effected by the cancellation of the project. I hope that he will accept from me that that further damage about which he is so concerned will happen if the Government go ahead with the Trident programme.
It is precisely the fear of escalating costs—
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: What the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said was that one cannot safely base defence policy on the Russians not attacking a country that is too weak to resist.
Mr. Snape: My right hon. Friend is more than capable of defending himself. Unusual though it is to see the hon. Lady, with her other commitments, in the House at this time in the evening, I would rather hear the words from the person from whom they originally came than from someone else.
It is precisely this fear of cost escalation that many authorities in the defence field are expressing in regard to the impact of Trident on our conventional defence programme. What is still far from clear is the extent to which expenditure on Trident was built into the Government's defence budget projections for the 1980s.
Even those projections—commitments amounting to about 6 per cent, of GDP in 1985, rising to 7 percent.-plus in 1990—look increasingly unrealistic in the present economic and social climate. They are levels of
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expenditure which must impose an outrageous burden on the national economy in circumstances of even normal growth.
Yet even assuming that Trident was manageable within the projected defence budget, the fact is surely that it will exert unacceptable pressures on the defence equipment programme during the peak expenditure years of the late 1980s, when expenditure on Trident is projected to be running at the rate of £600 million in 1986–87 and 1987–88 and £750 million in the next two financial years.
The 1980 White Paper, Cmnd. 7826, in paragraph 805, figure 22, shows that about 60 percent, of the equipment procurement programme tends to be devoted to major projects, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) mentioned earlier. Commitments already made will account for some 40 per cent, of major project expenditure in 10 years' time.
Trident is surely likely to raise that figure to about 70 per cent., leaving 30 per cent., or possibly even 25 per cent., for almost every other major project at the end of the decade. All this is promised on a continuing yearly defence expenditure increase of 3 per cent. If that proves to be as illusory as the Opposition believe it will, the existing commitments plus Polaris will consume nearly all the expected expenditure by the end of the decade.
Before the right hon. Gentleman meets the Defence Select Committee tomorrow he should read the memorandum submitted by the two Smiths, Dan and Ron—although I do not think they are related—headed"Polaris Replacement and the Defence Budget in the 1980s".
Mr. Buck: My right hon Friend has already read it.
Mr. Snape: If the right hon. Gentleman has, I am anxiously waiting to hear, but he does not look as though he has. I trust that he will before tomorrow. Their projections are more worrying than those that I have given the House. The House has the right to know which conventional programmes the Government are prepared to sacrifice in what we believe is their crazy pursuit of nuclear grandeur.
Even before the introduction of Trident we had the cancellation of many once cherished projects. We have lost the redesign of the Sea Dart missile system. We have lost the opportunity of developing the alarm defence suppression system and the production of Sea Skua and Sea Wolf have already been slowed down. That is happening now, before we contemplate the major expenditure involved in the Trident programme. Is it not inevitable, in the face of the demands of that programme, that there will be a general disposition to go for lower cost options than previously planned or intended or, even more simply, to cancel? What are the programmes at risk? Will they include urgently required developments in air-to-air weaponry? Will the surface-to-air missile systems, particularly the medium SAM systems be affected? What difficulty can the Royal Air Force expect in connection with a whole package of procurement choices associated with the Jaguar-Harrier replacement? Will there not be a disposition when the time comes for the decision about the next generation of tactical combat aircraft to buck that option in favour of existing types already in service and in favour of upgrading? Will there not be an inevitable affect on the later part of the Navy's nuclear-powered fleet submarine building programme when the peak arrives in

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the Trident build? Will there not be obvious question marks over the post-Broadsword class frigate building programme? Is the Navy, in practice, to write off any serious possibility of developing the next generation of air defence of the fleet or the next generation submarine defence of the fleet?
There are further threats for the Army. What are the plans for the modernisation of the first British corps for the late 1980s and the early 1990s or the plans for the next generation anti-tank system? Surely the right hon. Gentleman will agree that there are urgent requirements for the advance of the third generation of anti-tank missiles? Are those projects also to be sacrificed on the altar of Trident? What of the next generation air defence systems? What of the main battle tank 80, or, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East reminded us earlier, MBT 90, as it is now called? Surely the House is entitled to demand that the answers to those questions and similar questions are given when the right hon. Gentleman replies to the debate.
Our concern will be shared by our allies in Western Europe. They are worried now and will be even more worried in future about the reduction in our defence capability as a result of the cuts already experienced, the cancellations and the postponements in our conventional programme.
Where do the Secretary of State and Ministry of Defence stand? We heard a couple of illuminating interventions. The first was by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Sir J. Langford-Holt), the Chairman of the Select Committee, who said in his courteous way that the debate was badly timed. He felt that the Secretary of State should have done his Committee the courtesy of attending it first.
Sir John Langford-Holt: I tried to make it clear that I asked the Secretary of State to appear before the Committee after the debate.
Mr. Snape: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. As the Secretary of State said, there has been immense confusion about getting in and out of the Committee at the correct time. We are fairly sure that the Secretary of State will attend tomorrow. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East felt that the Secretary of State had been guilty of some discourtesy to the Select Committee.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Nonsense.
Mr. Snape: I was in the Chamber to hear my right hon. Friend. It is no good shouting"nonsense" because I am sure that my right hon. Friend will tell me if I am wrong.
In the delicate way that he has when speaking to his own Ministers, the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) had a few harsh words to say about the future of the programme. At the risk of being shouted down by the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman), I had the impression that the hon. Member for Knutsford believe that we should wait and see before we went ahead with such massive expenditure on the Trident programme. That is a valid view. I wish he had expressed that view with the gusto with which he normally attacks my right hon. and hon. Friends. I appreciate his difficulties. He at least made his view plain.
Mr. Onslow: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because if anybody is having difficulty with his speech it is clearly him. The hon. Gentleman was
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speaking about our allies in Europe. Can he tell the House whether any country with which we are allied in defence has indicated its support for a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament to which his party appears to aspire?
Mr. Snape: I am grateful for that intervention. Not long ago the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) was famous for the lobs which he threw to the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). He has moved on to throwing sympathetic lobs to the present Administration.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Answer the question.
Mr. Snape: If the hon. Lady will contain herself for a moment, I shall attempt to do that. The motion deals exclusively with the strategic independent nuclear deterrent. That is the purpose of the debate. [HON. MEMBERS:"Answer."] If hon. Members want to pose questions they should attend the whole of the debate and attempt to speak.
I turn to the contribution by the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). He said that he would vote against the Government's motion. I run the risk of further contradiction, but the right hon. Gentleman implied that the party to which he may or may not belong at present is somehow totally anti-NATO and that the Labour Party has moved recently to being anti-NATO.
I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the composite resolution debated at our last annual party conference. He was there, although I do not think that he enjoyed it as much as I did. The neutralist resolution—composite resolution No. 42—said in effect that the conference should commit the Labour Party, whether in opposition or in office, to renounce membership of NATO, or any other grouping based on nuclear deterrents, in favour of a policy of genuine neutrality and non-alignment.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: How many voted for it?
Mr. Snape: If the hon. Lady will contain herself, I shall tell her. There were 826,000 in favour of the motion and 6,279,000 against. I know that the right hon. Gentleman does not approve of the block vote, but as far as I can remember he made no great protest about it on that occasion.
The Labour Party's position on NATO was accurately expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). The Labour Party believes in NATO and will continue to support the NATO alliance. If there is the slightest criticism of defence expenditure, especially in prestigious areas such as nuclear weaponry, all too often Conservative Members make various accusations. Those of my right hon. Friends who have the temerity to criticise defence expenditure are accused of being in league with Moscow. That is a rather hackneyed phrase—
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman Mrs. Kellett-Bowman rose—
Mr. Snape: No. I have given way to the hon. Lady already.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman Mrs. Kellett-Bowman rose—
Mr. Snape: No, I am not giving way. I waited for the return of the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) before dealing with his contribution, which I found predictably bellicose and belligerent. I find it sad that the hon. Gentleman, whose patriotism we do not doubt, although we sometimes have doubts about his grey matter, should make deliberate personal attacks on my right hon.

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Friend the Leader of the Opposition. He drags in the old and typical red herrings about my right hon. Friend's attachment to Moscow, which are not true.
I am sure that if it were possible to de-mothball a squadron of First World War Sopwith Camels, the hon. Member would be off like David Niven in"Dawn Patrol" to throw tennis balls at the spires of Moscow.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman Mrs. Kellett-Bowman rose—
Mr. Snape: It is not the hon. Gentleman's bravery that we doubt; it is his brain.
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman Mrs. Kellett-Bowman rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must tell the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) that it would be far better to sit back. The Minister is not giving way—[HON. MEMBERS:"Who?"] The Shadow Minister is not giving way.
Mr. Snape: That is a Freudian slip, I hope, Mr. Speaker, but one never knows. You said, Mr. Speaker, erroneously"The Minister is not giving way". The surprising feature about the debate is that the Secretary of State himself, one of the recent arrivals in the defence team, has chosen both to open the debate and to reply. Let us consider the collection of talent that surrounds him. For example, the hon. Member for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie), the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Air Force, is the senior member of the Government's defence team. The hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Speed), the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy, has a great deal of experience in military matters. It is somewhat surprising that the right hon. Gentleman does not think that his Under-Secretaries of State are competent enough to participate in this debate.
The combined parliamentary and ministerial salaries of these hon. Gentlemen are costing the taxpayer about £60,000 in the current year. Perhaps their silence is of then-own choosing. Perhaps they do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps there is a deep fissure within the Ministry of Defence about which none of us knows anything. We know that the Conservative Party is far more adept at covering up splits than we are. Possibly there are some deep-rooted differences and some rows going on in the Ministry of Defence since the recent arrival of the right hon. Gentleman. Surely the right hon. Gentleman will either clarify whether, or deny that, that sort of thing is happening and explain why the collection of talent surrounding him sits like the three surly customers in a Lancashire pub—"Hear all, see all and say nowt." Surely they have something serious to say about this matter.
Mr. Walter Harrison: It was a Yorkshire pub.
Mr. Snape: I refuse to get involved with my right hon. Friend as to whether it was Lancashire or Yorkshire. As a Lancastrian, I heard it on my side of the Pennines.
As was said earlier, the debate has also been about foreign policy. We know what the Prime Minister's foreign policy is. We could write a song about it, which would be entitled"If it is all right with Ronnie, it is all right with me." It is not all right with us, however.
The right hon. Lady might like the pomp and circumstance of the guards of honour at the White House, but she does no service either to President Reagan or to the
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people of this country when she comes back and gives the impression that the United States foreign policy, which she will slavishly follow, has returned to the dark days of the sixties, when any Right-wing gangster who could guarantee that he was anti-Communist could get the backing of the United States. Despite the right hon. Lady's views, which she expressed forcefully on television at the weekend about the supply of arms to El Salvador—
Sir Frederic Bennett: I knew it. Utterly predictable. I have just won five quid.
Mr. Snape: It is entirely predictable that it would take five minutes for the penny to drop for the hon Gentleman. He is not known as"bomber" in the House for nothing.
Left-wing arms in El Salvador did not slaughter the priests saying mass. There is no point in the Prime Minister murmuring in her husky voice that something must be done to assist the President of the United States in relation to El Salvador. There is no point in her talking about the rapid deployment force. I do not know whether she frightens the Russians with that sort of talk, but by God she frightens the Gulf States. They have made their views plain.
Trident represents a massive escalation of Britain's nuclear arsenal. At present, the 64 Royal Navy warheads account for 1·3 per cent, of the combined United States-United Kingdom submarine-launched ballistic missile force.
Mr. Robert Atkins: Repeat that slowly.
Mr. Snape: If the hon. Gentleman would lend me his teeth, I would be delighted to try it.
When Trident achieves operational status, Britain's contribution will amount to 14 per cent, of total missiles and at least 14 per cent, of re-entry vehicles, a ten-fold increase in the number of separate targets threatened by the United Kingdom.
Why is it necessary for such an escalation of British nuclear power? Can and will the right hon. Gentleman answer that question? Why is this country committed to a level of growth in its nuclear weaponry which, for example, enormously outstrips by 200 to 300 per cent, the expected increase in French nuclear strength over the next decade? Can the right hon. Gentleman do us the favour of answering that question?
There is a moral argument to be deployed against nuclear weapons. We have not heard much about that from Conservative Members. We heard an extremely interesting speech from the hon. Member for Sutton (Mr. Clark), who, courageously as usual, pointed out that the Soviet Union is not the great invincible monolith which some Conservative Members try to say it is.
Indeed, I sometimes think that some Conservative Members do more for the myth of Soviet invincibility than do Pravda, the KGB, the Kremlin and all the other organs of Soviet power. We heard from the hon. Member for Sutton that the Soviet Union is under intense strain in relation to its satellites. Do Conservatives believe that in the event of an attack in Western Europe, the Poles, East Germans, Hungarians and Czechs would fight or could be regarded as reliable allies of the Soviet Union? If so, I am sure that they would be swiftly disabused of such a notion. The hon. Member for Sutton would go some way in agreeing with what I am saying about the instability of Soviet satellite countries.

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The Labour Party is against Trident. It ill behoves the Conservative Party, which has cut, cut and cut again in relation to the social structure of this country, to spend a minimum—and Conservative Members know that it is a minimum—of £5 billion on the Trident project.
Those of us who are concerned for not only the future of Britain but the future of our children are determined to ensure that there will be no Trident project in the future. My hon. Friends and I are the vanguard of a movement which has a great depth of feeling throughout the country. The Secretary of State sneered at the anti-nuclear feeling of many people, but it is a legitimate feeling, which is shared by many of us in the Labour Party. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends and other hon. Members will join me in the Division Lobby.
9.31 pm
Mr. Nott: By leave of the House, I shall reply to the debate.
Perhaps the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) will allow me to pass over his criticism of the timing of the debate in relation to my appearance before the Select Committee. It is clear from what was said by the Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Sir J. Langford-Holt), that I merely did what I was asked to do. Although it may be disgraceful, if it has happened that way round the blame does not lie entirely with me.
An observer of the debate would have been struck not so much by the gulf that divides us across the House as by a large element of common ground. It is clear that many votes will be cast against the Government's motion, but those"No" votes will be cast for many different reasons.
It is not my purpose in winding up the debate to emphasise the inconsistencies and differences that undoubtedly exist on the Opposition Front Bench and between the Opposition Front Bench and Back Benches or between the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Labour Party conference. I should prefer to emphasise the agreement that exists across the House in several areas.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) made an entertaining speech, on which I congratulate him, but I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him in that vein, because this is a serious subject and there are many matters that I have to try to answer in the next half hour.
I heard no speech that did not deplore the Soviet action in Afghanistan, the deployment of SS20s, at about one a week, and the continuing programme for the Backfire bomber. Although the hon. Member for Pontypridd suggested that we wanted Trident—and I quote him with care—"to fight a sophisticated nuclear war", I can assure him that a situation in which we needed to use Trident could hardly be called sophisticated. It would be a calamitous situation. I have never before heard anyone suggest that we wanted a strategic independent nuclear deterrent with which to fight a war. NATO is a defensive alliance and we want Trident for deterrence, to preserve peace, not to fight a war.
The problem that underlines all our difficulties is that we face a horrific escalation of conventional and nuclear weapon procurement by the Soviet Union. Last year alone Soviet industry produced some 250 new intercontinental ballistic missiles, more than 3,000 tanks and nine nuclear
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submarines. That is the product of Soviet industry in one year alone. It already possesses a massive superiority in most of those weapons right across the board.
An observer might rightly ask what madness leads a small group of party members at the top of a repressive regime to lead this lunatic race which serves no conceivable human purpose. I cannot think that even in the wildest moments below the Gangway we should be accused of leading that race. I ask myself whether they have created a military industrial establishment which would destroy their leadership if they tried to change course.
Mr. Stanley Newens Mr. Stanley Newens (Harlow)rose—
Mr. Nott: No, I shall not give way, at least for a few moments.
It is part of the double-speak that we often hear that such a charge about the industrial military establishment is made against the Western democracies. But, if it is true that there is a strong industrial vested interest in the procurement of new weapon systems in the West, it is doubly and trebly true of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union, unlike the West, people are deprived of even the most basic consumer needs that we take for granted. They are deprived of that essential element of human dignity that we in the West possess. Were it not for the provision of grain from the West, they might even be deprived of food. It may be that the Soviet leadership is bent upon building up its armaments with the direct intention of confronting the West. I do not believe that myself. But I ask myself what leads to this arms race on their side. Is it fear of encirclement?
Mr. Newens: What about the American side?
Mr. Nott: The hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) has been muttering throughout the debate"Mr. Reagan, Mr. Reagan". One might expect someone occasionally to mutter in these debates"Mr. Brezhnev, Mr. Brezhnev".
Mr. Frank Allaun: I have sat through the debate, which is more than some of the hon. Ladies and hon. Gentlemen on the Conservative Benches have. The Secretary of State has said that the Russians are building up their power and that therefore there is a threat and we must defend ourselves against it. I put it to him that that is exactly what the Russians say about NATO. Both sides are correct.
Mr. Nott: I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that in this imperfect world we have to maintain a measure of individual and collective defence that will deter the potential aggressor from seizing his victim. I believe that to be the case. I believe that that objective can best be achieved by establishing a broad equality of military power by arms limitation and by negotiation, so that the necessary equality of power is reached at the lowest possible level of military expenditure. That is the policy of the Government.
This brings me directly to the points made by the right hon. Members for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) and for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) and others who were concerned about arms control and about the fact that, although I had spent some time on this topic in my opening speech, I had not spent more time on it. I shall do so now.
The furtherance of arm's control and disarmament remains among the matters at the very top of the

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Government's priorities. Our possession of nuclear weapons has never altered our perception of the need for practical, verifiable measures of arms control. Nor will it in the future. But we cannot negotiate from weakness. It has never been our policy to match the Warsaw Pact weapon for weapon. But we believe that it is only on the basis of rough equality—the capability ultimately to inflict unacceptable damage on the other side—that we shall ever get the Soviet Union to the negotiating table.
The right hon. Member for Devonport asked for a full-hearted commitment to the success of negotiations to limit theatre nuclear forces. We have given that. It was the NATO decision to pursue both modernisation and arms control in 1979 which led to the first round of talks in Geneva.
We have been asked for a mutual and balanced force reduction agreement. That is a prize which successive Governments have sought, and I know of the great personal contribution made by the right hon. Member for Devonport, when he was Foreign Secretary, to this cause. But the right hon. Gentleman knows the problems—problems caused not by intransigence on the part of the West.
There is call for a comprehensive test ban treaty. That is why we are negotiating in Geneva now. Hon. Members call for full commitment to the 1982 United Nations special session on disarmament. The present Government will give that. Hon. Members call for a further strategic arms limitation agreement. The new United States Administration has made it clear that it intends to continue the SALT process, and it was made clear by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that, while we would want to look at the Brezhnev speech carefully, in no way should it be rejected out of hand.
Looking at it objectively, I think that hon. Members will know how consistently we have favoured securing our defence at a lower level of armaments. That is our objective.
Frankly, right hon. Members accuse my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of rhetoric about the intervention force. But perhaps I may say, in response to that, that it is just as easy to be rhetorical about arms control, to make grand sounding calls and gestures; but to seek honestly and realistically to achieve success in negotiations is very much harder. I know that the right hon. Members for Devonport and for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) and others will accept that, even if the Leader of the Opposition may have rather more doubts.
The right hon. Member for Dudley, East asked about the ABM treaty. This is due for review next year. I share his view that it has been an important factor in stability.
I come to one of the main arguments in the debate—that we should support the nuclear deterrent through a NATO capability, and that we should also support the modernisation of long-range theatre nuclear weapons—that was the view of many Opposition speakers—but that we no longer have any reason for the continuation of an independent British strategic deterrent. I think that that is the position of many Opposition Members.
The suggestion comes in several forms from several people, but I think that for many the argument is basically about cost. For Opposition Members, it is a somewhat odd conversion. Several of them have served in several Labour
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Governments, who have confirmed and then supported the continuation of Polaris. This means, presumably, that it is not the concept of an independent deterrent that has lost its value for them—otherwise one might have assumed, in many of the years for which they have held office and have had the opportunity of overturning that concept, that they would have cancelled it. If that had been the case, I hardly think that the previous Labour Government, who have been out of office only for the last two years, would have secretly decided to spend an extra £1,000 million on Chevaline. It is all very well for the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East to criticise us for not having had a debate here earlier on Trident. Five whole years passed while we were in Opposition and there was never a debate in the House on Chevaline, because no one, outside a small circle—of which the right hon. Member for Devonport was one—was even told about the project.
Dr. Owen: The right hon. Gentleman is presumably not denying that that decision was initially taken by the previous Conservative Government, in secret.
Mr. Nott: The idea of modernising the strategic deterrent was raised, but all the detailed work of Chevaline was never given.
I want to take the two arguments against the independent strategic deterrent as they were advanced. It is, after all, in the end, about influencing the calculations of an opponent before he makes a move. The principal argument for an independent British capability is to provide added insurance against a Soviet calculation, or a Soviet miscalculation, that when the crunch comes the United States might, at that critical moment, hold back.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that the argument is not absolute. It is relative. One can argue about how much such an insurance premium is worth against risk of a Russian miscalculation. If, as the Opposition Front Bench did, one has actually accepted the capital cost of Polaris, its running costs today plus its improvement with Chevaline, it is hard to see why 3 or 5 per cent. of the defence budget should change one's mind.
The strategic deterrent has been an integral part of the British defence budget under all Governments up to now. Trident is not an addition to that budget. It is the modernisation of an existing system. I pose this question. Is there much purpose in retaining a nuclear capability at all, at any level, including the theatre level, if it is accepted that there are absolutely no circumstances in which we would ever use it independently of the United States? If the answer is that we would never, in any circumstances that anyone can conceive, use it independently of the United States, we might just as well go on to dual-key United States weapons and save the cost of our indigenous nuclear research and procurement facilities altogether.
The reason for retaining it is surely this: if the independent British deterrent, right across the range, is to retain credibility, we must be able to convince an opponent that, in the last resort, it could be used where all else has failed. The Soviet Union simply would not believe and, if it did believe, it would not be deterred by a threat of using theatre weapons, say against its armour, if the United States backed away and Britain had no further card to play if the Russians raised the stakes. The blackmail

217
argument, used by the right hon. Member for Down, South, was not, for me, blackmail of the sort that he was discussing. I believe that it is blackmail in the sense of escalation of the nuclear exchange, once the horrors of it have begun, knowing that, ultimately, the other side has an invulnerable strategic deterrent buried under the oceans of the sea and we have not. I shall come to this argument in more detail—
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: What rational ground is there for supposing that, if the United Slates did not react by the use of the nuclear weapon to a Russian invasion of West Germany, we should not equally shrink from doing so?
Mr. Nott: I said to the right hon. Gentleman in my opening speech that certainty in these things is not something that can be assured. I made it clear that it could not be assured. I equally made it clear that the policy of deterrence must be based on the first use of a nuclear weapon, not first strike, in some circumstances. Otherwise the deterrence makes no sense.
I have to pass over a number of matters with which I would have liked to deal about the system. With respect, I do not think that it is sensible to defer decisions further. That was one of the principal arguments. One cannot go on deferring decisions of this kind. One has to decide whether one is to remain in this business. If one is to remain in it, one has to get on. The timetable is already very tight. I do not think, for reasons that I will elaborate at some other date—I cannot fit them in now—that it is sensible to run on the Polaris force. These matters are dealt with at great length in paragraphs 41 and 42 of the memorandum.
My hon. Friends the Members for Torbay (Sir F. Bennett) and for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall)—and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy)—raised the question of four boats or five, and all of them registered their own strong preference for five. I understand the argument, but we have to make a complex judgment with factors both ways, extra costs, the greater availability of submarines of modern design, the operational and other risks. This judgment does not have to be made now. The Government plan at present simply to keep the option open. I think it would be premature at the moment to go further than that.
Throughout this debate great concern has been expressed about the possible impact of the Trident programme on the rest of the defence budget. I should perhaps say in passing that it is interesting to note that the French are spending about 15 per cent. of their defence budget on their independent strategic deterrent, which is twice what we shall be spending on our strategic force, even at the peak spending on Trident. I mention that only because other Western European nations have made a judgment and they are spending more than twice what we shall be spending at the peak.
To talk as if this money could buy 24"Invincible" class cruisers or 5,000 main battle tanks, as was done in another place by a distinguished speaker last week, is wholly misleading. It would not come anywhere near buying these items even in bare form, let alone equipping and arming them, manning them, supporting them and fueling them. Even if we could produce and man such equipment, the cost of running conventional forces of this size would be out of the question. If we were to agree to build 24 more"Invincible" class cruisers, can one imagine the demands
218
that would come immdiately for additional naval dockyards to equip them, escort ships to look after them, helicopters and aircraft to defend them and admirals to command them? My hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford would come running to me, beseeching me to reduce the cost of the defence budget by building something cheap, such as a strategic nuclear capability, if we were to go down that route.
The hon. Member for Pontypridd and the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) and other hon. Members have asked about the proportion of the equipment budget and, more particularly, the money for new equipment that Trident might be expected to take. Over the whole 15-year period Trident equipment will account for about 5 to 6 per cent. of total equipment spending. In the peak years it might account for about 10 per cent. of total equipment spending.
As regards new equipment, we do not have a new equipment budget as such. However, if we take expenditure on Trident equipment as a proportion of total development and production expenditure other than on spares, which I think is a fair definition of new equipment, it will, even in the peak spending period, account for only about 15 per cent. of the total. This is a lower figure than Tornado at its peak. I have noticed the figure of 30 to 40 per cent. for Trident quoted recently in another place. I can find no valid basis of calculation which leads to such figures.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East waxed as worried as I am. I can assure him that I am continuously worried about the escalation of defence costs, as he will understand. Since he made an entertaining oration, perhaps I may say to him that to be lectured by a sponsored Member of the National Union of Railwaymen about the escalation of costs is quite exciting. There has been escalation in regard to many things in the last 10 years, not least the problem of travelling on the railways. May I ask him which investment programmes he would recommend for cuts by British Rail?
The hon. Member for Pontypridd complained that the money we were spending on Trident would be better spent on other defence capabilities, but in another part of his speech he made it clear that his party would have no intention of spending it in any such way and would cut our planned defence spending, that is, the provision for our security. I do not know which way he wants it. Does he want more conventional defence or just less defence? We all know what his leader intends, but I do not find it wholly consistent to argue for less spending on Trident but for spending it on other things, and then to say in the next breath that one wants less spending on defence as a whole.
Mr. John: However much we can afford to spend on defence, I want the best total defence packet for this country. The right hon. Gentleman has written articles in the News of the World and elsewhere, and has spoken about the hard choices that are to be made. Would he care to tell the House which items of equipment will have to be displaced in order to afford the Trident programme?
Mr. Nott: I also want the best possible defence packet for this country. Naturally, everybody wants the money to be spent in the most cost-effective way. However, if we take the cumulative impact of the additional expenditure by this Government on defence, we shall have more than £1 billion a year more, in real terms, to spend annually on

219
the defence budget at the end of the decade. Therefore, there will be more money available to spend on conventional forces. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman wishes to make about the distribution of resources and about how we should spend our money. However given his party's view or the view of one of his parties, or the views of one part of his party's views, or one part of his policy, the hon. Gentleman is not in a position to criticise us for not spending more on defence.
Mr. John: It is not I who has spoken about these cuts, but the right hon. Gentleman. He continually talks about hard choices. If the picture is so rosy, what hard choices will he make and what hard choices does he have to make? Perhaps that was just rhetoric to fill up an article in the News of the World.
Mr. Nott: In my short time in the House I have never known a Minister to end a debate by devoting his remarks to complicated resource matters that involve the next 10 years. It would be reasonable to ask that question in a Select Committee, but one cannot deal now with the minutiae of the defence programme for the next 10 years.
The nuclear deterrent, for all its threat of horror—indeed, because of that threat—has provided a very stable system of security. My right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) said that nuclear power was a great leveller not of cities but of aggressive intentions. For over 30 years we have had peace in Europe. It would be a perilous step if we were to gamble away one system of security that has worked for one that is untried.
In this century there have been two dreadful wars, which have devastated Europe. The First World War arose as a result of an arms race. That is why arms control is vital. However, the Second World War arose because of a great disparity of power and because the democratic nations failed to organise their own collective security. The responsibility on the British Government—as a crucial link between our American and European allies—is immense. It must not be us who destabilise NATO.
It is nonsense to suggest that Western policy requires us to sit with our thumb over the button, poised to launch Armageddon if some computer or radar tube were to go on the blink. Since Cuba, nearly 20 years ago, when Khrushchev's gamble taught the Russians a hard lesson, we have come nowhere near the nuclear brimk. We are nowhere near the brink now. Through the years, mutual comprehension of the realities and some useful agreements about how to manage them, by hot lines, by the exchange of information and by arrangements to ensure against nuclear war by accident have helped to increase stability further. We are nowhere near the brink now. We need not, unless we lose our nerve and our common sense, come near to it in the future.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 316, Noes 248.

Division No. 89]

[10.00 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Atkins, Rt HonH. (S'thorne)

Aitken, Jonathan

Atkins, Robert (PrestonN)

Alexander, Richard

Atkinson, David (B'm'th, E)

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Baker, Kenneth (St. M'bone)

Ancram, Michael

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Arnold, Tom

Banks, Robert

220

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Fry, Peter

Bell, SirRonald

Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

Bendall, Vivian

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Bennett, SirFrederic(T'bay)

Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

Benyon, Thomas(A'don)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Benyon, W.(Buckingham)

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Best, Keith

Glyn, Dr Alan

Bevan, David Gilroy

Goodhart, Philip

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Goodlad, Alastair

Biggs-Davison, John

Gorst, John

Blackburn, John

Gow, Ian

Bonsor, SirNicholas

Gower, Sir Raymond

Bottomley, Peter(W'wich W)

Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

Bowden, Andrew

Gray, Hamish

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Greenway, Harry

Bradford, Rev R.

Grieve, Percy

Braine, Sir Bernard

Griffiths, E.(B'ySt.Edm'ds)

Bright, Graham

Griffiths, Peter(Portsm'thN)

Brinton, Tim

Grist, Ian

Brittan, Leon

Grylls, Michael

Brooke, Hon Peter

Gummer, JohnSelwyn

Brotherton, Michael

Hamilton, Hon A.

Brown, Michael (Brigg&Sc'n)

Hamilton, Michael(Salisbury)

Browne, John(Winchester)

Hampson, DrKeith

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Hannam, John

Bryan, Sir Paul

Haselhurst, Alan

Buchanan-Smith, Alick

Hastings, Stephen

Buck, Antony

Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

Budgen, Nick

Hawkins, Paul

Bulmer, Esmond

Hawksley, Warren

Burden, Sir Frederick

Hayhoe, Barney

Butcher, John

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Butler, HonAdam

Heddle, John

Cadbury, Jocelyn

Henderson, Barry

Carlisle, John(LutonWest)

Heseltine, RtHonMichael

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Hicks, Robert

Carlisle, RtHon M. (R'c'n)

Higgins, Rt HonTerence L.

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Hogg, HonDouglas(Gr'th'm)

Channon, Rt. Hon. Paul

Holland, Philip(Carlton)

Chapman, Sydney

Hooson, Tom

Churchill, W.S.

Hordern, Peter

Clark, HonA. (Plym'th, S'n)

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Clark, Sir W. (CroydonS)

Howell, Rt Hon D.(G'ldf'd)

Clarke, Kenneth(Rushcliffe)

Howell, Ralph (NNorfolk)

Cockeram, Eric

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Colvin, Michael

Hunt.John (Ravensbourne)

Cope, John

Hurd, HonDouglas

Cormack, Patrick

Irving, Charles(Cheltenham)

Corrie, John

Jenkin, RtHonPatrick

Costain, SirAlbert

JohnsonSmith, Geoffrey

Cranborne, Viscount

Jopling, Rt HonMichael

Crouch, David

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Dean, Paul (NorthSomerset)

Kaberry, SirDonald

Dickens, Geoffrey

Kellett-Bowman, MrsElaine

Dorrell, Stephen

Kershaw, Anthony

Doug las-Hamilton, Lord J.

Kimball, Marcus

Dover, Denshore

King, Rt Hon Tom

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Kitson, SirTimothy

Dunlop, John

Knight, MrsJill

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Knox, David

Durant, Tony

Lamont, Norman

Dykes, Hugh

Lang, Ian

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Langford-Holt, SirJohn

Eggar, Tim

Latham, Michael

Elliott, SirWilliam

Lawrence, Ivan

Emery, Peter

Lawson, RtHonNigel

Eyre, Reginald

Lee, John

Fairgrieve, Russell

Lennox-Boyd, HonMark

Farr, John

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Fell, Anthony

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Loveridge, John

Finsberg, Geoffrey

Luce, Richard

Fisher, SirNigel

Lyell, Nicholas

Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)

McCrindle, Robert

Fookes, Miss Janet

Macfarlane, Neil

Forman, Nigel

MacGregor, John

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Fox, Marcus

Macmillan, RtHon M.

Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

McNair-Wilson, M.(N'bury)

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

McNair-Wilson, P. (NewF'st)

221

McQuarrie, Albert

Rossi, Hugh

Madel, David

Rost, Peter

Major, John

Royle, Sir Anthony

Marland, Paul

Sainsbury, HonTimothy

Marlow, Tony

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

MarshallMichael(Arundel)

Scott, Nicholas

Mates, Michael

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Mather, Carol

Shaw, Michael(Scarborough)

Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

Shelton, William(Streatham)

Mawby, Ray

Shepherd, Colin(Hereford)

Mawhinney, DrBrian

Shepherd, Richard

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Shersby, Michael

Mayhew, Patrick

Silvester, Fred

Mellor, David

Sims, Roger

Meyer, SirAnthony

Skeet, T. H. H.

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Smith, Dudley

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Speed, Keith

Mills, Peter (West Devon)

Speller, Tony

Miscampbell, Norman

Spence, John

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

Moate, Roger

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Molyneaux, James

Sproat, lain

Monro, Hector

Squire, Robin

Montgomery, Fergus

Stainton, Keith

Moore, John

Stanbrook, lvor

Morgan, Geraint

Stanley, John

Morris, M. (N'hamptonS)

Steen, Anthony

Morrison, HonC. (Devizes)

Stevens, Martin

Morrison, HonP. (Chester)

Stewart, lan(Hitchin)

Mudd, David

Stewart, A.(ERenfrewshire)

Murphy, Christopher

Stokes, John

Myles, David

StradlingThomas, J.

Neale, Gerrard

Tapsell, Peter

Needham, Richard

Taylor, Robert (CroydonNW)

Nelson, Anthony

Taylor, Teddy (S'endE)

Neubert, Michael

Temple-Morris, Peter

Newton, Tony

Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

Normanton, Tom

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Nott, Rt Hon John

Thompson, Donald

Onslow, Craniey

Thornton, Malcolm

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Townend, John(Bridlington)

Osborn, john

Trippier, David

Page, John (Harrow, West)

Trotter, Neville

Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby)

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

Vaughan, DrGerard

Parkinson, Cecil

Viggers, Peter

Parris, Matthew

Waddington, David

Patten, Christopher(Bath)

Wakeham, John

Patten, John (Oxford)

Waldegrave, HonWilliam

Pattie Geoffrey

Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)

Pawsey, James

Walker, B. (Perth)

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir D.

Pollock, Alexander

Wall, Patrick

Porter, Barry

Waller, Gary

Powell, Rt Hon J.E. (S Down)

Walters, Dennis

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Ward, John

Price, Sir David (Eastleigh)

Warren, Kenneth

Prior, Rt Hon James

Watson, John

Proctor, K. Harvey

Wells, John(Maidstone)

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Wells, Bowen

Raison, Timothy

Wheeler, John

Rathbone, Tim

Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

Whitney, Raymond

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Wickenden, Keith

Renton, Tim

Wiggin, Jerry

RhodesJames, Robert

Williams, D. (Montgomery)

RhysWilliams, Sir Brandon

Wolfson, Mark

Ridley, HonNicholas

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Ridsdale, Julian

Younger, Rt Hon George

Rifkind, Malcolm

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Tellers for the Ayes:

Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Mr. Anthony Berry

Ross, Wm.(Londonderry)

NOES

Abse, Leo

Anderson, Donald

Adams, Allen

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Allaun, Frank

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Alton, David

Atkinson, N.(H'gey, )

222

Bagier, Gordon A.T.

Ginsburg, David

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Golding, john

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (H'wd)

Gourlay, Harry

Beith, A. J.

Graham, Ted

Benn, Rt Hon A. Wedgwood

Grant, George(Morpeth)

Bennett, Andrew(St'kp'tN)

Grant, John (Islington C)

Bidwell, Sydney

Grimond, Rt Hon J.

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Hamilton, James(Bothwell)

Bottomley, RtHonA (M'b'ro)

Hamilton, W.W.(C'tral Fife)

Bradley, Tom

Hardy, Peter

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Harrison, RtHon Walter

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Brown, Ron(E'burgh, Leith)

Haynes, Frank

Brown, Ronald W. (H'ckn'yS)

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Callaghan, Jim(Midd't'n&P)

Heffer, Eric S.

Campbell, Ian

Hogg, N.(EDunb't'nshire)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Holland, S.(L'b'th, Vauxh'll)

Canavan, Dennis

HomeRobertson, John

Cant, R. B.

Hooley, Frank

Carmichael, Neil

Horam, John

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Howell, RtHon D.

Cartwright, John

Howells, Geraint

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Huckfield, Les

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)

Hudson Davies, Gwilym E.

Cohen, Stanley

Hughes, Mark(Durham)

Coleman, Donald

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Cook, Robin F.

Janner, Hon Greville

Cowans, Harry

John, Brynmor

Cox, T.(W'dsw'th, Toot'g)

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Craigen, J. M.

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Crowther, J.S.

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Cryer, Bob

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Cunningham, G.(lslingtonS)

Kerr, Russell

Cunningham, DrJ.(W'h'n)

Kilfedder, James A.

Dalyell, Tam

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Davidson, Arthur

Kinnock, Neil

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L 'lli)

Lambie, David

Davies, lfor (Gower)

Lamborn, Harry

Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

Lamond, James

Davis, T. (B'ham, Stechf'd)

Leighton, Ronald

Deakins, Eric

Lewis, Arthur (N'ham NW)

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Litherland, Robert

Dempsey, James

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Dewar, Donald

Lyon, Alexander(York)

Dixon, Donald

Lyons, Edward (Bradf'dW)

Dobson, Frank

Mabon, Rt Hon DrJ. Dickson

Dormand,Jack

McCartney, Hugh

Douglas, Dick

McDonald, DrOonagh

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

McKay, Allen(Penistone)

Dubs, Alfred

McKelvey, William

Duffy, A. E. P.

MacKenzie, RtHonGregor

Dunn, James A.

Maclennan, Robert

Dunnett, Jack

McMahon, Andrew

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

McNally, Thomas

Eadie, Alex

McNamara, Kevin

Eastham, Ken

McTaggart, Robert

Edwards, R. (W'hampt'nSE)

McWilliam, John

Ellis, R. (NE D'bysh're)

Magee, Bryan

Ellis, Tom(Wrexham)

Marks, Kenneth

English, Michael

Marshall, D (G'gowS'ton)

Evans, loan (Aberdare)

Marshall, Dr Edmund(Goole)

Evans, John (Newton)

Marshall, Jim (LeicesterS)

Ewing, Harry

Martin, M(G'gowS'burn)

Field, Frank

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Fitch, Alan

Maxton, John

Fitt, Gerard

Maynard, Miss Joan

Flannery, Martin

Meacher, Michael

Fletcher, Raymond(llkeston)

Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

Fletcher, Ted(Darlington)

Mikardo, lan

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Ford, Ben

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Forrester, John

Mitchell, Austin(Grimsby)

Foster, Derek

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

Fraser, J. (Lamb'th, N'w'd)

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Freud, Clement

Moyle, RtHon Roland

Garrett, John (NorwichS)

Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

George Bruce

Newens, Stanley

223

O'Halloran,Michael

Roper,John

O'Neill,Martin

Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Rowlands,Ted

Palmer,Arthur

Ryman,John

Park,George

Sandelson,Neville

Parker,John

Sever,John

Pavitt,Laurie

Sheerman,Barry

Pendry,Tom

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Penhaligon,David

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Silkin.RtHonJ. (Deptford)

Prescott,John

Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

Price, C. (Lewisham W)

Silverman,Julius

Race, Reg

Skinner,Dennis

Radice,Giles

Smith,Cyril (Rochdale)

Rees, Rt Hon M (Leeds S)

Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

Richardson, Jo

Snape, Peter

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Soley,Clive

Roberts,Allan (Bootle)

Spearing,Nigel

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Spriggs,Leslie

Roberts,Gwilym (Cannock)

Stallard, A. W.

Robertson,George

Steel, Rt Hon David

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

Rodgers, Rt Hon William

Stoddart,David

Rooker, J.W.

Stott, Roger

224

Strang,Gavin

Wellbeloved,James

Straw,Jack

Welsh,Michael

Summerskill,Hon Dr Shirley

Whitehead, Phillip

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Whitlock, William

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Wigley, Dafydd

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)

Williams, Rt Hon A. (S'sea W)

Thorne,Stan (PrestonSouth)

Williams, SirT. (W'ton)

Tilley,John

Wilson, William (C'try SE)

Tinn,James

Woodall,Alec

Torney,Tom

Woolmer,Kenneth

Urwin, Rt HonTom

Wrigglesworth, lan

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Young, David (Bolton E)

Wainwright,E. (Dearne V)

Walker, Rt Hon H. (D'caster)

Tellers for the Noes:

Watkins,David

Mr. George Morton and

Weetch, Ken

Mr. Frank R. White.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House endorses the Government's decision to maintain a strategic nuclear deterrent and the choice of the Trident missile system as the successor to the Polaris force.

Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications)
10.14 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw): I beg to move,
That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) Regulations 1981, which were laid before this House on 17 February, be approved.
Mr. Speaker: I understand that it will be for the convenience of the House to take at the same time the motion on the Scottish statutory instrument:
That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 1981, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.
Mr. Shaw: These regulations introduce fees for planning applications. The enabling powers are contained in section 37 of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980.
Our purpose in introducing the regulations is to offset some of the cost to public expenditure of administering the system of development control. The scale of fees set out in the regulations will, we estimate, raise about £38 million in the course of a full year in England and Wales and about £2 million in Scotland. That represents about 60 per cent. of local authorities' expenditure on development control. This offset to public expenditure has already been taken into account in setting next year's public expenditure totals and grants to local authorities.
I am well aware of the argument that development control represents a service to the public and not to the developer. But once a system of planning controls is established, there is a good deal of benefit to be obtained from gaining a planning permission.
It does not seem at all unreasonable, therefore, that the developer should share with the taxpayer and the ratepayer the cost of administering the system. The House itself took this view in principle in giving the Secretary of State the enabling power in the 1980 Act, and I hope the House will now agree that these regulations provide a fair and workable means of putting the principle into practice.
In setting the scale of fees, we have been concerned not to put an excessive burden on any developer. We have also been determined to achieve, first, a uniform scale throughout England, Wales and Scotland; secondly, a scale that is not difficult or expensive to administer; and thirdly, a scale that relates the fee broadly to the scale of the development.
We set out these principles in a consultation paper last June, and we consulted very widely on the suggested scheme of fees set out in that paper. We received nearly 400 responses, which were supplemented by the extensive debate that took place in this House and in another place on the enabling section of the Act. We considered all views very carefully in arriving at the final scheme incorporated in these regulations. As a result of those consultations and the views expressed, we have made a number of significant changes.
Before I explain the changes, perhaps it may help hon. Members if I outline very briefly the scope of the fees. They are payable, in the first place, on applications for planning permission; secondly, on applications for outline
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planning permission—that is to say,"in principle" approval of a proposed development; and, thirdly on applications for the approval of matters reserved in an outline planning permission—that is to say, the details of layout, access, landscaping and so on. In addition, fees will be payable on applications for consents to display advertisements, the deemed applications for planning permission which arise from enforcement appeals and the deemed applications arising from established use certificate appeals to the Secretary of State.
I now set out the matters in the regulations which do not attract a fee. First and foremost, the regulations do not include fees for planning appeals. That provision was dropped from the enabling powers in the course of consideration in another place. No fees will be charged for applications to local authorities related to listed building consents, tree preservation orders, established use certificates or the various other applications which can be made under the town and country planning legislation.
There are two exemptions to which I should draw the attention of the House. First, we received a number of representations arguing that there should be no fee for planning applications which were required solely because permitted development rights under the General Development Order had been removed by a direction under article 4 of the order. We have incorporated that exemption into the regulations, at regulation 5.
Secondly, some hon. Members also made representations on behalf of the disabled. In particular, they voiced concern that local authorities might be required to impose a fee on an application to improve an access for a disabled person or to construct accommodation, for example, for a kidney machine. Regulation 4 meets this point by exempting alterations and improvements to a disabled person's house to improve access, safety, health or comfort.
We have also responded to representations on behalf of a number of amateur sporting organisations which were concerned that the cost of a fee for developing a sports field would be a strain on their resources. Paragraph 3 of schedule 1 provides for a low flat fee of £40 for applications by non-profit-making organisations for playing fields.
In devising the fees, our prime concern was to ensure that they were not excessive for any type of applicant. A number of the changes that we have made to our proposals are designed to achieve that. First, we have put a top limit on every scale of fee. The maximum fee for an outline application is £1,000, compared with our original proposal of £20,000. Detailed applications for buildings are subject to a maximum fee of £2,000, compared with no maximum at all in our original proposals. Similarly, we have put a maximum of £3,000 on applications for the winning and working of minerals and £200 on applications for other operations, compared with our original proposals of £20,000. These maxima reflect the fact that the fees are an offset to the cost of processing the application and not a tax on the development. And the cost of processing does not rise indefinitely with the size of the development proposed.
At the other end of the scale, we have looked again at the smaller developments. We originally proposed that householder applications—which, as hon. Members know, make up one-half of all planning applications—should be subject to a flat fee of £30. In response to the wishes of Parliament, we have reduced this

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to £20. These applications are for house extensions too big to benefit from the permitted development rights in the General Development Order. In addition, we are removing many more small developments out of specific control altogether. Thus, the new General Development (Amendment) Order 1981, which was laid as recently as 27 February, has the effect of extending these permitted development rights so that a further 50,000 householder applications annually, and perhaps more, will become permitted development and will thus not be subject to fees. We are, therefore, in the context of applications which attract fees, talking about sizeable developments costing several or many hundreds or, more likely, thousands of pounds.
Nevertheless, hon. Members expressed concern on behalf of the owner-occupier faced with that fee. We did not think it right to exempt the householder altogether. There are over a quarter of a million such applications each year—over half the total annual number of applications. Such applications form a considerable part of the cost of administering development control. It would be inequitable to heap the whole of that cost on to the other sectors, and, in particular, the business sector. Nevertheless, we thought it right that the fee should be set at the lower level. That is why the regulations provide for a flat fee of £20.
In the business sector, too, there may be very small developments which do not raise very serious matters of land use, though they require planning approval. We have, therefore, introduced a new step on the scale of charges for buildings so that applications for building works not creating more than 40 square metres of floor space would attract a fee of only £20. That applies also to developments which create no floor space, such as shop front developments. On advertisements we set a low fee of £10 for applications concerned with signs on business premises intended to advertise the business. We have now added to that category advance signs away from premises used by small businesses in rural areas.
I have illustrated some of the changes that we have made. I hope that hon. Members will see that in constructing the scale of fees we have sought to ensure that the small man is not ever faced with an excessively high fee, even if that means that a big development will sometimes pay less than one might expect.
I now turn to other aspects of these proposals. In the debates on the enabling power, some hon. Members expressed the fear that the introduction of fees might encourage evasion of planning control. They feared that developers would be tempted to avoid payment of fees by simply ignoring development control and proceeding with unauthorised development. I do not think that the level of fees that we have now set would make many people think that that course was worth the risks involved. Nevertheless, we could see the loophole. By providing for a fee for deemed applications arising from enforcement appeals, we have closed that loophole. When we introduced the amendment to the enabling power to enable us to achieve that, it was welcomed by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
To avoid injustice to the appellant whose appeal succeeds on legal grounds, we have provided for the fee to be refunded in those cases. We have also provided for refunds when appeals are withdrawn at an early stage.
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Many hon. Members will, I know, want to see what benefit the applicant will get by way of an improved service. The Government take the view that applicants are entitled to efficient service irrespective of any liability to fees. That is why we have embarked on such a thoroughgoing review of development control.
I think it would be helpful to remind the House of what, in summary, the resulting measures are. First, we have cut out the wasteful overlap in responsibility for planning applications between counties and districts. Secondly, our proposals to amend the General Development Order will relieve the planners of relatively minor and uncontentious work and allow them to deal more promptly with the applications that remain.
Thirdly, we have a number of measures in hand to speed up the appeals system, including the issue of instant decisions in suitable cases, experiments with a new kind of informal hearing and the creation of a task force of part-time inspectors to cope with surges in workload. Fourthly, and above all, we have set out clear policy guidelines in our circular"Development Control Policy and Practice". This, while reaffirming our commitment to established policies of conservation, says that local authorities must make sure that their internal organisation allows applications to be processed quickly, that they consider only matters that are relevant, that they do not place unreasonable demands on developers and that they refuse permission only where there are clear and specific reasons for doing so.
I believe that we have done all that we can to seek the views of interested parties on the fees. I should like to pay tribute to hon. Members and to all those in the many organisations who have put time and effort into contributing the many constructive suggestions we received. I hope that I have demonstrated that we have made major changes in our proposals in the light of what we have heard.
I hope, too, that it will be appreciated that there is no way of pleasing all points of view and that we have to strike the best balance we can. Having said that, I acknowledge that in introducing regulations of this kind it is not always possible to foresee every problem which may arise in practice. We shall, therefore, be keeping the operation of the regulations under close review in then-first year. If that experience shows changes to be necessary, we shall bring forward amending proposals. In the meantime, we shall give comprehensive guidance to all concerned in a circular on the implementation of the scheme.
10.30 pm
Mr. Ted Graham: The Minister should receive some tribute from the Opposition because a move has been made from the earlier figures and the scope of the charges as outlined in Committee by the Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services. It was envisaged that about £30 million would be caught by the fees. The figure has been revised, and it is now £38 million. I assume that that has been done largely to take account of inflation over less than a year. It is now established that in the Government's mind inflation has been running at about 24 or 25 per cent. over the past year.
Some of the ameliorations will benefit those who are affected by them. However, it seems that we are considering not only charges for planning applications. The Minister referred to the General Development Order,

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to a relaxation in development control, to measures taken by the Department, which have been well publicised, to speed up the planning procedure, and to the division of functions between various authorities. I understand that all those matters are within the scope of this short debate.
The element of fees was announced as part of the Government's policy as early as July 1979, within two or three months of the Government's coming to power. Phrases have been used such as"setting the people free" and"speedy, efficient, viable local government" as a cloak for introducing the breaking of what we consider to be a good principle that has dominated the planning system. This is a crude and blunt means of reducing public expenditure by the Government's favourite method, namely, shifting the burden sideways from central Government to local government, which has no alternative but to pass it on to the public.
Our basic objections to the philosophy that lies behind this measure were well enunciated in Committee by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). We regard planning as a community obligation. Individual charges exemplify the Government's misunderstanding of the nature of planning legislation that has been developed over more than 150 years. The purpose of planning restrictions is to protect the community generally. The planning system is not a service for the individual applicant. It is designed to benefit the public generally.
We are not alone in opposing the principle of charging for planning applications. At an early stage the CBI made known its objections. Its reasons for doing so are well known. First, the planning system is designed to protect the community generally. It should be financed accordingly and paid for by the community. That principle has held for over 150 years. Secondly, the ability to recover costs will remove the incentive to achieve efficiency. Planning charges will sustain and not diminish bureaucracy. Do the Government ignore the views of the CBI as well as those of the Opposition?
The House-Builders Federation also objected to the principle of charging for planning applications. It argued that the construction industry is at an appallingly low ebb; it is in a desperate situation. Builders, architects and many other sections of the industry are badly affected by inflation and by Government policy. Charges for planning fees will increase the cost of building houses. The Royal Town Planning Institute and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors likewise objected.
I hope that the Minister will refer briefly to some of the 400 organisations that he says have responded. Will he refer to the individual organisations that have expressed their pleasure and appreciation of the proposed charges? The hon. Gentleman would have us believe that many local authorities will anticipate with satisfaction the possibility of being able to reap an income. If that is so, they are forgetting that the Government have already taken steps by means of the rate support grant to reduce the money that the Government will have to pay out. The charges are being made not to provide authorities with a source of income but as a partial recoupment of the loss of grant.
Will the Minister also consider the implications for staffing in planning departments? The staff must administer the application for charges. The Minister can have it either one of two ways. As in the London borough of Enfield, which is my borough, he can say that it will
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have about 2,500 planning applications which will have to be processed for charges in the coming year. Either it will have to take on additional staff and will have to worry about the security and the safeguarding of the money, and administer the charging process, or the Minister may say that it is not necessary to take on extra staff because by a little reorganisation it will be possible for the members of staff to absorb the additional function.
Mr. Sydney Chapman: I have much sympathy with the hon. Member's argument. However, he has already referred to the forthcoming Town and Country Planning General Development (Amendment) Order. Does not he agree that there will be a substantial number—in my view, nearer 15 per cent. than 20 per cent.—of reductions in applications as a result of that order, if the House passes it? That will more than compensate for any extra administrative work involved in receiving and administering the charges.
Mr. Graham: The hon. Member cannot have it both ways. Either there will be a reduction in planning applications, and the amount of money which it was estimated that the local council would get in planning fees will be less than was estimated, or—as I have been told by many planning officers, and as I will tell the House when the matter is debated fully in the amendment to the General Development Order—contrary to reducing the work load, much of the work will have gone over without any income to the authority.
In future, whereas at present an application can be made at no cost, if an application incurs a cost—it could be £20, £30, £40 or a great deal more—I hazard a guess that many people will think carefully before they make an application. The period of informal consultation with the planning officer WJ.11 be extended. His time will be taken up in advance in giving determinations and informal views. When the charge is finally made for the planning application, it will have been more than negatived by the amount of time taken up by the planning department in processing it.
Therefore, the members of the planning staff, who in addition to their existing duties will have to process the charges, will have to decide that an urgent matter will have to be put aside until they get round to it.
Will we see as a result of the level of enforcements and inspections, and the consideration of what is or is not a non-conforming use, that some of the members of staff who are already engaged fully and stretched will have an addition to their duties? Is the Minister seriously suggesting that the relaxations which he envisages in the General Development Order will result in less work, when the advice that he will have received on the General Development Order, and which I have received from those whom he has consulted shows clearly that more work will result from increasing the permitted development from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent.? I am grateful for the exemption of those in terraced houses.
The advice that the Minister and I are getting is that more work will be involved. The General Development Order will result in more neighbours being suspicious and asking the local planning office to check whether a neighbour who is carrying out a development is within the permitted area.
The Minister gave us some interesting information about exemptions. The whole House will be grateful for

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any amelioration for the disabled and provision of access to their homes. However, I should like the Minister to be a little clearer. A press release accompanying the regulations stated:
"Disabled people who apply for planning permission to improve the means of access or the facilities of their homes will be exempt from paying the fees."
The Minister pointed out fairly that that related to safety and health, but some people will assume that, because the disabled are already a specially disadvantaged category, normal planning charges for extensions to their houses or for other work will be waived. Will the Minister make it clear that the disabled will still have to pay such charges?
Mr. Giles Shaw: The important words in relation to the disabled are"safety, health and comfort". Comfort is. a pretty wide description.
Mr. Graham: Comfort could involve an extension of property. Such matters will have to be tested and approved by the Department, but we should be grateful for such a concession.
However the Minister dresses up the regulations, they seek to enable Government to save £38 million, which will be paid for by the recipients of planning permission. We stand by the principle that the built environment is shaped by, and for the benefit of, not individuals, companies or corporations, but the community as a whole. It is because the Government show such contempt for that principle, like many others, and put it up for hire, to be bought and sold, that I invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to join me in opposing the regulations.
10.42 pm
Mr. Sydney Chapman: I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham). I always listen closely to what he says, and I repeat what I said in my intervention during his speech—namely, that I have a lot of sympathy with much that he said, though I disagree with one or two points, as will become apparent from my speech.
Perhaps I should begin by declaring an interest as a qualified architect and qualified town and country planner, though I am not in every essence of the meaning a practising architect or planner at present.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is aware of my great misgivings about the regulations and the Building (Prescribed Fees) Regulations which preceded them. I agree with the hon. Member for Edmonton that development control is essentially a service for the benefit of the community, and I have always held that building regulations and town planning controls should be paid out of the rates and national taxation.
I recognise that that principle has been breached, not only by the prescribed fees regulations, but because building regulations have had to be paid for in Scotland and inner London for many years. I have no ideological hang-up about that. I regret it, but I recognise the Government's commitment to explore every avenue of recouping public expenditure.
That said, however, I hold firmly to the opinion that if my hon. Friend is to introduce these fees regulations there should be a most definite quid pro quo in the form of a patently improved performance by local planning authorities in determining planning applications.
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I need not remind the House that Parliament in its wisdom has laid down a statutory period of two months for determining planning applications. I am sure that most people would agree that all but a handful of planning applications ought to be determined within that two-month period.
Representatives of my profession, the vast majority of whom work for local planning authorities, often boast that performance has improved and that about two-thirds of applications are now determined within the statutory period. I find that a rather empty boast. I believe that the vast majority of those two-thirds are minor applications and that a much higher proportion of the more significant and major applications take far longer than that to determine.
I referred to this matter on the Report stage of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act, but I again express concern at the ability of a local planning authority to reject a reasonable application in order to encourage the submission of a revised application and thus to obtain a fee twice over if the regulations were allowed to go through as originally drafted. I must therefore, first, pay tribute to my hon. Friend for making some substantial though not entirely conclusive changes in relation to that particular worry.
As I have suggested before, I believe that a fee should be payable only if an application is approved within the statutory two-month period. I am partly reassured, however, by regulation 7, which attempts to deal with revised applications for planning permission and approval of reserved matters. In my view, however, even regulation 7 has two very wide loopholes.
First, while regulation 7 applies to resubmissions and details, it does not apply to approvals where, as is frequently the case, it is necessary to vary details even after the works on site have been started. I think that the hon. Member for Edmonton referred to the problem that house builders feel that they will face. It is not unusual for a house builder to submit detailed designs for approval well before choosing the actual materials. Indeed, he quite often has to change the materials, whether it be the type or colour of a tile or a brick, simply because the tile or brick that he originally intended to use is not obtainable on the day. That is the first loophole.
Secondly, my reading of regulation 7 suggests that it applies only to one revised application. In my humble experience, it is not unusual for some local planning authorities, particularly on the more significant applications, to require perhaps three or four sets of revised plans before they are satisfied with the final detailed designs.
I therefore respectfully suggest that the problem could be remedied by inserting in schedule 1, paragraph 4, a new subsection (d) which might include the words"the external appearance of the building or buildings". My hon. Friend may be able to reassure the House on this matter by saying that the problem will be covered by means of a circular, but I hope he will understand me if I say that surely, in the aftermath of the introduction of the Building (Prescribed Fees) Regulations, experience shows—I choose my words carefully—that consternation and confusion can be caused by any ambiguity in the regulations. Indeed, I think it is arguable—I hope that I do not set myself up as a barrackroom lawyer—that local authorities could be obliged to charge full fees on every occasion, because their auditors will expect them to do so and they may be held liable for the loss of revenue if they do not do so.

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I must express the hope that these regulations will not come into force—I think that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary reassured the House on this point—before the House has decided on the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to introduce a new general development amendment order which, one hopes, will extend the number and types of smaller developments not requiring planning permission.
I am partially reassured by what my hon. Friend has said this evening. However, I view the prospect of a general development amendment order with much more enthusiasm than I have for these regulations.
10.51 pm
Mr. Michael Martin: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham), I am opposed to the introduction of these regulations. I have often heard Conservative Members say that they want to do away with bureaucracy in local government, yet they are now introducing measures which will add to that bureaucracy.
When I was a Glasgow district councillor, the Tory councillors were quick to say that they wanted to give more power to the officials and to take power away from the elected members. I can see situations in which officials will come more and more to the elected members asking for exemption.
At a time of Government cutbacks, there are many community organisations in my area which want to embark on projects providing community facilities. If they are to be hit with fees in relation, say, to the building of a community hut in which young children can be looked after during the day, they will be quite easily put off. I can see that the inner city areas will once again be the major casualty of these measures.
In the city of Glasgow, many people are remarking that all that seems to be happening is that demolition is taking place but there is no new building. We should like to encourage people to come there to build small factory units, social facilities, shops and so on, but they will be easily put off by these regulations. Their argument will be"It is all very well your asking us to come, but here we have a Government who seem to be putting yet another hurdle in our path".
The easiest way for a local authority or the Government to raise finance is to allow buildings—provided that they meet the proper specifications and are within a proper planning zone—to go ahead and be built with the minimum of obstacles. Then, through the rating system, a great deal of the losses can be recouped, which is of benefit to the community.
A large part of my constituency is being redeveloped. Some of the Churches, which are considering building in the area, will be asking me whether the regulations mean that they will have to raise even more money when already their resources are stretched to the limit. I am constantly receiving complaints from groups in the area that local authorities can no longer give them grants to keep projects going. I see the regulations leading to disaster. I ask the Government to think again.
10.56 pm
Mr. John Farr: I listened carefully to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I cannot say that I am satisfied about one or two aspects of the regulations. I am concerned especially about the effect
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on horticulture and agriculture. A similar burden, so far as I am aware, will not be placed on agriculturists in other countries of the Community. The cost to agriculture and horticulture in Britain will be considerable if the regulations are approved.
Already in many respects British producers labour at a disadvantage compared with our EEC comrades. Now they face an added burden. I should like my hon. Friend to explain the impact on horticulture. Although agricultural schemes and new buildings are expensive, horticultural buildings, reckoned square foot by square foot, are much more expensive. They are generally adjacent to built-up areas and, therefore, far more subject to the need for planning consent than agricultural buildings.
The reason for my disappointment is that the Department was informed last year that agriculturists and horticulturists were unhappy with the regulations. Certain alterations were suggested which, unfortunately, have not been made. As the regulations stand, agricultural development falls under the second category in part II of schedule 1. Although most agricultural buildings are not constructed in the expensive manner of industrial and commercial buildings, the return on an agricultural building is only about half of that on a commercial building. It takes longer to recoup from the returns on the investment.
The Scottish Farm Buildings Investigation Unit calculated in 1980 the cost for agriculture and horticulture if the regulations were put into effect. It calculated an extra 0·6 per cent. on intensive buildings, 0·7 per cent. on capital buildngs and 1 per cent. on storage buildings. Overall, it calculated a 1 per cent. increase in the cost of agricultural and horticultural buildings. Based on the 1979 figure of £388 million spent on new buildings in Britain, the cost would have been £4 million. It amounts to £250 on a £25,000 building.
I recognise that the regulations cannot be withdrawn or amended. I ask for an assurance, however, that the Minister will examine the effects in the next year or so. The agriculture industry in Britain is not in a happy condition.
Mr. Albert Roberts: Is the hon. Gentleman dealing with permanent buildings or temporary buildings?
Mr. Farr: The regulations apply to both and I am referring to both types.
I was saying that farm incomes in real terms fell by 24 per cent. in 1980. They have been halved over the last four years. There has been a sharp decline in the number of applications for capital grants. Furthermore, expenditure on plant, machinery and vehicles in agriculture and horticulture fell during 1980 for the first time since the war. There is a clear danger of a reduction in the productive capacity of the industry, which planning charges can only worsen.
I shall vote for the regulations tonight, but I hope that my hon. Friend will give the House an undertaking that he will scrutinise very carefully how they work. Will he, furthermore, give an undertaking that if they prove to be faulty, as I think they may well do, he will withdraw them?
11.2 pm
Mr. David Stoddart: I am surprised that this Government in particular should bring forward these regulations. I always believed that the Conservative Party felt that property was inviolable and that what the owners did in their properties was their own business. Let us make no mistake about it: planning consent is not a service to householders or to anybody else who owns land or property. It is an imposition, and people see it as such. Now the Government are proposing to charge them for that imposition. This is something which we have not experienced before. I am extremely sorry that the Government have seen fit to bring these regulations before the House.
The reason why planning was introduced in 1947—we had little of it before—was that individuals sometimes did things which were not in the best interests of the community at large. It was therefore decided that the community should have some say in what individuals did to their property. That was accepted generally. They have not come up against it yet, but householders will not accept this. They have not realised yet what will hit them, no more than they realised what would hit them when the Government imposed a 10 per cent. tax on gas. They realise now, and we are getting letters every day. When these regulations go into operation, hon. Members will be getting letters every day criticising them and the Government. As I say, this is an imposition and not a charge for a service. It shows that this Government will go to practically any lengths to avoid their financial responsibilities to local authorities.
Of course, there is more to it than that. All of us in the House believe in town and country planning, but stress that it is an imposition on the ordinary person who owns a house and wants to extend it, or owns a plot of land and wants to build something on it. These charges will be an invitation to practise evasion. Once people know that they have to pay a charge, they will seek to avoid it; I would not blame them for that. So in respect of good town and country planning these regulations could damage all that we in this House and many other people want to achieve. A number of hon. Members wish to speak and as many as possible should be heard in this debate because I am sure they will all be speaking against the regulations and against the Government.
This is the thin end of the wedge. The Minister said that the Government had heeded all the advice that they had received and all the opinions offered. They shed crocodile tears for the poor owner-occupier who just wants to build a lobby or to extend his garage. They have said that they will charge him only £20. They say that as if £20 were a drop in the ocean. To many people, particularly the owners of terraced houses, that is quite a lot of money. Of course, that is the initial charge. Hon. Members should make no mistake; as time goes on the charge will increase. Particularly under this Government, with their inflationary policies, the charge will discourage those who just want to get a little extra space for themselves.
Therefore, I shall follow the advice given by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham). With great alacrity, and with the support of my local authority, I shall go into the"No" Lobby
11.5 pm
Mr. Nicholas Lyell: I am glad to have the opportunity of making a short contribution to the debate.
I listened with interest to the speeches made by the hon. Members for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) and for Edmonton (Mr. Graham). If they were to enter office, I wonder whether they would repeal the charges.
Mr. Stoddart: Yes.
Mr. Lyell: That is welcome news.
The principle of charging is not wholly abhorrent. To some extent, planning permission increases values. However, we should remember that many neighbours object to planning permission for dwellings, because they regard the view from their window or the unneighbourliness of cars being parked opposite as affecting the value of their property. I am, therefore, extremely glad that only a proportion of the cost is to be recouped.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister recognise that no new charge is likely to be popular. The imposition of these charges will lead the public to scrutinise carefully the bureaucracy that administers the system of planning and building control. That would be a good thing. I do not suppose that it is fully realised that the cost of planning control is £63 million. At least, that is my quick estimate, which I have based on the proposition that £38 million is 60 per cent. of that figure.
I should like to know what the cost of building control is. That amount would have to be added to the £63 million. In addition, I hope that the Minister will indicate how much—I estimate that the £63 million plus is public money—is spent by those who make applications through architects and others and who hold up the entire establishment of planning and building control. In a complex society, a system of such controls is, to some exent, necessary.
Since I have been a Member of Parliament, a number of letters that have been sent to the Department have done nothing to diminish my clear impression that in many ways the system is over-elaborate. I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State could, as soon as he has time, direct his formidable talents towards discovering whether that elaborate structure could be simplified and made cheaper. I am sure that the members of the public who pay for it will be at his heels, at mine and at those of right hon. and hon. Members to see that he does.
Mr. Chapman: Does my hon. Friend agree that whatever charges an applicant may have to pay under building regulations or under this statutory instrument are but peanuts in comparison with the extra cost of development that arises from unnecessary delays? If the Government wished to pursue only one aspect, they could not do better than to minimise not only the unnecessary bureaucracy but the penal financial implications of unnecessary delays.
Mr. Lyell: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am sure that my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench agree with him as well and that they are seeking to reduce these delays.
The imposition of these charges and the real fear that revised applications will produce an extra imposition of

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charges will lead the public to look for very careful, well-thought-out co-operation from officials—and not only officials, because officials have to follow the policy of their development control committees. I therefore hope that development control committees will think through very carefully the principles which they ask their officials to follow in different parts of their districts and counties, because that is necessary if the whole edifice is to be simplified and cheapened.
11.11 pm
Mr. David Alton: Sometimes when I listen to Conservative Members, I get the impression—I say this with the greatest respect—that they take the view that all public expenditure is essentially bad, whatever its purpose. I find it hard to take that from hon. Members who only an hour or two ago were prepared to vote £5 billion of public money for the renewal of an independent nuclear weapon while they complain about the relatively minor amount being spent on the planning of our communities.
We heard the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) complaining about the effects in Glasgow of the lack of planning, and I see the problem in my own city, Liverpool. I should like to see an improvement in the way we plan our communities. That is money well spent and money which we should not be ashamed of spending.
I should have thought that the Minister, having listened to the arguments from his own side of the House and having heard the hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman), for Harborough (Mr. Farr), for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) and for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart), would have been more modest when he spoke to the House about the enthusiasm with which these proposals had been received. Hearing the Minister, one would think that everybody who had written to him and everybody he had consulted had said that these were marvellous plans and proposals and that they were greeted with great enthusiasm.
Indeed, the press statement issued by the Department of the Environment on 17 February said:
"The scheme was finalised after taking into account nearly 400 responses from local authorities, professional associations, commerce and industry, and private individuals, made in response to a consultation paper issued in June 1980."
That may well be, but it does not say what their response was. All of us who know anything about the local authority associations, the professional bodies, the association of small business men and the town planners' and architects' associations know that they have rarely been so united as they are in their opposition to these proposals for planning fees.
I well remember standing in this Chamber late one night last July—in fact, it was 1·30 in the morning—when 20 of us marched through the Lobby to oppose these proposals when they were introduced as part of the Local Government, Planning and Land Bill. I make no apology for doing that. Indeed, it was my hon. Friends who decided to cause that Division and put in Tellers for it because we felt so strongly about this matter.
Tonight, I oppose the regulations because I and my hon. Friends are convinced that the introduction of fees for planning applications is an infringement of basic civil liberties. It is ludicrous and a travesty of justice that individuals should be charged for restrictions which are designed to safeguard the people as a whole. Furthermore, the introduction of these fees in the regulations necessarily
238
implies the need to establish a bureaucracy to collect the fees, yet the Secretary of State is one of those who is constantly hectoring and lecturing us about the need to reduce bureaucracy.
As a result of these proposals, more people will be needed to collect the money to make the regulations work. This will result in delays, because many people will be unable to pay the charges on the spot. It will also result in a great deal of frustration on the part of those who have to wait, wondering what will eventually happen to them.
It is quite outrageous. It is enough that indiviual home owners will be faced with at least a £40 fee per unit for residential development, but it is incredible that it is possible for the fee to reach as high as £2,000. The Minister simply swept that aside with a wave of the hand as if it was a minor, irrelevant sum. He said"We have reduced it to £2,000." For many people, that will be sufficient to put them off making any application at all.
These extra chargs are an anachronism at a time when we are trying to reduce the cost of housing. The House is right to wonder whether this is yet another Government ploy to preclude the younger generation and those on low incomes from the advantage of making house improvements and whether the Government are trying to impose a penalty on those apparently guilty of the"crime" of trying to improve the quality of their surroundings.
My opposition to the regulations extends beyond housing. I wonder whether hon. Members have taken the time to sound out the views of the business community on the effect of these regulations upon them. Many in the business community, especially small business men, are most concerned about the regulations. I draw the attention of the House to a letter which appeared in the January edition of First Voice, the publication of the National Federation of Self-Employed. In that letter, the business community and, in particular, small business men—for whom the Conservative Party has on so many occasions professed concern—were warned that the Government's proposals would lead to the following three consequences:
"First, your not wishing to afford to 'test the system' to establish the value of any asset of land or building that you own;
"Second, playing safe with your applications by making non-controversial proposals and soft-soaping local authority officials in the hope of having an explosive-free passage through the planning minefield.
"Third, the bulk of the cost of this 'public interest' activity is to be borne by applicants, many of whom are small business people already hard pressed with high rates and taxes."
Those are not the views of my hon. Friends on the Liberal Bench or those of the official Opposition. They are the views of the very sort of people who helped to elect the present Government.
One wonders what the Government hope to achieve by passing regulations which, in effect, are inimical to the majority of people and which may have the result of causing the vast majority of people to be slightly less than truthful in their planning applications. That point was made eloquently and forcefully by the hon. Member for Swindon.
This cannot be truly called a public interest measure. It is a measure which appeals to the pecuniary interest of a monetarist Government, and it will work to the detriment of individuals' freedom in planning. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members will reconsider their position tonight and vote against the regulations, bearing in mind the effects that they will have on small businesses and on many ordinary people who would be interested in developing

239
their own homes. Some"tokenism" has been shown towards the latter by the regulations brought forward this week for reducing the planning restrictions on extensions to homes, but, although I welcome that move in one direction, we now have the Government going completely in the other direction with the present regulations. I hope that they will be reconsidered, though I very much doubt it.
11.18 pm
Mr. Tony Durant: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton) regards this as an unpopular measure because people will have to pay money. I do not know whether hon. Members on the Liberal Bench have taken soundings on site value rating. I should imagine that that is regarded as a pretty unpopular move in certain quarters. Suffice it to say that the imposition of any charges on anyone by the State is unpopular. That is bound to be so, whatever the charge is.
I have one criticsm to make, one query to put and one comment to add. My criticism concerns small business applications for advertising displays. I am concerned about the effect of the regulations in village and countryside areas in applying a quite heavy imposition in respect of very small advertisements, particularly those off site, to which my hon. Friend the Minister referred. Planning permission has to be obtained, of course, and I believe that this fairly heavy imposition will be a deterrent to the small village shopkeeper and the like.
My query arises on part II of the schedule setting out the scale of fees. One item is:
"The construction of car parks, service roads and other means of access on land used for the purposes of a single undertaking…"
Under the General Development Order amendment, which we have yet to consider in the House, it will be possible for someone, without planning permission, to build a garage so long as it is not more than a certain distance from a house. Therefore, a chap can build a garage to get his car off the road, but to build the access to the garage will entail payment of a planning fee.
I regard that as nonsense, if I may say so, and I have particularly in mind urban areas, such as that which I represent in which an effort is being made to get cars off the road. I believe that the regulation will be a deterrent for the householder against doing just that. A chap can build his garage and not have to pay a fee, but when he wants his access he will have to pay a fee.
The comment that I want to make is that I am delighted that the Minister intends to keep an eye on the matter and that he will review it. I am worried that local authorities, in order to raise revenue, may tend to turn down applications because, by so doing, a fresh application would have to be made and there would be another charge. I hope that a close watch will be kept on the matter, and that it will not become a deterrent to applicants.
I am delighted that this subject will be reviewed in due course. That completes the criticism, the query and the comment that I said I wished to make.
11.21 pm
Mr. K. J. Woolmer: The origins of these fees go back to the days when the Government said that they intended to simplify planning procedures and
240
reduce bureaucracy. The undoubted consequence of the regulations will be to complicate applications and increase bureaucracy at local level. That is bound to be the outcome. It is a sad commentary on the outcome of the original intentions. I hope, even at this stage, that Ministers will think it wise to withdraw the regulations.
There are four particular aspects that worry me. First, the instrument is unnecessarily complicated. I shall give just two of many examples to illustrate what I mean. For example, a local authority would have to calculate the application site area for a pipeline and then charge it at £40 per 0·1 of a hectare. I cannot believe that it was ever intended to be so complicated.
Another example relates to an application for a sign which will act as a guide in the direction of the applicant's business. The person behind the desk in the planning office has to decide whether the business in question is visible from the point where the sign is erected. How that can be done from a planning desk, I simply do not know. If a hotel can be seen from the point where the sign is pointing towards it, the fee is only £10, but it is £40 if the hotel cannot be seen from that point. Clearly, there will be disagreement about that. Surely, it can never have been the Government's intention to have such a complicated system whereby Whitehall decides whether a person pays £40 or £10 depending on whether there are trees between a hotel and a sign. That is Whitehall bureaucracy gone mad.
Secondly, I am worried because there is no procedure for adjudication. If an applicant and a local authority do not agree on what the fee should be, the local authority will not process the application. After waiting eight weeks, the applicant can appeal to the Secretary of State for non-determination, and the Minister will have to decide whether the applicant's view about the fee is right. That is absolute madness. The process will take months. I cannot believe that that was ever intended.
Thirdly, I want to express concern at the apparent implication of paragraph 2(1) of part I of schedule 1. It appears to encourage the undesirable practice of putting in a duplicate application for the sole purpose of enabling an applicant to appeal to the Minister for non-determination on one application while continuing to negotiate with the local authority on another. The practice of bringing pressure to bear in that way would be subsidised to the tune of 75 per cent.
Finally, unequal treatment has arisen as a result of reducing the maximum fees—from, for example, £20,000 for large projects to £2,000. The implication, surely, is that major builders will be considerably advantaged. But it is the smaller builder—the one building for the individual, the one building the small factory or the extension—who will finish up paying relatively more. I cannot believe that that was the true intention of the regulations.
This surely is an excellent example of exactly what the Government said they would not do or of what it was their intention to prevent. They were against the idea that"Whitehall knows best" or that it knew when to say that £10 or £40 should be charged for something, depending on whether a sign could be seen from a building. This is the sort of issue in which Westminster and Whitehall should never be involved.
If the regulations cannot be withdrawn, I hope that the House will have the sense to reject them in order that some of the complexities and insanities can be removed and so

241
that ratepayers and planning applicants will not be unnecessarily penalised by a Conservative-created bureaucracy.
11.25 pm
Mr. Donald Dewar: I welcome the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw) as a sort of ersatz Scottish Minister for the occasion. The change is not unwelcome and I make no complaint about it. I have noticed recently that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind) has been looking somewhat jaded. Perhaps he has been finding the task week after week of defending the indefensible sowewhat daunting. He probably deserves his rest.
I turn to the Scottish regulations, which we are also debating tonight. We had one or two statistics from the Minister about the English and Welsh position, and no doubt we shall hear a little about the Scottish figures in the reply. He mentioned that the figure of expected revenue which would be collected by these unfortunate local authorities—and which has been docked out of the rate support grant—is about £2 million. I should be interested to know whether any consideration has been given to the cost of collection in Scotland, and how many applications and change of use applications are likely to be dealt with by Scottish local authorities.
One of my objections is that the peculiar system which has been erected has a built-in incentive to local authorities to ensure that they get the maximum amount of money out of these fees and charges because, as the money has been taken from the rate support grant, if they do not get their estimated income, they will be short of pennies at the end of the day, and I am not sure that that is entirely a healthy or a helpful position.
It has become clear that this is really a very much unwanted and unloved policy. That is not uncommon with this Government. I have noticed that the fashionable formula for the night on these Benches is for Members to make a number of extremely intelligent points—usually to the effect that the measure is flawed, or will have unfortunate consequences, or victimise the wrong people or lead to inefficiency—and then to say"But we are very grateful that the Minister has agreed to consider the matter over a period of time". In other words, we acknowledge that it is a disaster and then we touch our forelock and creep away.
I hope that at least some hon. Members who have made perfectly sensible and sophisticated criticisms will have the courage of their convictions and will not rely upon the no doubt facilely and easily given assurance that there will be a review. I hope they will demand that something much more concrete is done, such as having a delay in implementation or a withdrawal so that the imperfections can be ironed out before the matter is brought into effect.
I do not want to dwell at great length upon the theory. I accept that this is not a matter of purchasing a service. The developer or the builder is not purchasing a service to his advantage; he is submitting his plans, very properly, to public scrutiny in the public interest. The Minister said that he was familiar with that argument, and then went on to dismiss it and to ignore it. But it is the basis of a great deal of the widespread objection. In my soundings of Scottish local authorities, I found that they were almost universal in their objection to the introduction of this set of charges.
242
I quote from one regional council that is certainly not Labour-dominated—the Highland regional council. Its director puts the matter extremely succinctly in a letter to my hon. friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) when he says:
"Planning is carried out in the interests of the community not the developer and it is illogical to ask the developer to pay for this service."
That is a right and perfectly tenable objection to the introduction of the charges.
I accept that one can over-value the risk that someone, because he is faced with charges, will not bother to get planning permission and will run the gauntlet of the sanctions that may follow. That probably is not a substantial danger, but I believe that enforcement costs will rise.
The director of regional planning continues:
"This will only store up further ill feeling against the planning system in the future."
That is the point. The introduction of this complicated bureaucratic system will jar and lead to friction in the planning system, among developers, customers, the public and local government. The fault will lie, as it so often does, not with local government but with central Government who are making unreasonable impositions.
It will also have a marginal impact on the building industry. I am sure that other parts of the United Kingdom are no different in this respect from Scotland where we are watching what could be described as the death of the building industry. The Government are cutting back heavily on public sector ordering. The housing support grant is down by more than one-third. Punitive measures have been taken in relation to housing capital allowances because local authorities have been unable to meet unreasonable demands for rent levels. The result, with the general recession engineered by the Government, is a measure of unused capacity that is almost unprecedented in the construction industry.
I accept that that is a marginal factor. The charges for planning permission will not be a major factor in increasing the crisis. However, even a further marginal imposition is important. The Minister has said that only a major development will incur outline planning permission fees of over £ 1,000 or detailed planning permission fees of £2,000 maximum. However, many people who want to build one house, perhaps for their own occupation, will be significantly hit.
A friend of mine, a Tory, is doing what all good Tories should do and is building his own little castle. He has a site of about one acre on which he is constructing a house for himself. He is doing it with great financial difficulty over a long period. He applied for outline planning permission. Under the new scheme, it would cost him £160 because he has 0·4 of a hectare. Ultimately, detailed planning permission would have cost him another £40. He would have to find £200 to go ahead and build his modest house. I should have thought that a Conservative Government would want to encourage, not discourage, such people.
The Minister made great play of exemptions, but I believe them to be mean and petty. I accept that there is provision for the disabled. We are glad that sports grounds will have reduced terms. However, I used to work in social work administration and I can think of many charitable organisations operating on limited means which are involved in many conversions of hostels for mentally and

243
physically handicapped people. They will not be grateful for the comparatively limited but significant charges that they will have to meet in future.
When faced with such complicated and labyrinthine orders, we should do something more generous and adequate for the charities which are involved in the use and adaptation of buildings.
Mr. Lyell: There is an illogicality in the hon. Gentleman's arguments. He urges more generous treatment and greater spending of public funds. It must come from somebody's pocket.
Mr. Dewar: Of course it must come from somebody's pocket. However, the Government are continuing a petty vendetta against local authority spending. They are saying to local authorities that they will force them to collect revenue, not to help the ratepayer who is being crucified by general Conservative policy towards local government, not to provide services, but simply to allow them to cut the rate support grant.
The rate support grant order in Scotland for 1981–82 brings the relevant expenditure for planning down by 28·6 per cent. If that is compared with the budget outturn for 1981–82, it is down by 40 per cent. The Government say that the reduction is largely due to the charges.
The unfortunate local authorities are having to gather the money to benefit the Government, and they are doing it at considerable inconvenience and cost to themselves. I telephoned the director of planning of one of the largest local authorities in Scotland. I got him out of a meeting at which, by coincidence, he was considering a report from the police to the effect that because money was being taken over the counter in planning departments they were recommending the installation of bullet-proof glass—this may sound ludicrous, but it was being done—and steel grilles. The director was also in session with NALGO, which was saying, very reasonably, that there would be a lot of extra book-keeping, extra accounting and extra responsibility, and that all that ought to be taken into account. All this is because the Government are typically trying to claw back money that they are cutting out of the normal subvention to local authorities for the provision of services.
What we are saying, and it has been said eloquently and hectically by many of my hon. Friends, is that this is a miserably inconsistent measure for the Government to bring forward, and at a time when the Secretary of State for Scotland is calling for 10,000 redundancies in the local authority world it is wrong that the Government should impose on them extra burdens and problems for which they see no reward and no purpose at the end of the day.
The measure is complicated, unnecessary and petty. It is an extraordinary monument to a Minister who presumably subscribes to his party's slogan about a free market and freeing industry to get on with the job. It is no good the Minister rabbiting on as he did about clauses, subsections and exemption piled upon exemption, when at the end of the day all that we are creating, to no good purpose and to no good end, are a bureaucracy and an impositon on the public that we could well do without.
11.37 pm
Mr. Giles Shaw: It ill becomes the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), representing as he
244
does a party that has been putting rates up liberally throughout this time—25 per cent. on average in Scotland and 40 and 50 per cent. in London—to talk about the inadequacy of a £20 fee on a development. Moreover, does the Labour Party really believe that developers are admirable people and should be protected from the imposition of a modest fee for their development? Yet here we have Labour Members suggesting that this is an iniquity, Surely two standards of judgment are being used here.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton) asserted that the poor domestic developer was under the threat of having to pay several thousand pounds. The hon. Gentleman must understand that if the fee for development reached £2,000 it would involve the development of 50 houses, and possibly the development value would be £1¼ million. If he thinks that that does not justify a fee of £2,000, he should think again.
We are discussing two factors. The first is the principle of the matter, which was debated at length during the passage of the Bill and has been passed and is in the Act. The second is the fee that follows therefrom. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have made significant points on this, and I shall attempt briefly to deal with them.
The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) opened the debate for the Opposition. I understand the view that he takes. He questioned the matter of staffing. It is our understanding that the relief from planning application that is implied in the amendment to the General Development Order will reduce the onus on planning departments, and we have taken that into consideration in suggesting that the fees should be examined by the same people. Thus, the bureaucratic element will be, as it were, transferred from one aspect to another. We do not accept the view that this will result in an increase in bureaucracy, and I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that this is one reason why the AMA is satisfied with our proposals and believes that it can deal with them.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman) dislikes the principle embodied in the Act, but I give him the undertaking that we shall watch this matter most carefully and that if during the first 12 months there are serious deficiencies such as he suggested we shall wish to make an amendment, because it is not our intention to set up a system that will penalise the average builder or developer for processing his planning application through the system.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) raised the question of agriculture and horticulture. Agricultural buildings of less than 465 square metres will be exempted from planning control. Those are substantial buildings. If there is a liability to charges in those circumstances, we shall be dealing with a larger construction. I do not think that the generality of farmers or horticulturists will be affected. However, if it is shown that that is not so, I promise my hon. Friend that we shall reconsider the matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) referred to access. He is right to observe that under the amendment order to the General Development Order such modest increases to property as he spoke of will be exempt. A householder's access to his garage would not normally require planning permission unless it gave access on to a trunk or classified road. If that results in difficulties for those who have access on to trunk or classified roads, important highway considerations arise. I think my hon.

245
Friend will agree that a modest planning application fee will be acceptable in such circumstances. I do not think that these provisions will impinge on the generality of applications.
The hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) advanced the public expenditure argument. There is an important element of seeking to reduce local authority public spending. The hon. Gentleman will probably be the first to agree that there are some areas where the scheme can be implemented without seriously deterring demand or impinging on citizens' rights. I accept that planning applications are a service to the public. However, we must recognise that the cost of processing applications is measured at £63 million in England and Wales alone. If we are looking for savings in expenditure and seeking to make an impost, this is an area that is probably reasonable, bearing in mind the benefit that can be obtained with a planning application.
Some hon. Members asked why the planning application should not be freed from fee and why approval of the application should not attract the fee. That would be a recipe for pressure being put on planning authorities. There is an enormous advantage to be gained in the approval of an application. If we allowed such a scheme to be introduced, there would be a major distortion in our system.
There has been considerable discussion on both sides of the House. I make three short responses. First, we have gone a long way to provide a scale of fees that offers exemptions and low levels of fee to the majority of applicants. Secondly, we have designed a scheme which is simple in effect and with which the local authorities on the whole are fairly satisfied. The AMA's endorsement is important. Thirdly, we have-undertaken that we shall review the operation of the system of fees after one year. That would seem to be the opportunity to deal with any difficulties that may emerge. With these safeguards, I recommend acceptance of the measure.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 128, Noes. 91.

Division No. 90]

[11.42

AYES

Alexander, Richard

Cranborne, Viscount

Atkinson, David (B'm'th,E)

Dorrell, Stephen

Banks, Robert

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Dover, Denshore

Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

Dunn, Robert(Dartford)

Berry, HonAnthony

Durant, Tony

Best, Keith

Dykes, Hugh

Bevan, DavidGilroy

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Eggar, Tim

Biggs-Davison, John

Elliott, SirWilliam

Blackburn, John

Farr, John

Bright, Graham

Fisher, SirNigel

Brinton, Tim

Fookes, Miss Janet

Brittan, Leon

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Buck, Antony

Goodlad, Alastair

Budgen, Nick

Gorst, John

Bulmer, Esmond

Gower, SirRaymond

Butcher, John

Grant, Anthony (HarrowC)

Carlisle, John (LutonWest)

Griffiths, Peter Portsm'thN)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Gummer, JohnSelwyn

Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (R'c'n)

Hamilton, Hon A.

Chapman, Sydney

Hawksley, Warren

Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th, S'n)

Heddle, John

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Henderson, Barry

Cockeram, Eric

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Colvin, Michael

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Cope, John

Howell, Ralph (NNorfolk)

246

Hunt, John(Ravensbourne)

Pawsey, James

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Price, Sir David (Eastleigh)

Kershaw, Anthony

Proctor, K. Harvey

King, Rt Hon Tom

Rifkind, Malcolm

Kitson, SirTimothy

Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

Knox, David

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Langford-Holt, SirJohn

Rossi, Hugh

Latham, Michael

Sainsbury, HonTimothy

LeMarchant, Spencer

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Lloyd, Peter(Fareham)

Shepherd, Colin(Hereford)

Lyell, Nicholas

Shepherd, Richard

McCrindle, Robert

Sims, Roger

Macfarlane, Neil

Speed, Keith

MacGregor, John

Speller, Tony

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Sproat, lain

Major, John

Squire, Robin

Marland, Paul

Stanbrook, lvor

Marlow, Tony

Stevens, Martin

Mates, Michael

Stradling Thomas, J.

Mawhinney, DrBrian

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Thompson, Donald

Mellor, David

Viggers, Peter

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Waddington, David

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Wakeham, John

Moate, Roger

Waller, Gary

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Ward, John

Mudd, David

Watson, John

Murphy, Christopher

Wells, Bowen

Myles, David

Wheeler, John

Needham, Richard

Wickenden, Keith

Nelson, Anthony

Williams, D.(Montgomery)

Neubert, Michael

Wolfson, Mark

Newton, Tony

Young, SirGeorge(Acton)

Normanton, Tom

Younger, Rt HonGeorge

Onslow, Cranley

Osborn, John

Tellers for the Ayes:

Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby)

Mr. Carol Mather and

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

Mr. Peter Brooke.

NOES

Alton, David

Hooley, Frank

Anderson, Donald

Howells, Geraint

Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Bagier, Gordon A.T.

Janner, Hon Greville

Beith, A. J.

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Bennett, Andrew(St'kp'tN)

John, Brynmor

Booth, RtHonAlbert

Johnston, Russell(lnverness)

Callaghan,Jim(Midd't'n&P)

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Carmichael, Neil

Lamond, James

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Leighton, Ronald

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stolS)

Lyons, Edward(Bradf'dW)

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

McNamara, Kevin

Cook, Robin F.

Marks, Kenneth

Cowans, Harry

Marshall, D (G'gowS'ton)

Cryer, Bob

Marshall, Jim(LeicesterS)

Dalyell, Tam

Martin, M(G'gowS'burn)

Davidson, Arthur

Maxton, John

Davis, T. (B'ham, Stechf'd)

Miller, Dr M. S. (EKilbride)

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

Dewar, Donald

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

Dixon, Donald

Morton, George

Dormand, Jack

Palmer, Arthur

Douglas, Dick

Park, George

Duffy, A. E. P.

Penhaligon, David

Eastham, Ken

Powell, Raymond(Ogmore)

Ellis, R. (NED'bysh're)

Prescott, John

English, Michael

Radice, Giles

Ewing, Harry

RhysWilliams, SirBrandon

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Roberts, Albert(Normanton)

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Freud, Clement

Robertson, George

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Graham, Ted

Rooker, J.W.

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Hamilton, W. W. (C'tral Fife)

Sandelson, Neville

Hardy, Peter

Sheerman, Barry

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Skinner, Dennis

Haynes, Frank

Smith, Cyril(Rochdale)

Home Robertson, John

Snape, Peter

247

Soley, Clive

Woodall, Alec

Spearing, Nigel

Woolmer, Kenneth

Steel, Rt Hon David

Young, David (BoltonE)

Stoddart, David

Stott, Roger

Tellers for the Noes:

Tinn, James

Mr. Hugh McCartney and

Welsh, Michael

Mr. Allen McKay.

Wigley, Dafydd

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) Regulations 1981, which were laid before this House on 17 February, be approved.
Motion made, and Question put,
That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 1981, which were laid before this House on 2 March, be approved.—[Mr. Giles Shaw.]
The House divided: Ayes 127, Noes 89.

Division No. 91]

[11.55 pm

AYES

Alexander, Richard

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Atkinson, David (B'm 'th, E)

Kershaw, SirAnthony

Banks, Robert

King, Rt Hon Tom

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Kitson, SirTimothy

Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

Knox, David

Berry, HonAnthony

Langford-Holt, SirJohn

Best, Keith

Latham, Michael

Bevan, DavidGilroy

LeMarchant, Spencer

Biffen, RtHonJohn

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Biggs-Davison, John

Lyell, Nicholas

Blackburn, John

McCrindle, Robert

Bright, Graham

Macfarlane, Neil

Brinton, Tim

MacGregor, John

Brittan, Leon

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Brooke, Hon Peter

Major, John

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Marland, Paul

Buck, Antony

Marlow, Tony

Budgen, Nick

Mates, Michael

Bulmer, Esmond

Mather, Carol

Butcher, John

Mawhinney, DrBrian

Carlisle, John (LutonWest)

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Mellor, David

Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (R'c'n)

Meyer, SirAnthony

Chapman, Sydney

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th, S'n)

Moate, Roger

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Cockeram, Eric

Mudd, David

Colvin, Michael

Murphy, Christopher

Cope, John

Myles, David

Cranborne, Viscount

Needham, Richard

Dorrell, Stephen

Nelson, Anthony

Dover, Denshore

Neubert, Michael

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Newton, Tony

Durant, Tony

Normanton, Tom

Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

Onslow, Cranley

Eggar, Tim

Osborn, John

Elliott, SirWilliam

Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby)

Farr,John

Page, Richard (SWHerts)

Fisher, SirNigel

Pawsey, James

Fookes, Miss Janet

Price, Sir David (Eastleigh)

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Proctor, K. Harvey

Garel-Jones,Tristan

Rifkind, Malcolm

Goodlad, Alastair

Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

Gorst, John

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Gower, SirRaymond

Rossi, Hugh

Grant, Anthony (HarrowC)

Sainsbury, HonTimothy

Griffiths, Peter Portsm'thN)

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Gummer, JohnSelwyn

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Hamilton, Hon A.

Shepherd, Richard

Hawksley, Warren

Sims, Roger

Heddle, John

Speed, Keith

Henderson, Barry

Speller, Tony

Heseltine, RtHon Michael

Sproat, lain

Hogg, HonDouglas(Gr'th'm)

Squire, Robin

Howell, Ralph (NNorfolk)

Stanbrook, lvor

Hunt, John(Ravensbourne)

Stevens, Martin

248

StradlingThomas, J.

Wickenden, Keith

Taylor, Teddy (S'endE)

Williams,D. (Montgomery)

Viggers, Peter

Wolfson, Mark

Waddington, David

Young, SirGeorge (Acton)

Wakeham, John

Younger, Rt Hon George

Waller, Gary

Ward, John

Tellers for the Ayes:

Watson, John

Mr Donald Thompson and

Wells, Bowen

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.

Wheeler, John

NOES

Alton, David

Lamond, James

Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)

Leighton, Ronald

Bagier, Gordon A.T.

Lyons, Edward (Bradf'dW)

Beith,A. J.

McCartney, Hugh

Bennett, Andrew(St'kp'tN)

McKay, Allen(Penistone)

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

McNamara, Kevin

Callaghan,Jim (Midd't'n&P)

Marks, Kenneth

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Marshall, D(G'gowS'ton)

Carmichael, Neil

Marshall, Jim (LeicesterS)

Clark, DrDavid (SShields)

Martin, M(G'gowS'burn)

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stolS)

Maxton, John

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Miller, Dr M.S. (EKilbride)

Cook, Robin F.

Mitchell, R.C. (SotonItchen)

Cowans, Harry

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

Cryer, Bob

Morton, George

Dalyell,Tam

Palmer, Arthur

Davidson, Arthur

Park, George

Davis, T. (B 'ham, Stechf'd)

Penhaligon, David

Dewar, Donald

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Dixon, Donald

Prescott, John

Dormand, Jack

Radice, Giles

Douglas, Dick

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Eastham, Ken

Robertson, George

Ellis, R.(NED'bysh're)

Robinson, G. (CoventryNW)

English, Michael

Rooker, J.W.

Ewing, Harry

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Fletcher,Ted(Darlington)

Sandelson, Neville

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Sheerman, Barry

Freud, Clement

Skinner, Dennis

Garrett, John (NorwichS)

Smith, Cyril(Rochdale)

Graham, Ted

Snape, Peter

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Soley, Clive

Hamilton, W.W. (C'tral Fife)

Spearing, Nigel

Hardy, Peter

Steel, Rt Hon David

Harrison, RtHonWalter

Stoddart, David

Haynes, Frank

Stott, Roger

HomeRobertson, John

Welsh, Michael

Hooley, Frank

Wigley, Dafydd

Howells, Geraint

Woodall, Alec

Hughes, Robert (AberdeenN)

Woolmer, Kenneth

Janner, HonGreville

Young, David (Bolton E)

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

John, Brynmor

Tellers for the Noes:

Johnston, Russell (lnverness)

Mr. James Tinn and

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Mr. Joseph Dean

Kaufman, RtHonGerald

Question accordingly agreed to.

Crinan Moss, Argyll
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Goodlad.]
12.4 am
Mr. John MacKay: I should like to start by setting this debate in its geographical context. Crinan

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Moss is set in the estuary and basin of the river Add at the head of Loch Crinan in mid-Argyll. In geological time, it was formed by the outflow of Loch Awe through its south end. Now the outflow goes through the north end. In human time, it is an area rich in history. Prehistoric man has left his mark in the area with standing stones and cairns. More recently, when the Scots arrived from Ireland, they set up the kingdom of Dalriada centred on Dunadd Hill on Crinan Moss where the early kings of Dalriada were crowned.
Over the centuries, man has laboured around the moss to create good farming land, to such an extent that today it contains good acres of farming land. In fact, there are seven farms located around the area of the moss. One of them is the farm of Killinochonoch farmed by my constituent, Mr. Robin Rankin. This farm of 660 acres comprises rough grazing, arable fields and peat bog. I am sure the House knows the difficulties of hill farmers. Over the last few years, incomes in this sector of fanning have declined in real terms. The annual review of agriculture by the Government shows that incomes in this sheep and cattle sector declined by 46 per cent. Killinochonoch is no exception to this economic draught.
Robin Rankin decided that some economic use had to be made of the 150 acres of the 660 acres that are peat bog. He decided to plant trees—an excellent example of the integration of forestry and farming. Trees have already been planted on other parts of the moss which grow very well. Mr. Rankin applied to the Forestry Commission for a basis III dedication. In the course of the consultation, the matter reached the ears of the Nature Conservancy Council. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland), who is the scourge of the quangos, might consider the Nature Conservancy Council a suitable candidate for both barrels of his double-barrel shotgun.
The Nature Conservancy Council already has a portion of Crinan Moss as a site of special scientific interest. At the head of Loch Crinan, the council has the Moine Mhor site of special scientific interest encompassing about 1,625 acres, partly sand brought down in geological time by the river out of Loch Awe, mud flats and also containing some 800 acres of the moss itself. These acres are drawn from Barsloisnach farm, Ardifuir farm and Barnakil farm. Half of that acreage is potential plantable land.
As a result of Robin Rankin's application and the indication of the Forestry Commission that he was applying for a basis III dedication, the Nature Conservancy Council has decided to extend its SSSI to cover the whole of Crinan Moss. An area of 20 square miles is to be encompassed by the proposal, involving seven farms. Although the owners were informed, if any of those owners had been tenants, there would have been no obligation on the NCC to inform the tenants of its decision to have an SSSI. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will note that omission from the ground rules of the NCC and see whether it can be put right.
The plans showing this proposed SSSI were drawn on a 1-in. Ordnance Survey map with a felt pen. The line indicating the boundary was, in reality, 200 yards wide, which showed a fair disregard for the farming problems of those whose land was crossed by the line. After some clarification, it is learnt that, in addition to the loss, the SSSI includes 116 acres of arable land, 60 acres of Killinochonoch itself and 50 acres of Drimvore. It also takes 140 acres of rough grazing and 815 acres of plantable moss. I am happy to see my hon. Friend here because I
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suspect that this is a forerunner to the debte on the wild life and countryside that we shall have when the Bill dealing with that subject comes from another place. Can my hon. Friend tell me whether he or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has any power to stop an SSSI? Is the Nature Conservancy Council answerable to anyone? Is there any appeal machinery, or can it designate at will?
To return to Killinochonoch, as I mentioned, 60 acres of that farm are arable and are within the SSSI. Indeed, three good fields are involved in this—I know, because I walked over them. My constituent, Mr. Rankin, asked the Nature Conservancy Council why it had designated those fields. The letter dated 11 February giving the reasons said:
"There are reasons for including your fields within the boundary of the SSSI which relate to the condition of the adjoining moss."
It then went on to talk about other things. No other reasons were given. There are no reasons that I or my constituent can see why these arable fields should be included in this SSSI. What we are puzzled about is what this means in regard to normal farming operations on those three arable fields.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: The hon. Member is raising a point of substantial importance. He is right in saying that it will come up in discussions on future legislation. As a matter of some importance, did Mr. Rankin ask for any extended interview with the Nature Conservancy Council, and was this granted or refused?
Mr. MacKay: Mr. Rankin has been having discussions with the Nature Conservancy Council for some time. Indeed, he is to have a meeting on the site a week hence. To be honest, he and I both think from the discussions he has had in the past that nothing much will come of that meeting. I should like to know whether he can, for example, plough, lime and fertilise these fields, or must he receive prior permission from the Nature Conservancy Council? If any of the operations he intends to do in these fields are eligible for grant from the Scottish Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, will he get the grant, or can the Nature Conservancy Council veto such grants? If the council can interfere with normal farming operations on these three arable fields, can it be forced to pay compensation for the loss of income?
Although Mr. Rankin has no rough grazing on his part of this SSSI, Barsloisnach farm has. If that farmer decides to improve his rough grazing, what will be his position in regard to liming and fertilising grants; or will he be prevented from carrying out the work?
The really important issue in this debate concerns the 150 acres of Mr. Rankin's farm which he wishes to plant and which is at the moment bog land. This is part of the whole moss on which there are some 815 acres of plantable land. On the bit that is already an SSSI there are 400 acres which are plantable. With a basis III dedication Mr. Rankin could expect about £200 an acre if he put this land up for sale, which would be a total of £30,000. If he were to plant it himself, it could bring the equivalent of £6,000 annually to his farm. This loss, either of capital or of capital asset, is intolerable. In addition, there is the loss to the nation of the timber that these acres and the other acres in this proposed SSSI could produce. For my constituency there is the potential employment that the trees grown there could give to the people.

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Mr. Rankin is a reasonable man and he has offered to sell the 150 acres to the Nature Conservancy Council, but it is not interested. He has offered to lease it to the council, but it is not interested. He has offered to leave extra wide firebreaks to leave some of the moss intact, but the council is not interested. Indeed, I have to say to my hon. Friend that Mr. Rankin feels that the officials of the Nature Conservancy Council with whom he has dealt to date are neither interested in nor sympathetic to farming.
Can my hon. Friend ensure that if the Nature Conservancy Council proceeds with this SSSI it will compensate my constituent for the loss of money that he will suffer as a result, either of buying the land or of leasing it, both of which he has offered? If it is not prepared to do either, I suggest that it has no right to endanger Mr. Rankin's livelihood by sterilising his 150 acres. The Government must find some way of intervening in order to defend this individual against the actions of this public body.
It is not as if Argyll is short of a few odd acres of bog land. I am afraid that we have that in fair abundance. Nor is it as if this 150 acres were unique. As I mentioned, the existing site of special scientific interest covers 800 acres of moss elsewhere, which is in parts no different from the moss to be covered by the new site of special scientific interest. A portion therefore, would be preserved for future study. Indeed, Mr. Rankin is quite prepared to delay planting in order to allow the scientists to study the particular area that he intends to plant and to extract whatever knowledge they can.
There are other factors about the way in which this matter has been dealt with that concern Mr. Rankin and me. Consultations with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and with the district council planning authority were not as full as they might have been. For example, the Department was given two days to comment. It asked for an extension, which was granted. However, in the interim the site of special scientific interest was notified. Can my hon. Friend give the House some assurance that the Nature Conservancy Council will be obliged to give the Department sufficient time to comment and that it will listen to what the Department has to say?
I should not like the House to think that my constituent or any of the other constituents around the moss, or the many farmers who are affected—not just in Argyll but throughout Scotland—are against conservation. It is important that we should try to conserve the areas in our country that show the flora and fauna of our countryside. We must never forget that the most important aspect of conservation is that it is for homo sapiens, and particularly for the hill farmer variety of the species. He is having a difficult time, yet he is the backbone of our hill and uplands areas. It would be a great pity if in the pursuit of conservation we were to make life economically impossible for such people.
If I may slightly amend the words of Oliver Goldsmith,
"Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey,"
Where conservation
"accumulates, and men decay".
It is no exaggeration to say that the survival of Killinochonoch farm, my constituent and his family and farmers in the generations to come could well be at stake as a result of the actions of the Nature Conservancy Council. The economic well-being of other farmers in a
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similar position could also be at stake. Out of 660 acres, 150 acres is not an insignificant portion of a hill farm. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Banff (Mr. Myles) will be aware of that.
If the land is doing nothing and is at present useless, and if it could be changed into a reasonable capital asset for the hill farmer, it should be. I ask my hon. Friend to ensure that the Nature Conservancy Council pays proper compensation for its sites of special scientific interest, not just in this instance but in others. If it will not do that, it should withdraw its intention to declare Crinan Moss one. That would enable my constituent and other farmers to use the land as they see best, to capitalise on those acres and to sustain economic life through farming and forestry in mid-Argyll and in the rest of my constituency. Those who want to conserve these areas must face the fact that I and my constituents must live, work and have our being in the countryside. If there is great sterilisation of the areas that can be used economically, it can threaten the way of life of the fanning community on which this country greatly depends, not only for its food but for its way of life.
I hope that my hon. Friend will encourage the Nature Conservancy Council to be a lot more sympathetic in this case. I hope that it will remember that, while its members have nice comfortable jobs that are paid for by the taxpayer, my constituent has to live off the land. If the council prevents him from planting trees on that 150 acres, it will deprive him of a portion of his livelihood. Indeed, it may deprive him of a significant portion of his livelihood. If the council and, to a certain extent, we in this House, are to encourage that, they and we have to face up to the need for compensation for the farmers whose areas are so sterilised.
Mr. Dalyell: As this debate raises important and delicate issues of principle, some of us would like to put it on record that the officials of the Nature Conservancy Council with whom we have come in contact are genuinely interested in farming.
12.21 am
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Hector Monro): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay) for raising at this time the question of the Nature Conservancy Council's proposal to notify Crinan Moss in Argyll as a site of special scientific interest, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on the way he has presented the case of his constituent Mr. Rankin of Killinochonoch. I hope that what I have to say will allay some of his fears and that he will also understand that there are quite a number of procedures yet to be gone through before any final decisions are taken.
I welcome the opportunity which this debate allows me to discuss not only the particular issue at Crinan Moss but the more general issues which it raises which are of concern to many people up and down the country. I hope that hon. Members will think it appropriate if I take time first to outline the statutory provisions by which the Nature Conservancy Council notifies SSSIs and the procedures and criteria which it adopts in so doing.
The NCC has a duty under section 23 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 to notify local planning authorities where it is of the opinion that an area of land is of special interest, whether by reason of its flora, its fauna or its geological or physiographical features. There is no statutory obligation on the council to

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consult or discuss with owners or occupiers of land the notification of scientific interest, but the NCC has instituted procedures for discharging this function which include such consultation.
What I am saying, therefore, is that the actual legislation says that it can go ahead and designate an SSSI without having to consult anybody, but that is not the method by which it proposes to operate in the future and there will be substantially more notification and consultation. But, of course, the council must first obtain information about a site from whatever sources are available, and the value of the area is then assessed in relation to other sites.
The criteria which the council has laid down for its officials to follow in determining whether an area is of sufficient standard to warrant notification are, first, that individual biological sites should contain sufficient habitat to support viable populations of their characteristic species; second, that all main habitat types should be represented; and, third, that sites should as far as possible be evenly distributed throughout the country.
Hon. Members may like to know that the NCC is currently producing a pamphlet which explains the objectives and criteria behind site selection.
Mr. Dalyell: Will that be available, even in draft form, before we consider the countryside Bill in the Commons?
Mr. Monro: I cannot give a firm assurance, but I will certainly let the hon. Gentleman know. I would hope so.
The council having concluded its deliberations, a proposal then emerges and opportunity is provided to owners to comment on the proposal. Relevant Government Departments, statutory agencies and local planning authorities are also consulted at this stage. These comments are then taken into account by the NCC when it formally considers the case for notification of the site.
Following approval by the council—a decision which is certainly not taken lightly—the site is notified to the local planning authority and owners and others concerned are also informed. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll said that the tenant farmers had not been informed, but Crinan Moss has not yet been notified as a site. It is still in the consultative stage.
Those, then, are the fairly comprehensive procedures designed to keep all patties informed and consulted at each stage. I echo here what the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) said. The many officials of the NCC whom I have met are extremely helpful and courteous in trying to resolve, local problems.
I assure my hon. Friend, speaking as a farmer myself, that I well appreciate the difficult period that agriculture is going through, and I assure him that the economic repercussions of any decision are borne in mind. I am sure that in the discussions with his constituents this will have been one of the important topics considered.
I turn now specifically to Crinan Moss, and I want to set out the action and considerations undertaken in respect of this site. I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I reiterate some of the facts which he has already outlined so clearly.
The NCC first became aware of an application to the Forestry Commission for a basis III forestry dedication scheme on about 150 acres of land at Crinan Moss as a result of a request for advice on the implications of the application from Argyll and Bute district council. The
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NCC field staff subsequently arranged to visit the site and conducted a survey of the area. This led to the conclusion by NCC officials that the area was of a standard of scientific interest which warranted notification as an SSSI.
Therefore, the NCC felt that it was its duty to inform the Forestry Commission of its opposition to the planting proposals because of the damaging effect which afforestation would have on the site, whose importance depends upon retaining the existing vegetation.
Subsequently, the NCC's assistant chief scientist, a very senior official of the council, visited the site in June last year. He confirmed not only that the site was of scientific interest but that it was of such a standard and rarity that it merited grade I status—that is, nationally important—in the list of key sites for nature conservation throughout Great Britain.
The site is an outstanding lowland raised mire—one of fewer than 10 examples throughout Britain which still exist in their natural form. Furthermore, the combination of this area and the adjacent Moine Mhor SSSI, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is the only known example in Britain where the complete ecological spectrum from saltmarsh to raised mire still exists.
In these circumstances, it is only fair to question why the NCC did not know of the existence of a site of such importance beforehand. I understand that in 1978 preliminary work on peatlands had indeed shown that an area extending beyond the boundaries of the existing SSSI required a full field survey, but, because of constraints on the NCC's financial and manpower resources, it had not been possible to accomplish this task. It is inevitable, therefore, that the NCC will on occasion—as in this case—discover the full scientific significance only as a result of consultation by statutory agencies on proposals for land use changes.
I come now to the detailed points which my hon. Friend has raised. He has pointed out that the landowner has offered to sell or lease to the NCC the land which was the subject of the basis III application. However, the NCC understandably felt that, until a full site investigation and, if appropriate, formal notification had taken place, it would not have been right to enter negotiations for the acquisition of the site.
I hope that during the forthcoming discussions between the NCC and the owners the possibility of management agreements over the land can now be explored. They can be very valuable to the landowner.
My hon. Friend has also raised issues of general concern arising from this case. He has voiced fears that the notification of large areas of the country will result in severe impediment to the expansion of agriculture and forestry in Scotland. I should add that there is no constraint at present on any action which my hon. Friend's constituent may take on the peatland or on his arable fields. The issue arises if it becomes an SSSI. He will then have to notify the NCC before either a forestry or a DAFS grant is available to him for agricultural or forestry reasons. That is when the financial hardship bites.
If the site is notified as an SSSI—and it is an extremely important site—the NCC will be able to discuss with my hon. Friend's constituent the various alternatives that are open—for instance, a management agreement to maintain the site in roughly its present state, in return for which the NCC would be able, subject to all the discussions, to pay an annual sum, such as it is permitted to do under the Act. Also, the NCC is entitled to use its powers of compulsory

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purchase. Or there can be a voluntary agreement to purchase between the owner and the NCC. However, that may not be what my hon. Friend's constituent wants. I appreciate that no one would want to lose part of his farm without giving careful thought to the economic repercussions of that step.
I do not want my hon. Friend to think that the NCC would want to come into the site and say"You are forbidden to take any steps, and no compensation is available". There are one or two methods that the NCC has at its discretion, and I hope that it will discuss them with my hon. Friend's constituent before any final conclusion is reached.
There is the other important issue that if Mr. Rankin continues with his request for a forestry grant or a DAFS grant for other agricultural purposes the final arbiter is the Secretary of State for Scotland. My right hon. Friend has listened to this debate and is aware of its significance to Mr. Rankin in Argyll and to other constituents of my hon. Friend.
I know that that final important decision takes place, because I have been involved in one or two cases in England with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary
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to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in connection with agricultural and forestry grants in exactly the same situation. In every case, the issues have been laid clearly before Ministers and a decision has then been reached. So Mr. Rankin may rest assured that a number of important hurdles have to be crossed before he feels that he has a genuine grievance, and that his case has been given full understanding both by the NCC and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland and by Ministers who know a considerable amount about hill farming and agriculture and forestry generally.
I hope that what I have said will give some reassurance. My hon. Friend is to have discussions with the NCC tomorrow and with Mr. Rankin later this month. There is much to discuss. The matter is perhaps not as cut and dried as my hon. Friend thinks. There are alternative routes which may enable Mr. Rankin and the tenant farmers to receive recompense from the NCC for the denial of what they feel is their right to carry out genuine agricultural or forestry operations.
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty-six minutes to One o'clock.