Nuclear Deterrent: Capacity (Hansard, 12 February 1987)

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)
My Lords, as the Government have made clear on many occasions, Trident, like Polaris, will be a minimum deterrent and will include only those enhancements which will be vital if Trident is to continue to meet effectively, well into the next century, our national deterrence criteria—criteria which have remained essentially unchanged and have been judged appropriate by successive governments for more than 20 years.

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, will the noble Lord give an assurance that if the Soviet threat and the danger of war in Europe recede in the years ahead, the policy of a fivefold escalation of nuclear weapons will be modified by the Government?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the exent to which Trident will be more capable than Polaris will depend upon a number of factors (notably the effectiveness of Soviet defences) which cannot be judged in detail until the time comes.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that the Trident policy will in no way endanger our forces in Europe with regard to the weapons they have in their hands to resist aggression, if need be? Can he assure the House that British forces on the ground and in the air will in no way suffer because the Government are following the extraordinarily expensive Trident policy?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that the great danger that British troops in Germany now face is the prospect of the policy of noble Lords opposite.

§ Lord Graham of Edmonton
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the Trident cancellation fee will be 125 per cent. of the original cost of £7 billion? How does the Minister justify such a contract? Is it not a contract designed primarily to obstruct future governments who may wish to decommission Trident and may well have an election mandate to do so?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, no. There is no intention of moving in the way that the noble Lord suggests. The cancellation terms that are being incorporated in the contract which exists for the first submarine, and which will be in place before long for the second submarine, seek only to be fair and reasonable to the parties concerned.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that for a decade 10,000 Soviet scientists have been deploying their version of SDI: that is to say, the interception of missiles by missiles? If that achieves the results that they intend, is it not wise to have extra capacity so that with Trident we can afford to choose as between decoys and nuclear warheads?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, yes, indeed. My noble friend is right. By the time that Trident comes to be deployed in the mid-1990s, a much greater range of defences will have to be penetrated. For all that it will be able to achieve, Trident will represent a smaller proportion of Soviet strategic warheads than Polaris did in 1970, even if the currently proposed 50 per cent. reductions in strategic arsenals are to be agreed between the super powers.

§ Lord Kennet
My Lords, the Minister of State has told the House that Trident's penetration ability depends on Soviet defences. It is easy to understand that. Is it the Government's opinion that Soviet defences are likely to be the stronger or the weaker if the Reagan Administration were now to confirm every comma of the ABM Treaty and cancel their SDI initiative?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I doubt whether that has much to do with it. Soviet defences and offensive capability continue to grow unabated.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, the Minister's Answer to the original Question consisted of nothing but vague generalisations. Will he spell out a little more the purpose of Trident? Is not the idea behind Trident that it should be able simultaneously to kill a large number of people in a large number of Soviet 741 towns? What is the need for that when everybody on earth can already be killed several times over? Does he agree that there is no point in Trident? It is an unnecessary expenditure upon which the Government have embarked, and they are entirely unable to explain exactly why they have done so.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the purpose of Trident is to deter any potential aggressor from launching an attack upon us. We can only do that by having a credible response.

§ Lord Avebury
My Lords, the Minister said that we had to have a fivefold increase in the number of warheads because of the greater range of Soviet defences which will have to be penetrated in the 1990s. Is the development of Trident predicated on the assumption that the Soviets will have an anti-ballistic missile system in place in the 1990s, contrary to their treaty obligations?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the basis of the system that we are now acquiring and will deploy in the mid-1990s is that by that time the existing Polaris system will be coming to the end of its useful life. It is therefore necessary to have a new system in place. We are certain that by then we will have to penetrate a wide range of new defensive capabilities.

§ Lord Mottistone
My Lords, is it not most important not to mention detailed figures when one is talking about a deterrent? It is much more important to keep people guessing about one's capability than to try to spell it out. Would it not be better if noble Lords opposite did not try to intrigue my noble friend into giving details? Would it not be better if this Question—to which my noble friend has not given a figure answer—is forgotten altogether?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, my noble friend puts his finger on a very appropriate point. The whole effectiveness of an independent nuclear deterrent is the uncertainty which it plants in the mind of the potential aggressor.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, on referring to SDI the noble Lord touched on an immensely important point. He confirmed to his noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing that in the development of SDI the Russians are as far advanced as, if not further advanced than the Americans. Is that indeed the case? If Russian SDI is as far advanced as American SDI, why are these two points not put on the table in disarmament conferences?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I did not say that. I said that Russian research in this area is proceeding apace. What the success of that research is I cannot yet say. I certainly cannot yet say for certain what the scale of the defences will be in the mid-1990s.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, is it not the case that Mr. Caspar Weinberger has said that the Russians have been working on SDI for at least 14 years? Has the noble Lord nothing more to say about the matter? It is no use leaving it in the air. Do Her Majesty's Government believe that Russian SDI development is significantly far advanced?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, as Mr. Weinberger has said—and as I have said in this House on a number of occasions and as the noble Lord has reminded us—Soviet research in this area has been proceeding for 10 or 15 years at least. Therefore if we are to achieve a system of our own we need to get a move on. The SDI programme has started only comparatively recently. Precisely what success the Soviets have so far had, I cannot say. However, it would be a brave, and I believe unwise, man who assumed that they will not have some success between now and the mid-1990s.

§ Viscount Trenchard
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that in addition to the reason that he has given for Trident being only comparable with Polaris at the turn of the century—namely, the build-up of the anti-ballistic defences—there is also the important question of submarine vulnerability? Will he confirm that his painstaking scientists, civilians and service experts are still advising that it is necesary to move to something with the range of Trident by the mid-1990s if we are to keep a deterrent comparable in effectiveness to the one we have at the present time—though nothing like five times as effective?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, my noble friend is certainly quite right to remind your Lordships that by the mid-1990s the Polaris system will be coming to the end of its useful life and will have to be replaced with one system or another. We believe that the Trident system is the most cost-effective way of doing that, not least because of the improvement in Soviet anti-submarine capability, as my noble friend points out, which will to some extent be countered by the fact that the Trident submarines will have some 15 times more sea room in which to conceal themselves.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, to avoid any misunderstanding, will the Minister take it from me that there are many noble Lords on both sides of the House, who believe that the ownership of Britain's nuclear deterrent has been absolutely right; and that furthermore that that is proven by the fact that today the Russians appear to be much more conciliatory than they have been in the past? Does he agree that it would be quite foolish of us to take that situation for granted and do away with any nuclear deterrent unless we can be absolutely certain that peace is sound and viable?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I welcome the fact that some members of the Opposition are not as daft as their leaders.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, in his original Answer the Minister referred to Trident being the minimum deterrent. That is a comparative term. If present weapons are capable of obliterating the whole human race five times, what would he consider to be the maximum deterrent?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am not sure that that is a question which needs an answer.