Trident: Number of Warheads (Hansard, 19 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 noble Lord well knows, the information sought is highly classified and cannot therefore be given.

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the statements of Ministers that, since the Trident fleet will carry not more than two and a half times the number of warheads carried by Polaris, the level of nuclear escalation is two and a half times? That ignores the greater size of the Trident warhead, its greater accuracy, its greater range and its ability to be independently targeted. Will the Minister look into this matter more carefully, including ministerial statements, and try to give the House a more objective and less political assessment?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the noble Lord may be assured that Ministers have examined this matter. Indeed, I have given the noble Lord some of the answers to which he has referred. However, I am not prepared to give information which would be of value to our potential enemies, and I hope that the noble Lord is not prepared to do that either.

Lord Morris
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, if any member of the Alliance had had experience in office, he would never have asked that question?

Noble Lords
Oh!

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, it is the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, once served in the Ministry of Defence that makes this question so puzzling.

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Government are fully entitled to withhold information on security grounds? As a Minister I have done that myself. However, the Government are not entitled to replace that information with propaganda statements.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I do not believe that answering the noble Lord in the way that I did was propaganda.

Lord Paget of Northampton
My Lords, is the Minister aware that all of us know enough to realise that if the warheads we are getting were unfortunately to blow up in these islands, the explosion would be sufficient to incinerate every particle of carbon in the whole country? As we are built up as to about one-third of particles of carbon, it would definitely be awkward for us.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, that is why it is so important to ensure that that never happens.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the purpose of this question is to ascertain whether or not Trident is to be acceptable to the Alliance? It would seem that if the Minister can give the noble Lord a satisfactory answer, the Alliance will be able to support him on Trident. Therefore, he will possibly try a little harder. Is the Minister also aware that on the question of Trident, there is no halfway house: one is either for it or against it?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, as I understand the matter, and I confess to some confusion here, the 1204 policy of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, and his colleagues as regards our nuclear deterrent is a policy of "rust away" while the policy of noble Lords opposite is one of "give away".

§ Lord Kennet
My Lords, if a man ordered a two-litre car, then cancelled the order and replaced it with an order for a four-and-a-half litre car promising the world that he would somehow reduce its capacity to two litres, would the Government regard that as a wise purchasing policy?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the purpose of Trident is to replace an independent deterrent which, by the mid-1990s, will be becoming rapidly less credible. That is why we have ordered the system which we have ordered and, as a matter of fact, the number of warheads available to Trident at the time of its introduction will be substantially fewer than the opposition will have at that time.

§ Lord Diamond
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the principle, which I believe lawyers generally accept, that if something untruthful is said and you do not object at the time, you may be held to be accepting that untruthfulness? In those circumstances can the Leader of the House advise me how I am to deal with the extraordinary statement made by one of his supporters that no member of the Alliance has ministerial experience?

§ The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw)
My Lords, perhaps this would be a suitable moment for me to say that I do not think that the noble Lord needs advice from me, and I doubt whether he would take it if I gave it to him. I think the only advice I should give him at the moment is that possibly we are getting a little wide of the orginal Question and should pass on to the next one.