Hansard

I thank the cabinet secretary for bringing this debate to the chamber. Trident, and the future of nuclear weapons in this country, is an important and controversial topic. Five weeks ago, we discussed the UK Government’s plans to refurbish Faslane naval base—the refurbishment costs were an estimated £500 million.

I welcome the decision by Scottish Labour Party members at the weekend to vote to oppose renewing Trident, although whether the top brass of the party has the ability or the guile to go against its national party is yet to be seen.

The UK Government plans to cut tax credits for some of Scotland’s and the UK’s hardest-working and lowest-paid families. Those cuts will cost an estimated 3 million families more than £1,200 a year. In the same breath in which the UK Government claims that it cannot continue to support those families, that the budget must be balanced and that public spending must be reined in, it announces a commitment to spend billions of pounds of public money on a nuclear weapons system that simply serves to make the UK less equal, secure and safe.

Those who support the renewal of Trident consistently claim that Trident and the refurbishment of Faslane are necessary to secure jobs in the area and to protect our society. My amendment calls on the Scottish Government to support a funded jobs transition programme that would assist workers at Faslane in finding new work that utilises their engineering and other key skills to create a better, fairer and greener Scotland. However, unless the UK Government, or an independent Scottish Government, agrees to declare its waters a nuclear-free zone, that is all academic. Any decision by the UK Government, or an independent Scottish Government, to remove Trident and nuclear weapons from Faslane and Scottish waters is toothless. As long as we continue to allow NATO and its associated countries to house their nuclear weapons on our shores, we will continue to be in danger from those means of mass destruction.

On 19 September, the Daily Record reported that an American nuclear submarine capable of launching 24 ballistic missiles docked in Faslane. In the week of 8 October, a NATO military exercise—the largest military exercise in more than a decade—took place off the shores of Scotland. Those exercises included jamming global positioning system signals used by fisherman and sea trawlers. As long as the UK, or an independent Scotland, remains a part of NATO, it will continue to be required to support, directly and indirectly, nuclear weapons systems being used and docked in and around Scotland.

The NATO alliance is a cold war relic that is not suited to the realities of modern-day security threats. Nuclear missiles are indiscriminate weapons of mass murder. They have the potential to level cities, create destruction and destroy humanity on a scale that we cannot even imagine. It is time that Scotland stopped supporting nuclear weapons, both at home and abroad. We must spend our public money helping people, not harming them.

The Edinburgh conversations during the cold war helped to thaw tensions and reduce the military threat from both sides of the conflict. Scotland can build on that legacy and become a diplomatic, non-violent and anti-nuclear weapons country. Scotland can and should work with other nations in the European Union and north Africa to establish mutually beneficial defence agreements based on mutual co-operation and human security.

The security of all humanity is of the utmost importance. Nuclear weapons are one of the most controversial moral and ethical issues of our time. We must be serious about the need for disarmament and mindful of what we, as a nation, are trying to achieve and how we want to present ourselves to the world. We must move away from indiscriminate weapons of mass slaughter and destruction and remove them from our shores and from public spending.

If we are serious about creating not just a fairer Scotland but a fairer world—one that can lead individuals out of poverty and create a higher standard of living for all—we must lead the way. We can set an example as a nation that rejects the idea that, in order to secure their safety and future, nation states must spend vast amounts of money on weapons of mass destruction. Scotland, through diplomacy and disarmament, can protect itself and contribute to global peace. I urge all those who are opposed to Trident nuclear weapons and continued aggressive nuclear proliferation to support my amendment. Only by removing nuclear weapons and leaving NATO can we truly disengage from the nuclear arms industry and show an alternative, non-nuclear future for Scotland and the rest of the world.

I great take pleasure, on behalf of the Green and independents group in the Scottish Parliament, in moving amendment S4M-14681.2, to insert at end:

“, decommission the Vanguard-class submarines and declare the UK, and UK waters, a nuclear weapons-free zone; commits to a funded jobs transition for defence workers that utilises their engineering and other key skills, and agrees that the UK, or an independent Scotland, should both end its membership of NATO on the grounds of NATO’s first-strike nuclear policy and seek alternative alliances based on mutual cooperation and human security”.