Last night was Burns night, and I found myself reflecting over a couplet from the bard’s timeless “A Man’s a Man for a’ That”:
“The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor, is king o’ men for a’ that.”
I open this debate in a spirit of honesty, truth and transparency—a trinity that has been lacking in most of my exchanges thus far with the Ministry of Defence over mounting concerns about the UK’s nuclear Trident programme. The spiralling costs of the programme, be they financial or human, demand an earnest response from Ministers—something that has hitherto eluded the MOD—but I am hoping for candour and honesty today, or in writing in the forthcoming weeks.
The economics of the Trident programme are more straightforward. As per the House of Commons Library, the total acquisition expenditure on the four Vanguard-class submarines housing the Trident missiles was £12.52 billion, which equates to approximately £21 billion in today’s money. Additionally, annual in-service costs are currently estimated at 6% of the defence budget—based on current planned expenditure, that is another £3 billion for 2023-24.
Further, the cost of the design and manufacture of the new Dreadnought-class submarines is estimated at £31 billion, including inflation over the life of the programme. A £10 billion contingency has also been set aside, making the current potential total for replacement £41 billion. In-service costs are expected to continue at approximately 6% of defence expenditure. The National Audit Office has raised concerns about the impact of the MOD’s nuclear programme based on the affordability of the Department’s overall equipment plan, but these astronomical figures continue to be spent.
That brings me to the three pressing concerns surrounding the Trident programme that I will set out for the Minister today, the first of which is the dangers of radiation exposure and the issue of nuclear safety in Scotland. Secondly, based on those incidents, there is growing scepticism about the overall preparedness of the existing Vanguard fleet in the light of its allegedly dangerous and “rotting” state, referenced by Dominic Cummings, the former senior adviser to the former Prime Minister. Thirdly, as a consequence of the nuclear exposure hazards that the UK has imposed on the population of Scotland and a lack of transparency concerning the programme as a whole, I will set out why the nation of Scotland has much to gain by removing that nuclear arsenal from its waters.
First and foremost, I would like to provide a factual context to this debate. I was contacted by a whistleblower at the Coulport armaments depot who told me that there had been an emergency evacuation at the site due to a radiation leak. I raised this matter directly with the Defence Secretary, who then wrote to me on 10 January 2023. In that letter, the Defence Secretary denied that there had been any serious radiation breaches at Faslane or Coulport. He wrote:
“I can confirm that the alleged radiation incident referred to during defence questions in the Commons did not occur.”
However, public concerns remain about the relocation of staff from building 201 at RNAD Coulport to building 41. The MOD has failed to confirm the date on which the staff at Coulport building 201 were first informed that they were being moving to building 41. The Defence Secretary also stated:
“no serious radiation breaches have occurred at His Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde or RNAD Coulport”.
However, that response implies there was a threshold for reporting radiation leaks.
As I said at the time, the Defence Secretary’s response raised more questions than it answered. It suggests that there were radiation breaches, but they fell below an unqualified serious threshold. What is that threshold? How is it defined, and what are the risks from non-serious radiation breaches? In response to a parliamentary written question about serious radiation breaches at the Clyde and Coulport ports, the Minister acknowledged:
“There have been historical events with minor radiological consequences at both His Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot (RNAD) Coulport.”
That revealed 15 recorded radiation leaks at Coulport and a further 43 at Faslane in 2023 alone, although the MOD insists that none was considered serious. Surely further detail of each of these events and the risk they did or did not present to the immediate vicinity is necessary. Will the Minister commit to providing that information?
Will the UK Government continue in their attempts to minimise the number and scale of such events by referring us to obscure codes and categorisations to obfuscate risk or by invoking national security as both an excuse and a smokescreen? The latter were deployed six months ago when the Alba party submitted a freedom of information request asking how many convoys there had been each year for the last five years carrying materials from Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston to Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport. Section 24, on national security, and section 26, on defence, of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 were invoked to withhold that information from Scotland and our people—the very people who are frequently placed at risk of exposure to radiation were to be kept in the dark.
Formulaic tests of public information versus national interest are simply not good enough. I would like to pointedly ask the Minister: approximately how much nuclear material has been transported between Aldermaston and Coulport in the last 12 months and in the past five years? How many convoys were used, and what is the frequency of such transports? How many workers are sufficiently close to be impacted by even low-level nuclear exposure? We need answers, and the people deserve the most basic of information. Even the details of potentially catastrophic incidents that have received media coverage are routinely denied to right hon. and hon. Members of the House and the public alike, on the spurious grounds that the Ministry does not comment on operational matters in respect of submarines.
It was recently reported that a Royal Navy nuclear submarine plunged towards its crush depth due to a concerning malfunction of its main depth gauge. It was finally reported last November, but the incident took place a year before that. We still have no specifics about where it took place, despite my personal request for information from the Ministry.
Turning to the preparedness of the Vanguard fleet itself, in September 2023, one of the Vanguard-class submarines returned from a patrol of more than six months. Defence commentators noted that it was double the three-month missions previously completed. Additionally, Navy Lookout reported that the returning submarine seemed to be missing exterior tiles and was covered in marine growth to an extent that had not been seen before. As of this year, the life expectancy of the current Vanguard fleet is repeatedly being extended, despite only three of the four vessels currently being seaworthy. I would like to credit The National newspaper in Scotland for its persistent and thorough reportage of the nuclear predicament in Scotland.
If it is the case that submarines are failing in seaworthiness and labouring under increased operational pressures, as is indicated by the malfunctioning of vital components, extended periods of deployment and missing exterior tiles, while radiation leaks are being under-reported, I ask the Minister in good faith, how are the people of Scotland or right hon. and hon. Members to place any trust in this Government? Specifically, how is the Dreadnought class to avoid exactly the same fate and, most critically, what additional safeguards are being taken to mitigate civilian exposure to nuclear contamination, given this shocking evidence?
Given that the chief adviser to an erstwhile Prime Minister has referred to the UK’s nuclear fleet as a “horror show”, I would hope that the Minister would come through with some degree of information and transparency, and not rely merely on obfuscation. That brings me to my third and final concern. The deficit in trust is one of the many reasons why the people of Scotland would benefit from becoming an independent state in lieu of being held in this Union against our will.
“Bairns not bombs” was one of the galvanising messages of the independence movement in the run-up to the 2014 referendum. That slogan embodied a persisting sentiment against nuclear weapons of mass destruction and their dangerous and corrosive impact on our country and the planet. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows that the majority of Scottish people oppose WMDs being hosted in Scotland. Whenever independence is mentioned to the UK Government, their immediate reaction is to attempt to assert that the Scottish economy is better served as part of the United Kingdom. Within the realm of defence manufacturing, such an argument is as far as from reality as possible. In October, the Government signed contracts totalling £4 billion to design and manufacture the world’s most advanced submarines. However much I disagree in principle with the so-called nuclear deterrent, it illustrates perfectly the fact that Scotland receives few of the manufacturing jobs, which are located in Barrow-in-Furness, Raynesway and Derby. The jobs, the growth and the capital are yet again directed anywhere but Scotland. Meanwhile, the rotting hulks of Dreadnought subs retired in the 1980s have been rusting away at Rosyth longer than they were in service. The people of Scotland have a precarious future, in which key economic infrastructure such as the Grangemouth oil refinery is threatened with closure.
While the current situation is bleak, I would not like to end my speech on a pessimistic note. Instead, I look towards the future with hope: a future where an independent Scotland can build on and benefit from its vast renewable energy potential, rather than host nuclear weapons; a future where there is a safe, feasible and practicable way to ensure that an independent Scotland will begin its life as a nuclear and WMD-free state from day one of independence; a future where the Government and the people of Scotland are no longer kept in the dark about the dangers placed in their midst by a remote, arrogant London Administration.