Nuclear Weapons Expenditure And The Peace Dividend 1994

EDM number 29 in 1994-95, proposed by Llew Smith on 16/11/1994.

That this House believes that United Kingdom defence spending should be reduced to the average level of other West European countries, allied to constructive plans for defence diversification, arms conversion and the transfer of the savings made to social priorities by investment in job creation and economic development and the restructure of the United Kingdom's infrastructure; recognises the importance of making retraining of the defence sector workforce a priority; supports the call for the scrapping of the Trident submarine and weapons programme as an essential step towards eliminating nuclear weapons world-wide; notes with dismay the Government's decision to ringfence nuclear weapons in its front line first defence costs study; believes that in rejecting Trident the United Kingdom would demonstrate concrete support for strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation treaty prior to the review and extension conference for the treaty next April; recognises the importance of a successful outcome to the negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty for the NPT; further believes that the lifetime costs of Trident deployment will be at least ú33 billion when re-fit, replacement and decommissioning are included; that it is the hidden extra costs of continuing the United Kingdom nuclear weapons programme, in health, environment as well as financial terms that have drastically damaged the peace dividend; and therefore calls on the Government to support the cancellation of Trident and to plan the investment of resources saved into job creation and industrial innovation in the British civil economy.

This motion has been signed by a total of 37 MPs.