PRESS RELEASE

On Tuesday 17 November, members of Wrexham Peace & Justice Forum and Wrexham Women for Peace took to the streets of Wrexham to canvass public opinion on government plans to spend tens of billions of pounds replacing Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons system.

The costs involved in maintaining and replacing Britain’s nuclear weapons have come under increasing public scrutiny in the current economic climate. The total cost for replacement of Trident will be close to £100 billion, according to a recent Greenpeace report ‘In the Firing Line’.(1) Only minor savings are expected to be made from Gordon Brown’s recently announced plan to replace only three of the four nuclear submarines currently in operation.(2)

Opposition to nuclear weapons is by no means limited to peace activists. Many retired senior army figures have spoken out against nuclear weapons over the years, most recently Field Marshall Lord Bramall, General Lord Ramsbotham and General Sir Hugh Beach, who wrote in January that:

‘Nuclear weapons have shown themselves to be completely useless as a deterrent to the threats and scale of violence we currently, or are likely to, face – particularly international terrorism.’ (3)
[The Times, 16 January 2009]

Decisions about Trident replacement are being taken by senior government ministers behind closed doors. This lack of transparency has attracted much criticism; calls for a proper debate in Parliament have come from many quarters, including from within Parliament itself. The influential Foreign Affairs Committee, in a report published in June, entitled ‘Global Security: Non-Proliferation’ wrote:

‘We conclude that the decision to renew the UK's Trident system is perceived by some foreign states and some among the British public as appearing to contradict the Government's declared commitment to strengthening the international nuclear non-proliferation regime... We recommend that the Government should not take any decision at the Initial Gate stage until Parliament has had the chance to scrutinise the matter in a debate.’ (4)

WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER SPEND THE MONEY ON?

Shoppers, workers, students and pensioners were amongst those who took part in the survey, which invited people to suggest ways in which the money earmarked for Trident could be more usefully spent by ticking their choices or making their own suggestions on a large wall chart and on survey sheets. The most popular suggestion was to use the money on Health services, with Education, Jobs, the Environment and Public Transport not far behind. Other popular suggestions were Pensions, Housing, Benefits and Childcare. One group of students felt strongly that there was a need for more spending on social care for disabled people; several people mentioned the need for more funding for residential care and home care services, and there were many comments along the lines of ‘Anything BUT Trident!’

A member of Wrexham Peace & Justice Forum and Wrexham Women for Peace, spoke about the event:

‘As well as conducting the survey, we handed out hundreds of CND leaflets about Trident replacement. These alerted people to the cost of Trident replacement and the obligations Britain is under as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Government plans to spend ever increasing amounts of money we can’t afford on nuclear weapons, in clear contravention of the Treaty, are being made behind closed doors without proper public accountability. I am very unhappy about this and the feedback we had from the stall this week is that this view is shared by many people in Wrexham.’

Notes

1.  http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/peace/brown-proposes-paltry-trident-cut-20090923
2.  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5525682.ece
3.  http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/peace/trident-costs-are-running-out-control-20090917
4.  http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmfaff/222/22202.htm