Trident is a political vanity project, irrelevant for our real security needs...

Over the next 30 years, the UK’s set to shell out a staggering £100 billion on renewing our Trident nuclear defence system.  

So alongside the SNP and Plaid Cymru, I was pleased yesterday to co-sponsor an Opposition debate on why that shouldn’t happen.

Disappointingly, for the second time in a little over a week, Labour (with a few honourable exceptions) sided with the Conservatives, and opposed us.

Their auto-justification is that Trident keeps us safe.

Yet that position isn't even supported by many defence experts themselves.

The former head of the British Armed Forces has described our nuclear weapons as "completely useless" and "virtually irrelevant".

In 2007, Cold War defence and foreign policy leaders Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn and William Perry, argued in the Wall Street Journal that reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence was “becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”

Yet Ministers persist in claiming that nuclear weapons are vital for our security.  But when I asked the Secretary of State whether he agreed that the logic of his argument should mean he supported all nations in the world seeking to acquire nuclear weapons to protect their security too, he was unable to answer me.

The world has moved light years since the Cold War. Terror has changed its form. Today, nuclear weapons simply divert massive resources from real security threats. 

The Government has itself stated that the main security threats we face today are terrorism and cyber-attacks.  The MoD thinks coastal flooding, climate-driven migration and rising food prices due to drought and water stress will pose a far greater security risk than anything a nuclear weapon might help us with.  On that, I agree with them.

The best deterrent is to redouble our efforts to work with other nations to address global threats like fossil-fuel-induced climate disruption, transnational trafficking in weapons, people and drugs, and the poverty and desperation which fuel conflicts, hunger and violence around the world. 

Trident is a political vanity project, irrelevant for our real security needs. 

And what a vanity project it is, at a cool £100 billion.

It would, of course, be illegal for us to actually use it.

Which means the Government is unlawfully squandering billions on a warhead that it cannot ever justify using under international law. Which, some might (and do) suggest, lacks a certain common sense.

It’s even more outrageous when the austerity axe is hacking away at housing, health, education, public sector jobs and social security. From 2010-11 to 2015-16 core central government funding to local authorities is being slashed by 40 per cent and, with it, essential public services 

Think what we could do with £100 billion over 30 years.

Last year, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) published People not Trident, which considered just that.

Investing that money wisely, it found, could create 2 million jobs, compared to 7,000 as a result of Trident.

It could build us hundreds of thousands of new homes. In Brighton, sky-high rents mean nurses and health workers are having to move away. We currently have 18,000 people on the waiting list for housing.  The Government should be increasing the direct capital grant to Local Authorities so they can invest in a mass programme of sustainable council housing. 

When the impact of spending £100 billion is so huge, I’d argue it’s inconsistent to be pro Trident and pro ending the housing crisis.

In Brighton, as in many parts of the country, our A&E faces crisis, while nurses are being denied even a miserly 1% wage increase.  But the £100 billion earmarked for Trident could fully fund all A&E services in hospitals for 40 years. It could cover the cost of building 180 new state of the art hospitals. It could employ 150,000 new nurses for the next three decades.

When the impact of spending £100 billion is so huge, I’d argue it’s inconsistent to be pro Trident and pro our NHS.

This Government has cut the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), lifted the cap on tuition fees and forced schools to enter into partnerships with private companies.

£100 billion could pay the tuition fees of over 4 million students. It could reinstate EMA for 60 years, enabling students to afford books, transport and college materials. It could build as many as 30,000 primary schools – or refurbish thousands more.

Instead of nuclear warheads we could - and should - be investing in our children’s future.

When the impact of spending £100 billion is so huge, I’d argue it’s inconsistent to be pro Trident and pro a better education system.

People must come before Trident.