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Speech in Scottish Parliament Chris Ballance |
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| September 2006 | ||
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Chris Ballance (South of Scotland) (Green): Nuclear weapons are immoral, illegal and should have no future here. Jack McConnell said in the chamber two weeks ago that Trident should be included in international disarmament negotiations. Jackie Baillie, the Lib Dems and the Tories also say that multilateral disarmament works. If it works, Trident will be negotiated away, so where is their plan to provide alternative employment to those who will lose their jobs, or is that they do not have a plan, because they know that their policy has failed over 50 years, is failing and will continue to fail? They do not plan for a non-nuclear future because they do not believe that multilateralism will succeed in our time. I am old enough to remember the excitement generated by the Lucas Aerospace shop stewards' plan to guarantee jobs by phasing out that company's involvement in military production. The trade unions at Lucas spent two years consulting the entire workforce, from engineers to secretaries. The eventual plan that they produced was a response to employees' wish to spend their time working on socially useful goods rather than bigger ways of killing people. It was based on the company's skills and equipment and on market research. The unions took their plan to the Labour Government for support—what a waste of time. What did Labour do? Nothing. What did we lose as a result? Instead of more killing machines, the workforce suggested diversification into medical equipment, aids for disabled people, portable kidney dialysis machines, wind turbines, solar cells, heat pumps, small-scale electricity generation, energy conservation, hybrid electric cars and a road-rail vehicle. That was all back in 1976. If the Labour Government had listened 30 years ago, Britain would now be a world leader in renewable energy and not frantically playing catch-up and having to buy all its wind turbines from Denmark or Germany. The Lucas Aerospace trade unionists were visionaries. We need some of that vision now. That is why my amendment says that we should look to the future. Let us stop throwing tens of billions of pounds into a weapons system that is aimed at a Soviet Union that does not exist. Instead, let us consider the skills at Faslane and Coulport and what future markets will need in the age of peak oil and climate change. Let us stop pouring money into misery and plan for the socially useful alternatives that a nuclear-free Scotland could produce. Both member parties of the coalition claim to believe that multilateral talks will rid Scotland of nuclear weapons. Where is their plan for how that will happen? Where is their plan for the workforce? They should prove that their commitment is more than just mealy-mouthed words to disguise a central promise to follow the US Government across the world and to house whatever weapons of mass destruction it tells us to. If members believe that a non-nuclear future is possible, let us plan for it now. I move amendment S2M-4864.4, to insert at end: "but also recognises the concerns of workforce unions, such as the GMB, and therefore calls on the Scottish Executive to prepare Scotland for a weapons of mass destruction-free future by producing a plan for the redeployment of workers, such as at Faslane and Coulport, for peaceful purposes." |