NATO and International Security

I will be as quick as I can. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), who made an articulate and thoughtful speech, but I wonder why he said nothing about the SNP’s attitude towards nuclear weapons, because it is now beyond any credibility and devalues everything that he contributed to this debate. By far the greatest contribution that Scotland makes to the defence of Europe is hosting the nuclear deterrent at Faslane. The idea that this would be uprooted by an independent Scotland, and that Scotland would then present itself as a good member of NATO, is utterly ridiculous. What is more, we now know from Iain Macwhirter’s article in The Herald yesterday that this opinion is completely out of step with Scottish public opinion: some 58% of Scots want to retain the nuclear deterrent and only 20% want to get rid of it. When will his party change its policy and adopt the nuclear deterrent as its policy?