Campaigners publish list of politicians undecided ahead of Trident renewal vote

Members of the Barrow-based Keep Our Future Afloat Campaign (KOFAC) have written to a number of Labour politicians understood to be undecided ahead of Monday's vote for or against the renewal of Britain's Trident nuclear weapons programme.

Following a debate on Monday afternoon, MPs will vote on a motion to renew the UK's continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent, with a result due to be announced by around 10.30pm.

READ MORE: When and how politicians will vote on renewal of nuclear weapons Barrow-built sub programme

KOFAC have written to the following Labour MPs, pressing home the importance of the submarine programme to Barrow and the UK.

Here is the full list of MPs understood to be undecided ahead of Monday's vote

Graham Allen Nottingham North

Paul Blomfield Sheffield Central

Karyn Buck Regents Park and Kensington North

Nic Dakin Scunthorpe

Geraint Davies Swansea West

Helen Goodman Bishop Auckland

Kate Green Stretford and Urmston

Carolyn Harris Swansea East

Kate Hollern Blackburn

Gerald Jones Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney

Ivan Lewis Bury South

Andy MacDonald Middlesbrough

Fiona McTaggart Slough

Gordon Marsden Blackpool South

Christina Rees Neath

Steve Rotherham Liverpool Walton

Karin Smyth Bristol South

Valerie Vaz Walsall South.

An example of the letter sent to MPs

I am writing to urge you to on 18th July 2016 support the need to build 4 new Successor submarines to carry the existing Trident deterrent missiles and a need to maintain CASD(Continuously –at –Sea Deterrent patrols by those submarines.

It will be of interest to you that there are in your own Rotherham constituency 2 firms Anixter Industrial Ltd, Johnson and Allen Ltd and are embedded in and rely on submarine programme to contribute to your constituency’s economic prosperity and that of their workforce.

In the surrounding Sheffield area many more companies are intimately involved in submarine support and build and 367 are situated in the north and what the Government terms the “northern powerhouse”. In many Labour constituencies the number of companies is higher than the cluster found in your area.

There are strong strategic national interest reasons for supporting the new submarine programme in the form of it:

 Enabling the UK to retain its strategic defence “insurance Policy” by providing an assured deterrent capability to guard against future risk of state-on- state threats until well into the 2060s/70s;

 enables 4 new state of the art submarines to replace 4 aging submarines that will be around 40 years old when he first new boat comes into service;

 sustain tens of over 30,000 highly skilled jobs in a UK wide supply chain of 1,000 companies located in over 440 towns and cities that forms “Britain’s submarine enterprise” role in designing, building, operating and maintaining the submarines . Of equal importance is the very, very high UK content of the work - 93% of the build orders are anticipated to be placed with UK companies;

 sustains thousands of young apprentices and graduates who are embarking on high wage careers in naval ship and submarine building;

 delivers nationwide benefits worth £12bn GVA throughout UK from now until the 2060s’

 creates nearly £1bn of new investment at Faslane Naval base in Scotland and a workforce rise from 6,700 to 8,000 . It also sustains approaching 8,000 jobs in Barrow,1,000 in Derby, around 4,000 in Plymouth.

I would also ask that in weighing up whether to support the investment in a new submarine fleet you to take into consideration the fact that extensive research has revealed there are very significant challenges facing the highly skilled submarine sector workforce, the companies they work for and for the economies of the communities in which they are based should any aspect of the submarine programme be curtailed in the future.

The key points about searching for alternative workloads are that:

- there are no realistic diversification alternatives : at best they might create 300 to 550 jobs over a seven year period;

- existing orders cannot sustain the thousands of skilled people currently involved in the sector beyond 2022/4;

- warship construction is not a realistic option because it is currently centred in Scotland, needs far fewer skilled personnel circa 1,500-2,500 because such ships are less complex;

- conventional submarine skills do not exist in UK and build of such submarines would only need hundreds instead of thousands of skilled people

- seeking to deliver alternative green or renewable energy technologies is highly unlikely given the dominance of those markets by European mainland based multinational companies.At most a few hundred jobs (100-200 ) may emerge;

- if Nissan in Sunderland is taken as an exemplar of diversification it took over 20 years and nearly £4bn to create just 6,000 jobs.

Finally the strategic defence need for the new submarines is probably greater now than it was when the decision was being taken to place the orders for the existing submarines, in the late 1980s when the cold war ended.

There are now more nations with access to strategic nuclear weapons systems their accuracy has improved and the Ministry of Defence’s November 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review clearly highlighted there is now increased risk of a state on state threat re-emerging for UK that it would be prudent to guard against by continuing to operate a strategic deterrent carrying submarine fleet using the optimum posture of continuously-at- sea operations.

I hope you find this background briefing of interest and help you come down on the side of the arguments for building 4 new submarines during next week’s important debate.

Yours sincerely,

Terry Waiting, KOFAC chairman