Dundee Liberal Democrats welcome Scottish Parliament's rejection of Trident replacement (Dundee Liberal Democrats)

Dundee Liberal Democrats <info@dundeelibdems.org.uk>

Dundee Liberal Democrats welcome Scottish Parliament's rejection of Trident replacement

June 18, 2007 6:11 AM

Dundee Liberal Democrats today (Monday 18th June) welcomed the news that, last week, the Scottish Parliament passed a motion to reject the government's plans to replace the Trident nuclear weapon system.

The Parliament passed a LibDem amendment to the motion which said Trident should not be renewed 'at this time', allowing for the issue to be considered in future disarmament talks.

The Tories were the only party to support the renewal of Trident; four Labour MSPs voted to reject the government plans while the rest of the Labour MSPs abstained. The parliament later passed a further LibDem motion noting that defence issues were the responsibility of the UK Parliament and calling on the government not to go ahead with the proposals to renew the Trident system.

Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles said, "We must be willing to take part in multilateral nuclear disarmament and we want the UK government to press for a nuclear weapons convention to formalise all the nuclear states' commitment to disarmament.

"However we think that the crucial decisions on whether to procure a successor system should not be taken before 2014, when a clearer picture has emerged of the proliferation of states that possess nuclear weapons and their ability to threaten Britain's security."

Here in Dundee, Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesperson for Dundee West, Michael Charlton, said, "I am delighted that the Scottish Parliament has rejected Mr Blair's proposal to spend up to £20 billion replacing Trident. It is an unjustifiable use of huge sums of public money."