ONE of Scotland’s most beautiful areas would become a “wasteland” without Trident, Leader of the House of Commons Chris Grayling said yesterday.
The nuclear deterrent is based on the River Clyde at Faslane, near Helensburgh, and is a 20-minute drive from Loch Lomond.
But yesterday Grayling, the Tory MP for Epsom and Ewell said the area would become a “wasteland” if his party listened to public opinion in Scotland and scrapped the system.
A Survation poll in January showed more than 47 per cent of the public is against renewing Trident, with just 32 per cent in favour.
The SNP will hold an opposition day debate on the issue next week and yesterday Pete Wishart told the House of Commons that would give Labour a chance to clarify its position on Trident.
While Jeremy Corbyn is a veteran anti-nuclear campaigner, shadow defence Secretary Maria Eagle backs Trident and the official policy is to renew the system.
Recently at Holyrood almost all Labour MSPs – with the exception of Jackie Baillie – opposed Trident in a vote, marking a strong division between the central and Scottish offices. It is understood that Corbyn will direct MPs to abstain in the SNP debate.
However, reports suggest many will rebel to vote in favour of the £167 billion renewal project.
Yesterday Wishart said: “We know the Conservative position, they love their nukes and we know that they are quite happy to spend £167bn on obscene weapons of mass destruction, a Cold War weapon that can’t even start to defend us with the range of threats that we currently face.
“We know the [Scottish] National Party’s position on this, we’ve got historic opposition to this and we will suggest a number of ways about how £167bn might be more usefully spent in terms of social projects.
“Who knows? We might even find out what the Labour Party think about Trident, though I’m not holding out any great expectation on that.”
However, Grayling said the SNP’s opposition to Trident was at odds with its anger at the decision to cut HMRC jobs in Scotland, telling Wishart: “I would gently chide you about the contradictions next week in the debate subjects you have chosen.
“So, for half the day you are going to argue that we should pull out of Scotland a really vital national resource, costing thousands of jobs and leaving an important part of Scotland a wasteland.
“And yet the other part of the day you’re complaining about us making necessary reductions in HMRC and worried about that costing jobs in Scotland. So I really don’t understand quite how you square those two.
“I think our defence industry plays a really important part in the Scottish economy as well as an important part in defending our nation, I think your position is utterly contradictory.”
Labour’s Ian Mearns, who represents Gateshead, hit back: “The area around Faslane, with or without Trident, I don’t think could ever be described as being a wasteland, it’s beautiful countryside.”
Clarifying his statement, Grayling replied: “There was never any doubt about the beauty of the countryside in western Scotland and indeed in Scotland as a whole, it is a fantastic part of this country and something that we all wish to spend time in.
“But of course if such an important facility were lost to western Scotland, the impact on the local economy, the leaving of a site that is an important part of the economy emptying out to waste, would be a tragedy.
“And it’s why I disagree with the Scottish nationalists in relation to the economic impact in Scotland, quite apart from the defence impact for the nation.”
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