The Tories risk playing ‘petty, grubby’ politics by planning to delay the Commons vote on Trident renewal, former head of the Navy Lord West has warned Coffee House.
A group of former senior military figures, ex-ministers and MPs are writing to David Cameron and George Osborne next week to urge them to push ahead with the votes on the ’main gate’ decision on the new submarines as soon as possible, after reports that the Conservatives were planning to delay until closer to Labour’s autumn conference. David Cameron this week said ‘we should have the vote when we need to have the vote and that is exactly what we will do’, which suggested he wasn’t trying to create a sense of urgency about the matter.
Lord West, one of the letter’s signatories, told Coffee House that the Tories needed to get on with the vote, not least because the government has already spent or committed around £4 billion on the development of the Successor submarines.
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