[NukeNet] Scotland: Devolution may scuttle MoD

[theroyprocess at cox.net]

http://www.sundayherald.com/
oped/opinion/display.var.
1758683.0.0.php

  

Devolution may scuttle MoD 
The decision to replace Britain's nuclear deterrent, Trident, was one of the last key policy issues pushed through the Commons in the final period of Tony Blair's government. It did not mean, however, that Britain had decided on what it needed in terms of new submarines and the number of new missiles it would order from the US.

It was a decision to begin a "planning and design" process that will be lengthy, complex and costly. But even in the early stage of this process we have learned the Ministry of Defence (MoD)recognises that there may be some unexpected hurdles they will need to overcome to deliver the new Trident weapons system. The MoD know that many of these hurdles are in Scotland, and in the almost traditional "home" of Britain's nuclear fleet on the Clyde.

Changes in the way that devolution is evolving have clearly made the MoD put a question mark over what it can and can't do in terms of what it wants to eventually see built on the Clyde.

Simply ordering a few new boats and new missiles is simplistic nonsense. This will be a large-scale rebuilding of MoD nuclear facilities - and for them to be built planning laws will have to be respected, as will laws which protect the environment in Scotland. How these planning difficulties in such early days will be overcome is not clear. Westminster will not want to ride roughshod over Scottish laws, simply because they may realise they cannot do this, regardless of defence being a reserved power in Westminster.

If there is hesitancy at the MoD, this is a good thing and the issue of Trident, already divisive on moral and military grounds, could also be the issue that tests the evolving relationship between the Westminster government and the Scottish government, regardless of the party controlling Holyrood.

So while the MoD will be taking legal advice, so too must Holyrood seek its own legal defence if it wishes to block another generation of Trident being based in Scotland. Who will it turn to for this senior legal advice? Not the attorney-general in London, the conflict would be too obvious. And what advice would the lord advocate give?

This is new legal territory that has yet to be explored fully as the political relationship between Scotland and England changes. If the MoD is not sure what might happen and where there authority may be limited, we understand why.

The MoD should, even at this early stage of planning for a replacement Trident, take nothing for granted, especially in Scotland. 

10:21pm Saturday 13th October 2007




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