It is a huge pleasure to welcome Permanent and Military Representatives of NATO to Her Majesty’s Naval Base Clyde.

Our nation’s commitment to the Alliance – the bedrock of our defence – remains absolute.

In the past year alone we’ve increased our NATO efforts: policing Black Sea skies, leading half of its maritime missions and upping our efforts to mentor Afghan officers. And today, our Prime Minister is in Estonia visiting the 800 UK troops who, supported by our French and Danish allies, are leading NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence providing vital reassurance to our Eastern European allies.

But there’s no greater illustration of our commitment to NATO which, after all, remains a nuclear alliance than our investment in the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent submarine force. And today, we mark the milestone of its 350th patrol at its home base.

So, before I continue, I would like to thank our brave submariners and our submarine enterprise as a whole. For almost 50 years their efforts and those of their forebears have kept us safe every hour of every day. They remain the ultimate guarantors of our security.

And this event offers us a unique opportunity to remind ourselves why our nuclear programme remains so significant.

Protect Our People

First, it’s about protecting our people. Our nuclear deterrent remains our only defence against the most extreme threats to our way of life.

Those threats are intensifying whether they come from North Korea’s latest nuclear testing setting off a hydrogen bomb, launching ballistic missiles and reinforcing her reckless defiance of the international community. Or Russia, which not content with aggression in Ukraine and Crimea, has over the last few years repeatedly ramped up its nuclear rhetoric and in its latest exercise involving some 50,000 troops massed on the borders of Eastern Europe will also test nuclear capable ballistic missiles.

Now the UK remains firmly committed to the long term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. As Secretary of State, I reduced the number of deployed warheads on each submarine from 48 to 40 and the number of operationally available warheads to no more than 120. Just as we remain committed to reducing our overall stockpile of nuclear warheads to no more than 180 by the mid-2020s.

Yet, at the same time, we remain realistic. The total number of nuclear weapons in the world did not suddenly fall. Much as we would love to live in a world without nuclear weapons. We cannot uninvent them.

Our deterrent ensures our adversaries are left in no doubt that the benefits of any attack will be vastly outweighed by the consequences.

No credible alternative exists. And we see no reason to change our posture.

Protect Our Alliance
But this brings me back to the point at which I started.
Our nuclear deterrent isn’t just essential for our security. it’s essential for NATO’s security as well. It forms one of the Alliance’s key centres of decision making that complicates the calculations of our adversaries.

What is more, many nations, represented here today signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in the late 1960s, safe in the knowledge they were covered by NATO’s nuclear umbrella including the United Kingdom deterrent. Not only did that deal help halt the nuclear arms race at the time, it has helped to cut the world’s nuclear stockpile by 85%.

It is no coincidence there hasn’t been a major conflict involving nuclear powered states since the end of the Second World War.

Protect Our Future

Finally, our independent deterrent is a promise to protect our future. We don’t know what threats lie around the corner.

Yet by giving the next generation every means necessary – from the conventional though to the nuclear – to deal with whatever comes round the corner.

We are strengthening their hand ensuring that they will have the means to deter potential threats into the 2040s, 2050s, 2060s and beyond.

That is why today we’re building four Dreadnought class submarines which will enter service in the early 2030’s.

That is why we’re continuing to spend £1.3Bn over the next three years on facilities here at Faslane. And that is why we are building on the incredible advanced manufacturing skills found across Scotland to transform this base into a Royal Navy submarine centre of specialisation a base for all UK submarines providing 6,800 jobs now and 8,200 in the future.

Conclusion

So I hope you find your visit instructive and informative.

You can rely on the UK to remain not just 100 per cent committed to our NATO alliance but 100 per cent committed to our deterrent – a message Parliament confirmed overwhelmingly last year when it voted to maintain CASD. At the same time, we can never be complacent.

As we look towards next year’s NATO summit and beyond we must not just ensure the Alliance’s political and military leaders continue recognising the importance of nuclear capabilities as NATO adapts and modernise but continues to make the case about the importance of nuclear weapons to a new generation.

Our national safety the strength of our Alliance and the security of the world depends on it.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has today marked the UK’s 350th nuclear deterrence submarine patrol by hosting talks on collective global security with NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the North Atlantic Council.

The UK Defence Secretary welcomed Jens Stoltenberg and all 29 NATO ambassadors to the home of the UK’s independent strategic nuclear deterrent, Her Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde. Sir Michael also took the opportunity to confirm that the UK will continue to play a leading role in NATO’s deterrence missions and will modernise and upgrade the Clyde Naval Base through £1.3 billion investment over the next ten years.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said:

From our nuclear submarines that stand ready to defend us against the most extreme threats to our way of life, to nearly a thousand UK troops based in Eastern Europe, our commitment to the NATO Alliance, the cornerstone of European security, is clear and unwavering.

NATO is a nuclear alliance. Only by having a deterrent of our own are we able to help guarantee our nation’s security and that of all our NATO allies.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said:

I welcome the UK’s strong contribution to NATO, from its commitment to defence investment to its operational deployments. The nuclear forces of the Alliance, including those at Clyde Naval Base, are the supreme guarantee of the security of allied countries and populations.

HMNB Clyde has been home to the submarine based nuclear deterrent for five decades. The UK Government is investing £1.3 billion over the next 10 years to update and upgrade its engineering and training facilities. The Base will be home to the entire UK submarine service by 2020, and supports 6,800 jobs today, which will rise to 8,500 in the 2030s.

The NAC’s visit included a tour of a UK Vanguard class deterrent submarine and the Base’s extensive Trident Training Facility.

Designing and building the new Dreadnought class of four ballistic missile submarines is one of the largest and most complex programmes that the MOD and UK industry has undertaken. The UK has shown its commitment to the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty having reduced the number of deployed warheads on each submarine from 48 to 40, the number of operationally available warheads to no more than 120 and remains committed to reducing its stockpile of nuclear warheads to no more than 180 by mid-2020s.

The NAC also toured a Royal Navy frigate taking part in Exercise Joint Warrior, the UK-led multinational exercise that will begin days after the visit, on Sunday 1st October. It is one of the largest military exercises of its kind in Europe, bringing together 35 naval units from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain and the US, as well as aircraft from Canada, France, Norway, the UK and US. As Scotland’s largest military establishment, HMNB Clyde is also the operational headquarters for Joint Warrior.

19 unknown British comrades in arms who lost their lives on the battlefield during World War 1 (WW1) have finally been laid to rest in the New Irish Farm Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) Cemetery in Ypres, Belgium on Thursday 28 September.

Unusually for a single service the ceremony involved casualties from English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Regiments. The service itself was organised by the MOD’s Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC), part of Defence Business Services and was conducted by The Reverend Iori Price CF, Chaplain to the 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment.

Sue Raftree, JCCC said:

It is very unusual for there to be 19 First World War soldiers from English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Regiments buried in one ceremony. It has been a privilege for the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre to organise this service.

The soldiers were found following ground work at an industrial development at Briekestraat, Ypres in Belgium. The location, thought to be the original Irish Farm site, is an original war time cemetery created by the army under war conditions. It was believed that all those buried there had been transferred to the New Irish Farm Cemetery, some 300 meters away, but this discovery has proved that they hadn’t.

Investigations undertaken by the JCCC established that of the 19 soldiers:

• 4 served with the Essex Regiment
• one with the Monmouthshire Regiment
• one with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
• one with the Northumberland Regiment
• one with the Royal Irish Regiment

As no regimental artefacts were found, the remaining 11 will be buried as ‘Known Unto God’. During the burial service all the coffins were in the burial plots with the exception of 1, which was carried in as the focus of the ceremony by the Essex Regiment, now the Anglians.

Reverend Iori Price CF said:

We are always mindful of the costs of conflict and the need we have to persue peace for all. At such a moment as this, when we have gathered to bury those fallen in conflicts, we reflect on the great price paid by our service personnel then and the motivation that encouraged them.

The headstones were provided by the CWGC and Liz Sweet, CWGC’s Director of External Relations in Western Europe said:

We, at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, are delighted that the sacrifice of these 19 soldiers has been recognised by today’s event and will now be cared for in perpetuity by the Commission.