After the debate, 33 MPs voted against the proposal to renew Trident - 15 Labour MPs, 6 SNP MPs and 12 Liberal Democrat MPs. 22 Labour MPs voted for the proposal and there were 4 abstentions.

At the start of the debate the Foreign Secretary acknowledged that the House would have future opportunities to discuss the proposals to renew Trident in future years -

Margaret Beckett: As my hon. Friend is aware, we are not making any decision about the warheads in this Parliament, so the matter will inevitably come before a subsequent Parliament. ….. It is the decision of principle that we are required to make today. It is inevitable that there will be future discussions, and there will be decisions down the road as the programme proceeds. ...

The only Scottish MP who made a speech in favour of the proposal to renew Trident, as detailed in the White Paper, was the Defence Secretary, Des Browne. Several Scottish MPs spoke out strongly against the proposal -

Willie Rennie (Dunfermline and West Fife) (LD): The right hon. Gentleman [William Hague] mentioned the cold war earlier. Does he agree with former President Gorbachev, who said that “A responsible course of action for the...Government would be to postpone the decision on the future of the nuclear arsenal at least until the next review conference of the NPT in 2010”? ...

Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP): As the right hon. Gentleman [William Hague] knows, the submarines are to be based in Scotland, which has the greatest opposition to the renewal of Trident. Some 80 per cent. opposed it in the last opinion poll. Why should the submarines be based in Scotland; and would he respect the views of the Scottish people as expressed through their Parliament, if it decided to vote against Trident?
William Hague …. The decisions are made on a UK basis, and that is the right way for them to be made. ...

Nigel Griffiths (Edinburgh, South) (Lab): … After reading the White Paper, “The future of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent”, I have concluded that it has no future—that this country has to become a country for peace, not a country for war. We have led the world in campaigning to meet the Kyoto targets. We have led the fight to eradicate global poverty. Now we must lead the world in campaigning for the eradication of the nuclear threat—and we must lead by example. …. I cannot foresee any circumstances in which this country or its territories would be threatened by a nuclear weapons state and we would need to retaliate with a nuclear strike, or where the threat of a nuclear strike by the UK would shape such a state’s actions. … I go with a heavy heart, but a clear conscience. ...

Dr. Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East) (Lab): … My vision of Britain is of a leader in global non-proliferation, keeping our commitments and strengthening the world’s nuclear safeguards, which is why I will vote against the renewal of Trident. ...

Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): … what the people of Scotland think about it might be of some interest and concern to the House. It is not just that 80 per cent. of people oppose it; throughout Scottish civic society, people are pointing out, led by the Scottish Trades Union Congress, that it is unacceptable. … Every country in the world could say, “We are under threat, we require nuclear weapons.” The path on which that argument would set us is not to 10 countries having nuclear weapons, but—given their declining cost—to 100 or 150 having nuclear weapons. Do we really think that in those circumstances, any form of international agreement would stop a nuclear exchange? …

Mr. Jim Devine (Livingston) (Lab): … Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine and South Africa have given up weapons, and none of them regard themselves as less safe or secure than before; nor need we if the leadership can find the courage to allow Trident to be the end of Britain’s futile and costly obsession with nuclear weapon status. ...

Mr. Mohammad Sarwar (Glasgow, Central) (Lab):… why do we believe that it is right for Britain, the United States of America and Israel to possess weapons of mass destruction and expand their nuclear weapons arsenals, but that it is not right for other nations to develop nuclear weapons? Is it because we have more wisdom, because we are more responsible or because we are a rich nation? If we spent the billions of pounds that we are spending on war and our nuclear arsenal on alleviating poverty, we would live in a safer world. ...

Ms Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab): … I would vote against Trident’s replacement wherever in the United Kingdom it was based, but the reality is that it is based in the west of Scotland and for many decades vast majorities of people in Scotland have made it clear that they oppose nuclear weapons being based in Scotland. I think that that is because they, perhaps more than people in any other part of Britain, are very aware of what those weapons represent. They are weapons of mass destruction that have been designed to target civilian communities and to maximise death and suffering. ...

Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD): ... In recent years, the arguments in favour of possession of nuclear weapons have become progressively thinner... Where will be our moral authority to attend the nuclear non-proliferation treaty talks in 2010 if we back the Government’s position today?

The Conservative MP Michael Ancram, a former Edinburgh MP, spoke against the proposal -

Mr. Michael Ancram (Devizes) (Con): … The truth is that the idea of automatic reactive mass obliteration, which was so fundamental to the concept of mutually assured destruction, does not wash any more, and people in the west would not accept it. Yet Trident’s credibility rests on it … there is undoubtedly flexibility on time. The Government should use it to allow a proper assessment of their case to be made. Their failure to do so smacks of a rushed decision that will affect not us, but the next generation. We owe the next generation better than that. We owe them an honest assessment and a fully and responsibly justified decision. The White Paper and the motion offer neither of those. I will therefore support the amendment in the Lobby tonight. ...

Alan Reid, Lib Dem MP for Argyll and Bute was ambiguous -

Mr. Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): In the current uncertain international situation and all the threats of proliferation, I believe that this is no time for Britain to give up its nuclear deterrent. … However, I do not support the Government’s decision now, which is far too premature, to build a new generation of submarines some time in the middle of the next decade. ...