Ian Blackford says plans to increase nuclear missile stockpiles 'speaks volumes about Tory priorities'

Ian Blackford has criticised UK Government plans to increase nuclear missile stockpiles and claimed it “speaks volumes about Tory priorities”.

The SNP’s Westminster leader challenged Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions after the UK Government ended 30 years of gradual disarmament by increasing the limit from 180 to 260 warheads.

In a clash at PMQs, Mr Blackford questions whether Scotland is best served with a government that prioritises “bairns, not bombs”.

He said: “For people across Scotland, this week again exposed the tale of two governments, with two very different sets of values.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford told the PM plans to increase nuclear missile stockpiles showed "a government that prioritises bairns not bombs".

"Yesterday, the SNP Government passed landmark legislation that will put the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law, putting children at the vanguard of children’s rights.

“In contrast, we have a UK Government that has to be shamed into providing free school meals, that will clap for nurses, but won’t give them a fair wage and ploughs billions into a nuclear arsenal that sits redundant on the Clyde.

“Does the Prime Minister understand that the Scottish people are best served with a government that lives up to their values, a government Prime Minister that prioritises bairns, not bombs?”.

Mr Johnson dismissed the criticism, instead challenging the Scottish Government’s record on education and crime.

He responded: “I think what the people of Scotland need and deserve is a government that tackles the problems of education in Scotland, that addresses itself to fighting crime and drug addiction in Scotland.

“And a government in Scotland that weans itself off its addiction to constitutional change and constitutional argument and it seems determined to call, in the middle of a pandemic when the country’s trying to move forward together, seems determined and obsessed with nothing else, nothing else, than breaking up the country and a reckless referendum.”

Mr Blackford accused the Prime Minister of not answering the question.

He said: “Our children have the right to a future that no longer lives under the shadow of these weapons of mass destruction.

“As the Irish president said on this St Patrick's Day - ‘surely we do not need to make war to find peace’.

“The UK Government’s plan to increase Trident missile stockpiles speaks volumes about their priorities.”

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