Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC today, Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, will make the case for the US to pay close attention to the debate on the UK's nuclear deterrent.

In July, Danny Alexander announced the findings of the Coalition Government's Trident Alternatives Review, which looked at alternatives to the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent.

The review found that there are alternatives to the continuous at sea deterrent which would maintain UK security while moving towards nuclear disarmament. The Liberal Democrats will debate our policy on Trident at our upcoming conference in Glasgow.

In his speech, Danny Alexander will say:

"I want to make the case for Britain taking this opportunity and for the United States to pay attention to our debate.

"Trident is the UK's last, unreformed bastion of Cold War thinking.

"Britain in the 21^st century, almost a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, needs to think about nuclear deterrence and disarmament in a fresh way.

"We have a big, final decision to make in 2016 about the future of our nuclear weapons system, and the Trident Alternatives Review shows that there are credible alternatives that don't compromise UK security or our close cooperation with the US, but do allow us to move on from the Cold War.

"We can adapt our nuclear deterrence to the threats in the 21^st century by ending 24 hour patrols when we don't need them, and buying fewer submarines.

"That way we can take a big step down the ladder of nuclear disarmament while still keeping our country safe.

"There are some in the UK who argue that any change to our nuclear posture would cause serious disruption to our relationship, and not just as it relates to the Mutual Defence Agreement.

"But I believe the special relationship runs deeper than that. The Trident Alternatives Review is not a threat to our relationship; it is an opportunity to work together.

"All Nuclear Weapons States must think about how we take steps towards disarmament, but until a serious multilateral process is in place each Nuclear Weapons State will come down the ladder in its own way. The Trident Alternatives Review, I believe, sets out how the UK can do just that."

The full text of the 'Defending the Future' motion to be debated next Tuesday at Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference is below:

Defending the Future - UK Defence in the 21st Century (Defence Policy Paper)

Conference believes that:

• a) It is a significant role of government to provide a secure UK in a stable neighbourhood; while good international relations and strong international law are crucial to security, when they fail effective military capabilities are required.
• b) The UK's vision of its place in the world appears virtually unchanged since 1945; the UK needs to reassess its role, ensure that ambitions match resources and respond to 21st century threats, not those of the Cold War.
• c) The UK does not face any current existential military threat from any other state actor and that most credible threats to the UK also challenge our neighbours in Europe, yet international terrorism, cyber warfare and the consequences of major natural disasters such as those arising from climate change all pose security threats and most recent conflicts have not been predicted, hence we cannot be complacent about defence.

Conference therefore welcomes and approves policy paper 112, Defending the Future - UK Defence in the 21st Century, as a statement of Liberal Democrat policies on defence.

Conference accepts that the UK cannot aspire to full-spectrum capabilities but must be able to defend the UK and the territories for which it has responsibility, support its neighbours and allies, and to engage in humanitarian intervention. Conference therefore proposes that the UK should:

• 1. Maintain a credible contribution to Expeditionary Forces, including carriers, land- and sea-based airpower and land forces rapidly deployable by sea or air.
• 2. Re-establish effective maritime surveillance of our own shores.

Conference favours greater integration of EU and NATO Europe military capabilities and procurement to address common problems, to overcome economic constraints and to redress waning American commitment in our neighbourhood.

Conference recognises that all three armed services have already been reduced and warns that further reduction should remain under review until government plans to recruit more reservists to compensate are shown to be successful. We support the proposed increase in mandatory reserve training.

Conference deeply regrets that defence procurement has proved a major problem for successive governments with tens of billions of pounds wasted.

Conference believes that these problems arise from bespoke 'gold-plated' solutions despite good off-the-shelf options often being available; weaknesses in procurement management; budgetary uncertainty; the lack of a coherent defence industrial strategy; and the excessive influence of the defence industry on procurement, in particular due to strong informal networks between senior ex-military staff, now working for industry via the 'revolving door', and their former colleagues in MOD.

Conference recognises that the government's proposed changes to procurement, including the so-called GOCO (government-owned, contractor-operated) model may alleviate some of these issues but notes that the model is as yet untested. Conference therefore calls for:

• I. A full review of the legal framework surrounding defence procurement, including conflicts-of-interest and other civil service rules and the UK's application of EU defence procurement directives.
• II. Longer periods between resigning from the civil service and working in the industry, in line with rules applied to politicians leaving office.

Conference welcomes the signing of the Arms Trade Treaty in April 2013, and recent tightening of the UK Arms Export regime by the Coalition Government, but also calls for the Government to:

• A. Conduct a cross-Departmental and public consultation on arms export policy.
• B. Implement a policy of 'presumption of denial' for export licences to countries listed in the Foreign Office's annual human rights report.
• C. Implement end-user certification on all future arms export licences and report annually to Parliament on this certification.
• D. Enact legislation to control the re-export of British arms sales.

Conference remains wholly unconvinced that Britain needs to renew its submarine-based nuclear weapons system on the same Cold War scale as the system designed in 1980, nor do we believe that the nation can afford to do so. The proposed full-scale replacement, Successor, might in time account for as much as 10% of the UK's defence budget.

Conference therefore resolves that Britain should end Continuous-at-Sea-Deterrence and instead adopt a realistic, credible 'Contingency Posture', which would involve:

• i) Construction and maintenance of fewer Successor submarines, and a reduction in crewing levels accordingly.
• ii) A declaratory policy of going to sea only with unarmed missiles and storing a reduced stockpile of warheads for redeployment within a specified timeframe.
• iii) Surging to more constant, armed patrols only during limited periods when a deteriorating security picture demands this.
• iv) Exercise of the submarine capability regularly to maintain relevant skills, including weapons handling and nuclear command and control.
• v) Periodic practice of redeployment of an armed submarine within a specified timeframe.
• vi) Amended submarine design to enable alternative or dual use for conventional purposes.
• vii) In the long term, construction of a single class of multi-purpose submarines to succeed the Astute and Successor classes, to perform all submarine roles we may need, including the capability to re-role from conventional to nuclear missions within a specified timeframe.

Conference believes that such a policy would represent the greatest single act of de-escalation ever undertaken by one of the established nuclear powers, would send a powerful signal of Britain's commitment to multilateral disarmament and would be a significant step towards our ultimate goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Conference recognises the vital role Britain's armed forces play in the defence of the nation and believes that it is the role of Government to safeguard the interests of service personnel and veterans. Conference strongly supports the Military Covenant, now enshrined in law as the Armed Forces Act and proposes a set of more specific measures to support serving servicemen and women and veterans, including:

• a) Transferring the Office of the Veterans' Minister to the Cabinet Office, so that the services of all departments can be marshalled in support of veterans, and creating a post of Veterans'
• Commissioner.
• b) Strengthening local military covenants by defining more exacting guidelines and ensuring best practice is rolled out across all local authorities.
• c) Offering the Armed Forces the opportunity to organise representation along the lines of the Police Federation but without the right to strike.
• d) Seeking an affordable way to rectify the situation whereby Gurkha veterans in the UK have a pensions entitlement for pre-1997 service of only one quarter that of veterans from the UK and Commonwealth.
• e) Ensuring that care for veterans injured in service is fully budgeted and funded.

Conference acknowledges the different pressures that reserves face and proposes that:

• 1. Employers be required to offer two weeks' unpaid leave annually to assist reserves attending training camps.
• 2. The services explore ways of granting all reserves access to the medical provisions of their service.