Nuclear Deterrent

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I have always thought that our independence of mind was why we were sent to the House of Commons in the first place, but perhaps I was mistaken. Because of the nature of the content of the report, most of it will remain unpublished, but I will consider whether its conclusions might be published without in any way prejudicing the security of the project itself. As I have just outlined, the Government are committed to the replacement of the Trident system, and the spend will go ahead through the rest of this Parliament.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

On costs, does the Secretary of State accept that since the election two things, effectively, have gone on? Savings have been made as a result of the joint missile compartment and the reduction in the number of warheads, but those savings have been completely wiped out by the political decision demanded by the Liberal Democrats to extend the procurement period beyond the next election. I would have thought that those political decisions have led to costs approaching £2.5 billion, if one takes into account the necessity to build an additional Astute class submarine just to keep Barrow going. One might think that in the circumstances faced by the Secretary of State this might not have been his priority, what with all the other cuts he was making and the additional maintenance round that will now be needed for the existing fleet. How much more additional cost will there be as a result of the separate review? In a Department in which we are bearing down on manpower and reducing the skills available, we are now applying the skill base to an ongoing, second round assessment and review.

[Dr Fox]

The costs of the alternatives review are met from existing departmental budgets and no additional costs will be associated with it. As I have said, when we take into account the different developments, including the fact that we have taken costs out of the missile compartment, as the right hon. Gentleman correctly says, and have reassessed the infrastructure required, we believe that there has been no additional net cost to the programme on the 2006 prices.