Trident

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I understand the noble and gallant Lord’s point. There is a £31 billion budget for the Dreadnought programme and we are currently confident that that estimate is robust. It is quite separate and distinct from other procurement budgets. We do not consider that it impacts upon them adversely—but we are conscious of the risks that he articulates.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the BASIC report says that the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which rates government projects,

“has rated Dreadnought Amber/Red, meaning that the IPA assesses that: ‘Successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas’”.

It goes on to say:

“Worse, the linked Core Production programme, which will produce a new submarine reactor core production facility … is the … only Red rated project”,


in the Ministry of Defence. Given this sorry state of affairs, what faith can we have in anything the MoD says about these programmes?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the amber/red rating for the Dreadnought programme in 2016-17 recognised that the programme was unaffordable at that time against the required profile, and that there were significant risks in the design-to-build transition. Since 2016-17, funding has been approved for the second delivery phase, the design has matured and governance has improved. The red rating for the core production capability reflects scope changes and associated delays and cost increases. We have to recognise that this is a very complex programme—probably the most complex engineering programme that any Government have undertaken—hence the caution in those risk ratings.