Trident

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, that is precisely why the Government are conducting the modernising of defence programme: to ensure that our defence budget is directed towards the capabilities that we need to deal with the threats that face us.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Earl is absolutely right. In the world environment we are in, it would be madness for us to give up our absolute minimum nuclear deterrent. We have set an example to everyone in the world. While I am delighted that £1 billion has been brought forward to speed up the programme, and that it came from central funds and not from MoD funds, in the context of modernising defence could we go back to what Labour had planned: namely, that the capital costs of nuclear submarines would come from the centre and not from defence funds, with the implications that has for the defence vote?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we think we can achieve the same objective under the current arrangements because, in addition to the £31 billion estimated capital cost of the programme, the Treasury has allocated a potential contingency of £10 billion on top of that. We think that it is prudent and have no reason to believe that we will use it to the fullest extent, but it gives an assurance that, over the 30-year timescale of this programme, sufficient flexibility should be built in.