Trident

Peter Luff Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I know from long experience with CND that nothing to do with CND can be counted as a pecuniary interest. Absolutely no one has ever made any money out of being a CND member. There is nothing financial to be declared, so I set the hon. Lady’s mind at rest. I thank her for her support and membership of CND and for the sincere work that she has done for a long time to try to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Estimates of the cost of designing and constructing the Trident submarine replacement programme have grown significantly this year, with the MOD publishing figures in the May parliamentary initial gate report that represent a doubling of those in December 2005. The estimated submarine replacement cost has increased from between £11 billion and £14 billion to £25 billion. In addition, the Ministry recently announced significant spending plans for new warhead facilities at Aldermaston, despite officially not planning a decision on replacing or refurbishing the warhead until the next Parliament. That is the question.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)]

indicated dissent.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Minister shakes his head. It is his head, and he is allowed to shake it, but I hope that when he replies, he will be able to explain why Parliament has not been consulted on spending £2 billion on the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston. If my figures are wrong, I am sure that he will put them right—that is the whole point of a parliamentary debate and of parliamentary scrutiny.

As I have said, the new figures announced this year for spending on replacing Trident are going up. The submarine will cost around £4 billion before the construction decision. As I understand it, it will cost £900 million on the concept phase before initial gate, which is from 2007 to 2011; £3 billion on the assessment phase between initial gate and main gate; and £500 million on long-lead items for construction. That will put the cost of the submarine replacement programme prior to main gate somewhat higher than what was spent on the Nimrod programme, which was cancelled in October 2010 after £3.4 billion had been spent on it.

Quite simply, we are moving to an enormous expenditure before a parliamentary vote in, presumably, 2016 or whenever, when all of us might still be Members of Parliament—or when none of us are. There will be a new Parliament, and a different Parliament will make that decision. I could write the speech for the Minister or his successor now. It will say, “We do not want to do it, and we do not like it. It is not good, but we have already spent so much money that it would be a shame to waste it.”

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)]

Mr Gale, without wishing to trivialise this very important subject in any sense, I had intended to begin my remarks by a reference to that famous line of Captain Louis Renault about rounding up the usual suspects at the end of “Casablanca”, but the number of usual suspects seems to have expanded today to a rather larger number than I had expected. I had imagined that only the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) would be in Westminster Hall today, but I welcome the larger group of actors.

I am delighted to be in Westminster Hall once again to explain to the hon. Member for Islington North why we are right to proceed with our plans to maintain the security of our nation and why I think that he made a number of serious misinterpretations of the facts—let me put it that way—during his speech.

The Government have been clear that the safety and security of the UK is our first priority, and although we are facing difficult economic circumstances and a challenging inheritance from the previous Administration, our security must be seen as a long-term issue.

At the outset and on behalf of the whole House, I want to pay tribute to the professionalism of all those Royal Navy and civilian personnel who answer this country’s call to operate and support this vital national capability. Having visited HMS Vanguard at sea and HMS Vigilant in refit, I have met some of our dedicated service personnel who support Operation Relentless, which is the UK’s mission to maintain continuous at-sea deterrence. I was deeply impressed by their commitment and I am very grateful to them; I think that we should all be grateful to them. It is important that hon. Members remember that, even as we speak, those men are out there somewhere in the oceans providing Britain’s ultimate national security guarantee. They and their predecessors have maintained a 42-year unbroken chain of continuous at-sea deterrence, keeping all of us and our allies safe.

In many respects, we face a more dangerous situation now than we have done for several decades. There are substantial risks to our security from emerging nuclear weapons states. Consequently, although we are committed to the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons, as we all are in this place, we believe that we can best protect ourselves against those threats by the continued operation of a minimum, credible nuclear deterrent. [Interruption.] Others might find that funny, but I do not find it funny at all. Maintaining that deterrent is a very serious judgment that is shared by all three major parties in the House. It is important to remember that the alternative study, which I will return to later, which has been promised to the Liberal Democrats and which is proceeding, only considers the delivery platform and not the alternative to a minimum credible national deterrent programme. All three major parties are committed to such a programme.

The UK has a strong record on nuclear disarmament. We have continued to work with other nations to achieve our goal of a world without nuclear weapons. In addition to the well-documented commitments in the strategic defence and security review, I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Islington North to the statement in June that we have already begun to implement the reduction in warheads that are carried on our submarines. In addition, earlier this year, the permanent members of the UN Security Council met in Paris to take forward the action plan from the 2010 non-proliferation treaty review conference. We agreed to work together on a number of initiatives and Britain has taken the lead by agreeing to host a meeting in early 2012 to discuss the lessons that have been learned from our bilateral work with Norway on the verification of nuclear weapon dismantlement.

Having set out the Government’s fundamental policy, I want to address one further issue before I turn to the specific details of Trident’s costs. One theme that frequently emerges—it emerged again today in the hon. Gentleman’s speech—is the engagement with Parliament on the replacement of the nuclear deterrent. The hon. Gentleman’s colleagues in CND often accuse the Government of having a culture of secrecy with regard to the deterrent.

Clearly, there are aspects of the programme that are sensitive and that must remain classified for national security purposes. I will also discuss the Trident alternative study in that regard. The Government have received many requests, including from the hon. Gentleman in his speech, for information on the Trident alternatives study. The nature of that study, which is led by the Cabinet Office, requires highly classified information to be analysed. Indeed, only a small number of people in my Department and in the Cabinet Office can see that information. Therefore, Members will appreciate that we will not be able to publish the study itself, as doing so would be irresponsible and put national security at risk.

No decisions have yet been taken about what it might be possible to say without compromising national security, and as the report to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister will not even be concluded until late 2012 or early 2013, it would be premature at this stage to commit to any specific course of action; for that reason, I will not be doing so today. I have no doubt that the public would understand that we want to take great care of those secrets, but we have nothing to hide except that which it is essential to hide for national security. Where we can, we have explained as clearly as possible what we are doing and why we are doing it, and I will do so yet again today for the hon. Gentleman’s benefit.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

Before my hon. Friend the Minister moves on to the question of costs, I want to make a point about the alternative study. In response to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who has secured this debate, it is presumably reasonable to assume that, at the very least, a list of those alternatives to Trident that were considered and dismissed, as well as a rough idea of the reasons why they were dismissed, will be published even if technical details cannot be released. Does the Minister accept that, when the hon. Gentleman talks about nuclear weapons killing millions of people if ever used, surely the response is that they are being used every day, because their use lies in the prevention of the use of similar weapons against this country and our interests?

[Peter Luff]

I note my hon. Friend’s powerful argument. I am sure that it will be borne in mind closer to the time, but at present I can make no commitment about what will happen at the end of 2012 or in early 2013, when the report is due to conclude.

I note that this is the third time that I have debated this issue in this place. We also covered the topic extensively during the strategic defence and security review debate last year. Since assuming Government, my Ministry of Defence ministerial colleagues and I have answered about 180 parliamentary questions on nuclear issues, not to mention a significant amount of public correspondence. In May this year, we published a comprehensive report on the initial gate decision for the successor submarine. We have recently repeated an earlier commitment to make an annual statement on progress to Parliament, and I think that that frequency strikes the right balance. We have published the costs of various aspects of the nuclear programme, such as the Atomic Weapons Establishment, on numerous occasions. Moreover, in May last year, we announced for the first time the overall size of our nuclear warhead stockpile, giving the deepest ever transparency of our nuclear capability. That is hardly a culture of secrecy or sleepwalking.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am not quite sure why the Minister is getting into such a bad mood about Parliament asking questions to the Ministry of Defence. That is what Parliament is for; it is why we are here. Will he give us an accurate estimate of how much will be spent on the whole programme, on the initial gate and on the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, before any decision is made in Parliament in 2016? Can he not revisit the idea of a quarterly statement on the vast expenditure that is going on?

[Peter Luff]

It is my intention to do that, but I am conscious of the time. I hope to be able to answer all the hon. Gentleman’s questions.

I should now like to turn to the specific costs of the current and future deterrent programmes. The simple fact is that being a responsible nuclear weapons state requires investment. Submarines and their ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads are extremely complex and require considerable skill and expertise to design, maintain and operate safely, and I make no apology whatsoever for taking seriously our responsibilities for the safe custody of these systems, nor for spending the money needed to do that. That is not to say that we have not closely scrutinised the costs of the programme. Indeed, Members will be aware that we announced last year as part of the SDSR a number of measures to do just that.

I should like to dwell briefly on the different elements of the nuclear deterrent programme. The White Paper highlighted three key areas: the platform, the infrastructure and the warhead. At 2006 prices—I emphasise that it was at 2006 prices—the Department estimated that the platform would cost between £11 billion and £14 billion, and each of the other two elements would cost between £2 billion and £3 billion. Separately, there are also the costs of maintaining and running the in-service deterrent—what we have at present—such as the facilities at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which I will come to later.

If I may start with the platform—the boats—earlier this year “The Initial Gate Parliamentary Report” stated:

“assuming a four boat fleet, the replacement submarines will remain within the £11-14Bn estimate.”

We made it clear in the report and, indeed, in the White Paper itself that those values are at 2006-07 constant prices, and the report also indicated that, when we take into account inflation, the costs equate to £25 billion. Costs have simply not doubled, as reported on CND’s website; that is wrong. This misreporting of the true position is extremely misleading. Of the £25 billion, we expect to have spent £3.9 billion by main gate. That includes the costs of the concept and assessment phases, and the majority of that work is in the maturation of the design.

With regard to long-lead items, we have been clear that we have minimised spend as far as possible. Over the coming years, we will place orders for different specialist items, which take a number of years to be delivered, totalling some £500 million. That is just 2% of the total purchase cost. We plan to place the order for the specialist high-grade steel only in 2014, so that it is ready for manufacture and cutting in 2016 after the main investment, or main gate, decision. We will not procure any items for the fourth boat until 2016, when the build decision is made. Any accusation that, by purchasing those items, we will be locked into a particular strategy before main gate in 2016 is simply wrong. The simple fact is that these highly specialised components take time to be delivered. Identifying long-lead items is part of any well-run programme, and nothing that we are doing will prevent us from being able to make the right decision in 2016. I should like to explore that at more length, but I am conscious of the time.

With respect to infrastructure, the value-for-money review concluded that no significant investment was needed in the immediate future. To study the infrastructure requirements in detail, we will spend about £8 million over the next three years and will continue to look for opportunities to drive down running costs and the need for any new investment. Despite being at an early stage of the programme, we still expect to meet the White Paper estimate of between £2 billion and £3 billion.

On the third element, my attention was drawn recently to speculation that implied that we had already spent at least £2 billion on a new warhead. That is simply not true. We are investing at the Atomic Weapons Establishment to ensure that we sustain the capabilities that we need to maintain the current stockpile. It is true that that will give us the capability that we need to design and produce a new warhead if and when required, but that is not the purpose of the expenditure. We will take the appropriate decisions at the right time, and Members will recall the commitment in the SDSR not to take any decisions on a new warhead until the next Parliament. We expect a replacement warhead to meet the White Paper estimate of between £2 billion and £3 billion.