Coalition tensions stoked over Trident nuclear replacement
The Defence Secretary Philip Hammond revealed a contract to refurbish the Rolls-Royce plant in Derby to build a reactor to power the replacement for the Vanguard submarines, which carry the Trident deterrent manufactured in West Berkshire by Atomic Weapons Establishment, and a second to power the Astute-class attack submarines, had been signed.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are divided over Trident and as part of their Coalition-forming agreement promised to delay the “maingate” replacement decision until after the next election in 2016.
In May the Government announced contracts worth £350m were to be distributed to UK companies to design a new fleet of deterrent submarines.
The
(NIS) said while the Government was not overtly committing to more nuclear missile production work at AWE Aldermaston and Burghfield, all signs pointed that way given a recent promise to pump £1bn a year into the two plants over the next five years.
AWE denied claims that the investment was related to a new weapons system.
A spokesman for NIS, Peter Burt said: “Many people will be puzzled by the news that we are spending a billion pounds on nuclear reactors for new submarines that have not yet been built, given that the government is continually telling us that the country is broke.
“The government is taking a big risk in committing such a large sum of money towards the Trident replacement programme, given that the main decision on whether to replace the Trident submarines will not be taken until after the 2016 election.
“It is more than possible that the next government will conclude that replacing Trident is too expensive and not necessary to meet our security needs, in which case vast quantities of money will have been wasted for nothing.”
For more on this story see this week’s Newbury Weekly News.