Delay to Trident decision gives space for nuclear policy change, yet vast spending will continue

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament welcomed the delay to the ‘main  
gate’ decision on Trident replacement.

Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: “Pushing this decision back to after the next election will hopefully allow politicians to catch up with what the majority of the public and a growing number of military voices acknowledge – that nuclear weapons are a costly irrelevance to the threats Britain faces. The National Security Strategy went some way towards acknowledging this when it excluded the threat Trident is meant to protect against – attack by a nuclear-armed state – from the top tier of the Government’s own assessment of risks to Britain’s security.

“Despite this delay, vast spending on Trident and its replacement looks set to continue, dwarfing the £750m being described as a ‘saving’. It is not yet clear whether this is any reduction in costs at all, or merely pushing some costs back into the years beyond the next government spending round. If this is the case, an accounting fix must not be presented as a reduction in the sums being squandered on the new weapons. Billions will still be spent every year on maintaining the current system and on upgrading the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Just one part of the system that supports Trident – the Aldermaston bomb factory – will cost the country £950m this year alone. The supposed ‘savings’ are a drop in the ocean compared to the £40bn or more that will be spent on nuclear weapons ahead of any new submarine even being launched.”

Trident will cause defence job losses: new report

A new report shows that the net impact of going ahead with the replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system will be to cause an overall reduction in defence employment, due to the need to scrap more labour intensive conventional defence activities to pay for the system designed for the cold war.

Kate Hudson CND General Secretary said: “The Chancellor is demanding up to 20% cuts from the MoD and has stated that the cost of Trident replacement will come from the main defence budget. So going ahead with Trident will have a devastating impact on non-nuclear defence manufacturing. Trident is cash hungry whilst providing relatively few jobs. Hundreds of millions are to be spent with US-based contractors, providing nothing for the UK economy. Other areas of defence spending at risk from Trident generate far more employment per pound spent. Closing RAF bases and scrapping surface ship programmes will cause significant job loses in the coming years, whereas cutting Trident would have little impact until at least 2016.

“The report makes clear that with relatively small investment the key facilities dependant on Trident work – BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow – could be re-aligned toward the rapidly growing needs of the low carbon economy. Precision marine engineering skills are perfect for developing wave and tidal energy systems, where Britain could be a world leader. Diversifying into a market with strong domestic demand as well as huge export potential would provide much greater job security for shipyard workers. Relying almost entirely on a few MoD orders will always be a precarious formula”.