UK — Review into costs of Trident

A review of the cost of renew­ing the Tri­dent nuclear sys­tem will look at a num­ber of ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with the deter­rent to ensure they pro­vide val­ue for mon­ey, Defence Sec­re­tary Dr Liam Fox said yes­ter­day.

HMS Van­guard launch­es a Tri­dent II D5 mis­sile dur­ing a demon­stra­tion and shake­down oper­a­tion in 2005 Source: LA(Phot) Ray Jones, Min­istry of Defence, UK Click to enlarge

Dr Fox said dur­ing a defence debate in the House of Com­mons yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing Britain’s nuclear deter­rent but that the renew­al of Tri­dent should be scru­ti­nised to ensure val­ue for money. 

Dr Fox said the val­ue for mon­ey review would be com­plet­ed by the end of the month and the find­ings would go to the Cab­i­net Office and be con­sid­ered by the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Council. 

The council’s con­clu­sions will ‘inform’ both the Strate­gic Defence and Secu­ri­ty Review and the cross-White­hall Com­pre­hen­sive Spend­ing Review which will be pub­lished in the autumn. 

Press release
Min­istry of Defence, UK