"Trident
is likely to take up between a third and a half of the entire defence
procurement budget for the 2020s"
Independent Newspaper 23 January 2016
A Time-line of rising costs of Trident
November 2014. In an article written for the authoritative journal The Naval Review Commander Robert Green RN quotes from the Global Security Newswire, 1 May 2013 "US officials have suggested that the UK government consider abandoning replacement, because "either they can be a nuclear power and nothing else, or a real military partner".
The 2015 Strategic Defence & Security Riew (SDSR) estimates that the Dreadnought submarine programme will be £31Bn. A contingecny of £10Bn has since been added and is being eaten into all the time. To this you have to add £5Bn approx for the disposal of the present 4 submarines and about £3Bn/year for what is expected to be the system's 30 year lifetime. The submarine operating base at Faslane will also require additional facilities/improvements in the order of £10Bn and there is a war head replacement programme. The total cost is therefore conservatively estimated to be in the order of £150Bn. This cost falls to the naval budget wiuth a consequential and continuous reduction in Fleet size.
2015 Statement by Lord Hever to Defence Committee " In determining Fleet sizes no specific provision is made for the possible loss of ships on war fighting operations"
Defence Committee response: " This answer implies that the planning assumption is for zero per cent attrition..."
Comment: The sinking of just one or two ships or submarines, bearing in mind that a proportion will already be out of action for refit/repair, would be catastrophic. The lessons of WWII and military operations ever since are that numbers count. In 1977/78 Admiral Sir John (Sandy) Woodward, then serving as a Captain and Head of Naval Plans, wrote a paper in response to the Nott Defence Review which had proposed large cuts to the military to offset the forthcoming costs of Trident replacing the Polaris submarines. He recommended against Trident because he said it would threaten the future of the Royal Navy as a balanced useful force. It is ironic that he became Task Force Commander to recover The Falklands - an action which put the Nott review in a bottom drawer pro tem. However, he has now been proved right. The Trident programme has tilted the UK towards being massively over dependent on nuclear weapons and incapable of mounting a robust defence of our own shores with existing conventional forces. Present MOD procurement policy for numbers of ships does not allow for any losses due to enemy action or major defects.
November 2015 In conversation with Andrew Marr on his Sunday morning BBC TV show, the Chief of Defence Staff (General Sir Nick Houghton) is asked if the UK could afford Trident and maintain sufficient conventional forces. CDS replies that we are in balance because of the contribution of NATO conventional forces.
May 2016 edition Warships International Fleet Review Commander R Green asks the question "Is Trident a broken sword"?
12 May 2016 Huffington Post Kate Hudson, General Secretary of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmamenr (CND) explains why costs of Trident have now reached £205Bn in an ar
7 June 2016 Admirals Lord West and Mark Stanhope (both former 1st Sea Lords) tell the the Parliamentary Defence Select Committee that delays to the ordering of the Type 26 Frigates and other suport problems means that the navy cannot meet all its peace time operational commitments - so what hope is there in being able to do so in a war situation?
September 2018 British American Security Council identifies the spiraling costs of the Dreadnought Programme in their authorative report Blowing up the Budget and concludes that further cuts to Conventional Forces will be needed or a complete rethink on the nuclear deterrent.
Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development & Foreign Policy (2020). My submission to this Government inquiry summarises reasons for UK to cancel the Dreadnought programme and proposes how this could be done in such a way to minimise financial loss while also adding strength to our conventional naval forces.
10 June 2026 As forecast the situation has become progressively worse. On a good day only one SSN and a couple of FF/DD are operationally available. The much vaunted Defence Investment Plan of last year failed to be published. It is only now anticipated in the coming week(s). The situation is best summed up by my recent post on Facebook.
There has been so much despairing talk on X/twitter about the terrible state of defence that my posts on here [Facebook] have lagged behind the situation which is best summed up by quoting @tnewtondunn on X/Twitter:
”There’s a misunderstanding about just how short the government’s Defence Investment Plan will fall, when we do finally see it. Sadly, it’s so much worse than the general conception.
It’s not just the gap between the £28billon that the chiefs asked for and the £13.5bn Rachel Reeves is offering. The chiefs’ £28bn was actually just the minimum they think defence needs to get through the next four years. To pay for the full transformation that the SDR prescribes, and insists is vital, I’m told internal MoD estimates put the real sum needed at 4.5 or 5% of GDP (which btw is also NATO’s new annual spending target). The UK currently only spends 2.3% of its GDP on defence, rising to 2.5% next April.
In cash terms, that means defence actually needs an extra £60bn, and not just over 4 years but EVERY year. That’s the true scale of the task, and what our allies like Germany and Poland are now well on their way towards. So the Treasury/No10’s current sticking plaster offer is not just woefully thin, it doesn’t even touch the sides.
To defend Britain properly in the frightening modern world that we now live, the next Prime Minister (Burnham, Badenoch or Farage) is going to have to start all over again. And unlike the current government, they will have to have this debate publicly and honestly.”
On top of which The Times reports today that the Defence Secretary, John Healey, is arguing for more drones instead of naval hulls when defence chiefs want more hulls with drones as a force multiplier not a substitute for hulls. See The Times extract below.
We are indeed in a parlour state:
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