Trident: Costs (Hansard, 20 March 1989)

§ The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)
My Lords, over the last year the forecast real costs of the Trident programme have decreased by £ 104 million.

§ Lord Gainford
My Lords, the Minister has given the House some valuable and encouraging information. Can he indicate whether this year's costs will show a similar or greater decrease?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, it is too early to say precisely. However, I hope that the revised estimate, which will be made towards the end of the year, will represent another modest saving on the earlier estimated cost. The pattern thus far has shown that, as the programme progresses, earlier estimates become firmed up.

§ Lord Irving of Dartford
My Lords, will the Minister agree that, according to the schedule, the increase must take place between now and 1992? Why, at a time when the super powers are engaged in discussions about eliminating 50 per cent. of nuclear weapons and when Mr. Gorbachev is talking about eliminating all nuclear weapons by 1992, are the Government proposing an eight-fold increase in our nuclear force? Would it not be much better to put this into some kind of negotiating round?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the noble Lord's supplementary question contains at least three errors, if he will forgive me saying so. Perhaps the most important is his suggestion that the programme represents an eight-fold increase in our present forces. It represents no such thing.

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, will the Minister not agree that, in spite of the extraordinary and welcome changes now taking place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, there is still a fair case for Britain maintaining her present nuclear capability? However, what possible reason can there be at this time for multiplying our nuclear capability several times — if not eight, then certainly four or five times? What are the reasons for that?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the fact of the matter is that Polaris is coming to the end of its useful life. If we do not replace it, then far from increasing our nuclear capability we shall have none.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, will the Minister deal with the latter part of my noble friend's question? May we assume that the Government are prepared to put Trident into any arms talks?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, we have never said that we should never agree to including Trident in such talks. However, we are still a long way from that situation. When it comes into service, even if the 50 per cent. reduction referred to by the noble Lord has come to pass — and that is far from certain — Trident will still represent a tiny percentage of the strategic nuclear capability of the super powers. It represents what we regard as an irreducible minimum, if we are to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent. One cannot have less than the irreducible minimum.

§ Lord Hylton
My Lords, would it not be appropriate for Her Majesty's Government to follow the example of the great powers and turn their defence effort more and more towards non-threatening forms of defence?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, if the noble Lord is suggesting that we should cancel our Trident programme, the answer is: no.

§ Lord Mellish
My Lords, is the Minister aware that some of us believe it to be most sensible that Trident should constantly be put in a state of improvement and modernisation, and that that applies to all our deterrents? There is no point in having a deterrent if it is incapable of deterring.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Lord's intervention. The Labour Party is reassessing its defence policy. I hope that it reaches the same conclusion as the noble Lord.

§ Lord Mason of Barnsley
My Lords, will the Minister tell the House what the Ministry of Defence intends to do with the underspend?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am not sure to what underspend the noble Lord refers. The defence budget is set to increase steadily in the future by approximately 1 per cent. in real terms. The precise growth in real terms depends upon future inflation. As regards underspend, it is the case that we are spending less on defence procurement programmes than we had originally planned. That is not because we are reducing the size of the programmes but because we are now securing much better value for money. That is releasing funds for other much-needed purposes.

§ Lord Irving of Dartford
My Lords, as usual the Minister says a questioner is wrong without explaining why. Will he accept that whereas Polaris had three warheads, Trident may have eight and possibly 14 and that therefore the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, is right? So is the statement I made. Will the Minister reaffirm the fact that it is important to put the missiles into some kind of negotiating machinery so that we can get rid of them?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the noble Lord appears to know exactly how many warheads will be fitted to Trident and exactly how many missiles will be in service when the time comes. None of that information has yet been announced and, in most cases, it is highly sensitive and classified. I venture to suggest that the noble Lord is not yet in possession of it.

§ Lord Thorneycroft
My Lords, would it not be a very odd form of negotiation if a party were to put Trident on the table as a negotiating factor with all the world knowing that it was desperately anxious to get rid of it?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, as my noble friend rightly points out, that would be an act of the greatest folly.

Lord Paget of Northampton
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the truth of the matter is that Trident was always a non-starter and is now definitely a non-runner?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am often interested in the views of the noble Lord, if he will allow me to say so. I am afraid that his last remark bears the hallmarks of inaccuracy which has been a feature of some other suggestions he has made.

§ Lord Mayhew
My Lords, in his reply to me the noble Lord said that if we do not have Trident then we shall have no nuclear capability. I specifically said that there was a good case for maintaining our nuclear capability at its current level. However, I asked the noble Lord what reasons the Government have at this moment for multiplying by several times our nuclear capabilty.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, Polaris is coming to the end of its life and therefore has to be replaced by something. Beyond the mid-1990s, Polaris will not be a credible deterrent and therefore has to be replaced. It was decided that it should be replaced by the best of the submarine-based systems we could acquire, which is the Trident D5 system.