§ Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smithasked the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of defence equipment costs were attributed to the British nuclear deterrent in each of the years 1970 to 1982; and what are the latest estimates of the percentage of those costs borne by (a) the British nuclear deterrent and (b) so far as is consistent with security, for the Trident programme in each of the years until 1995.
§ Mr. BlakerIt is not the practice to provide a detailed year by year breakdown of our expenditure on the strategic nuclear deterrent. For information about total projected expenditure on the strategic nuclear force and the Trident programme over the period 1980 to 1995, as a proportion of planned equipment expenditure, I refer my hon. Friend to the 1982 Statement on the Defence Estimates—Cmnd. 8529–1—(figure 4) and Defence Open Government Document 82/1(figure 6).
§ Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smithasked the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of defence costs were attributed to the British nuclear deterrent in each of the years 1970 to 1982; and what are the latest estimates of the percentage of those costs borne by (a) the British nuclear deterrent and (b) so far as is consistent with security, for the Trident programme in each of the years until 1995.
§ Mr. BlakerI refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave ny hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving) on 24 January 1983.—[Vol. 35, c.353] The estimated percentage of the defence budget absorbed by the nuclear strategic force in the financial year 1970–71 was 1.4 and in the financial year 1971–72, 1.3.