§ Mr. ArbuthnotTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the latest estimate of the cost of the Trident programme; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Tom KingI am pleased to announce that for the fifth year running there has been, in real terms, a reduction in the estimated cost of the Trident programme. The revised estimate now stands at £9,863 million, based on the exchange rate used for the long-term costing of the defence programme, which this year is £1 = $1.56.
Although this estimate represents a cash increase of £483 million compared to that announced last year, after allowing for the effects of inflation and exchange rate variations, there has been a real reduction of £126 million, and a real reduction of £1,838 million over the original 1982 Trident II estimate. This is additional to the savings resulting from the decision to have United Kingdom missiles processed in the United States facility at King's bay, Georgia.
The proportion of the programme to be undertaken in the United Kingdom has increased from 69 to 71 per cent.
The Select Committee on Defence previously asked that when announcing the annual revised estimate, I should report on the state of the project as a whole. I am pleased to say that the Trident programme remains on schedule to enter service in the mid-1990s. There has been no slippage in the in-service data since the decision to purchase Trident II was announced in March 1982. I am, as in previous years, sending to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence and the Public Accounts Committee a more detailed report covering the points on which the Select Committee on Defence sought advice. I am also placing a copy of this report in the Library of the House.