Trident (Hansard, 25 February 2002)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Bach)

The Government attach great importance to maintaining the safety and serviceability of the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons. The Strategic Defence Review in 1998 confirmed the need for a robust capability to underwrite the safety and reliability of Trident in the absence of nuclear testing. A scientific methodology is being developed to continue to give this assurance with high confidence. A detailed technical review of the scientific methodology behind this programme will be published shortly in a major scientific journal.

To ensure that we continue to be confident of the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons, it is essential to understand the properties of warhead materials such as high explosive and plutonium under a very wide range of physical conditions and how these properties change with age. Confidence in the safety and performance of Trident is based ultimately on predictions from high fidelity numerical models run on supercomputers. The Atomic Weapons Establishment has recently announced a major investment in a new supercomputer that will substantially upgrade its capability. However, experimental studies are still essential to validate the computational models and improve understanding of basic theory. As a continuing part of this programme the UK will shortly collaborate with the US in conducting a plutonium hydrodynamic experiment at their U1A facility in Nevada. This experiment will not produce nuclear yield and will be fully consistent with our obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Historical nuclear test data and information from the forensic examination of warheads withdrawn from the stockpile provide further information for the process.