Tories commit to like-for-like replacement for Trident

The future of nuclear weapons has taken centre stage in the election campaign, with the Conservatives promising to renew the four ageing submarines that carry Trident missiles, and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists vowing to scrap the fleet.

Official figures show Britain spends about 5-6 per cent of its defence budget on operating the strategic nuclear deterrent. A decision is required by next year on a replacement, which the House of Commons library estimates will cost up to £23.4bn to build. It would enter service between 2028 and 2035.

The Tories, mindful of the importance of Trident to Britain's remaining claims to major power status, have pledged to buy a full replacement fleet and to maintain continuous at-sea deterrence.

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, told an audience in London that his party would not defer a decision on a Trident replacement, as it did in 2010.

He said: "There will be no deal between a Conservative government and any other party as far as a four-boat nuclear deterrent is concerned."

The future of Britain's nuclear weapons capability revived as a political issue in 2006, when the Labour government recommended replacing it. Both Labour and the Tories have remained committed to that policy and the stance is strongly supported by military chiefs.

The costs of constructing a new fleet while maintaining the current one mean the nuclear deterrent will consume a larger portion of the defence budget within the next decade, but senior diplomats argue that it helps justify the UK's position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Senior military figures insist that the increased threat from Russia, made visible in the invasion of Crimea and the buzzing of UK airspace by Moscow's nuclear-capable bombers, more than justify keeping a potent weapon originally intended for the cold war.

When the Tories entered coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, they made a deal on Trident to accommodate the smaller party's longstanding opposition to a renewal plan. Under that compromise, the government continued to spend money on preparatory design work for the new system while investigating other options.

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With polls currently showing no party is likely to win a majority at next month's election, even major decisions such as this could hinge on negotiations with smaller parties. But Mr Fallon insisted that a deal on Trident would not be part of those negotiations.

Like the Tories, Labour's leadership has also committed to continuous deterrence - although many of its MPs oppose Trident - and it says it will look at whether nuclear deterrence can be achieved with three boats. Military chiefs say this is not practicable.

Mr Fallon argued on Thursday that the likelihood that Labour will have to rely on the support of the Scottish National party - which opposes Trident renewal altogether - put the country's nuclear capability under threat.

And in one of the most personal attacks yet on the Labour leader, Mr Fallon wrote in The Times: "Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become Labour leader. Now he is willing to stab the United Kingdom in the back to become prime minister."

Labour called the move "a sign the Tory campaign is in panic mode".

Although Scottish nationalists have been unwavering in their opposition to Trident, it remains unclear whether the SNP is ready to compromise on the issue to achieve its other aims at Westminster.

Nicola Sturgeon, the party leader, insisted on Thursday that she would not do a deal with a minority Labour government unless Trident was scrapped. But in a Scottish leaders' debate on Tuesday she said she would vote for a Labour government without any preconditions.

<>Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly promised that SNP MPs would not vote in the Commons to renew Trident, but this is unlikely to matter if both major parties agree to support the programme.

An opinion poll by YouGov in January showed that 56 per cent of British voters supported either a like-for-like Trident replacement or a less powerful but cheaper nuclear deterrent. Only a ­quarter of those polled thought the UK should get rid of its nuclear weapons.

Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair said on Thursday that the pesonal nature of the attacks on Mr MIiliband showed the Tories were "up to their old tricks".

"I remember the 'demon eyes' poster of 1997. It is always a sign of desperation and it will backfire. ... The more they indulge in these tactics the better we should feel."

To many in the defence industry, the election row over Britain's nuclear deterrent carries all the hallmarks of a passing storm - for the moment at least, writes Peggy Hollinger.

"Both parties have been relatively clear that they support renewing the Trident nuclear programme," says one defence industry insider. "In principle they have all signed up to this. Everyone thinks we are still on track."

Defence companies are reluctant to contemplate the unthinkable. What might happen if the next government decides to postpone indefinitely a decision on replacing Trident, which is due next year? "That would be a big concern," says the industry insider.

Confidence was given a boost in March last year when the government announced a £300m upgrade to BAE Systems' yard in Cumbria, one of the few shipyards in the world capable of designing and building nuclear submarines. Philip Hammond, then defence secretary, said it was "another token of commitment to that programme".

But at the same time the steel was being cut on the seventh and final Astute class submarine built at the yard, making the renewal of the Trident programme even more pressing for the three big UK companies who have to nurture the skills and resources needed to build the nuclear deterrent system - BAE, Rolls-Royce and Babcock International.

The replacement of Trident - procured in the 1980s and based on the Clyde - is one of the biggest military decisions facing the next government. The system consists of nuclear warheads mounted on US-supplied Trident II D5 ballistic missiles, launched from Vanguard-class nuclear powered submarines.

The submarine system is coming to the end of its life and, given the long lead times that industry requires to build a new fleet, a decision on its replacement is needed before 2019 according to a parliamentary report prepared last month, for entry into service by 2028. Close to £1bn has already been spent on the concept phase.

Suggestions by the Labour party that the number of submarines could be reduced would not spark alarm, people from the industry said, as long as the reduction was not significant.

Any failure to renew the programme in time could lead to a serious erosion in skills that would be difficult to rebuild, one said. "There is a degree of criticality for the supply chain and for skills that does matter. But if there are just three instead of four submarines there are fewer consequences," he said.

Trident's Successor programme currently employs about 2,200 people, of whom more than 50 per cent are engineers and designers.

The MoD estimates that jobs will peak at 6,000 during the build phase from 2016 to the late 2020s and involve an estimated 850 British companies.

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