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Monday, December 16, 2013

Tory ex-defence minister voices doubts over need for Trident replacement

Vanguard class SSBNOne of the Conservative party's most influential voices on defence has conceded that Britain can no longer be regarded as a "division-one military power", and raised questions over the sense of replacing the Trident nuclear fleet with a new generation of missile-launching submarines.

James Arbuthnot, the veteran chairman of the defence select committee and a former defence minister, told the Guardian that funding cuts over the last three years had made it impossible for the UK to retain its status in the top tier of global armed forces.

But the focus of his most startling remarks was the plan to replace Trident with four new Successor submarines, which a recent study by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank estimated would cost £70bn-£80bn to build, arm and support over their working life.

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