The sheer futility and huge cost of Trident

15th November 2007
By Nigel Griffiths
The Times
 

There are no circumstances where we would use a nuclear bomb; the money would be better spent on combating rising sea levels

On Tuesday Oliver Kamm defended the Trident programme as our badge to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. I take a different view. I believe the cost of this badge is too high a price to pay, that there are no circumstances where I can conceive we would use a nuclear bomb, that funding Trident will drain resources from our frontline troops and that we shall need billions of pounds to combat rising sea levels in the UK.

I write as someone who admires the role played by our servicemen and women. My father served with pride in 85 Squadron fighting Hitler's Luftwaffe and I chaired an NGO rebuilding homes in Kosovo, so I know the debt we owe our frontline troops who restore peace.

When I read the White Paper The future of the UK's Nuclear Deterrent, I concluded that it had no future. For I can foresee no circumstances where this country or its territories would be threatened by a nuclear weapons state, where we would retaliate with a nuclear strike, or where the threat of a nuclear strike by the UK would shape their actions. For all the posturing of the US against Iran and North Korea, not even George Bush is suggesting that a nuclear weapon will be used against those regimes or their people.

One sentence encapsulated Oliver Kamm's blind faith in Trident: "There is no reason to suppose that costs will run out of control." The Public Accounts Committee has lost count of the number of large MoD projects whose cost overruns soar above the funds allocated. The National Audit Office highlighted a near-£3 billion overspend on four projects alone — from the Eurofighter Typhoon to the Astute Class submarines.

To imagine that Trident will not lead to a squeeze on funding our frontline troops is naive. The sad truth is that Trident funding is already diverting nearly 9 per cent of the MoD budget away from necessities such as hardened troop carriers and essential equipment such as roadside bomb-jamming devices.

Thousands of soldiers were not supplied with enhanced combat body armour because of delays in procurement. While the focus may be on big "Royal Enclosure" projects such as Trident, it seems the MoD had problems securing body armour costing less than £200 a time.

My final fear concerns the predictions of Al Gore. I believe that within the next two decades ice-caps and glaciers will melt far more quickly, raising sea levels and forcing us to shore up our coastal towns and low-lying areas. Some will not be saveable. So billions will be needed to rebuild homes on higher ground in Britain. At that stage, the public will expect our Government to cancel other costly projects. Trident should be at the top of this list.

Nigel Griffiths, the Labour MP for Edinburgh South, resigned as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons in March over Trident.

 
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