Osborne rebukes Fox over Trident

By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor

Friday, 30 July 2010

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George Osborne delivered a public reprimand yesterday to Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, over his demands for special help in paying the £20bn bill to renew Trident. The Chancellor told his Cabinet colleague that the cost would have to be fully met from the Ministry of Defence's core budget.

In a television interview, Dr Fox warned against playing "fast and loose with the country's defences", adding that the UK's defence "capability" would be jeopardised if his department was forced to find the money for Trident. He argued that the costs should come from the Treasury because the fleet was a matter of national security.

His comments irritated Downing Street, which believes the Defence Secretary was trying to negotiate in public. However, speaking in New Delhi where he is accompanying David Cameron on his visit to India, Mr Osborne insisted: "All budgets have pressure. I don't think there's anything particularly unique about the Ministry of Defence. I have made it very clear that Trident renewal costs must be part of the defence budget," he told Bloomberg news.

midnightblue

Lots of posturing of course. Osborne is forcing the defence review to include Trident. Quite right. I see the strategists at places like rusi.org are already coming up with creative ideas like a Mk2 Astute submarine design with SSBN capability. So instead of 6 Astutes plus 4 Vanguard replacements we would have 8 Astutes, 4 of which can launch ballistic missiles. Confuse the enemy, save money and get more value from subs. Works for me!
thomasaikenhead

Scrap Trident now and do not replace it. It serves no military purpose and the UK cannot afford it. Other nations similar to the UK like Germany, Italy and Spain survive perfectly well without nuclear weapons, what makes the UK so different?
Martin Jones

Osborne is quite right to say that the costs for Trident must come out of the defence budget. Every department is facing cuts in spending, so why should the Ministry of Defence be any different? Liam Fox has only got himself to blame for this situation. By refusing to include Trident in the defence review, he has tried to pull a fast one and avoid any scrutiny of the case for replacing Trident. The reason is simple: Trident has no defence value and the case for replacing it is very weak. The chickens have come home to roost now that Fox will have to find the money for new nuclear weapons from his own budget. He will either have to decimate the armed forces to pay for it, or climb down and scale back the project. Anyone who thinks the public support new nuclear weapons at a time when deep cuts in public spending are on the cards is living in a dream. Who wants to spend billions of pounds on a replacement for Trident when schools, hospitals, and local services are being axed? Polls show that a big majority of the public don't want Trident to be replaced. The politicians should wake up and listen to them, instead of clinging to a nuclear comfort blanket that could never be used and doesn't protect us against anything.
ajwimble

Given that replacing Trident is basically a political gesture that has absolutely nothing to do with meeting the defence needs of this country, it seems perfectly reasonable that the funding should not come from the defence budget. If the defence budget is paying for it, then let Trident's replacement be decided based on defence needs rather on political considerations. In that event I suspect that the nuclear deterrent would be scaled back or even scrapped entirely in favour of moor troops, helicopters, warships and other things that are actually designed to be used.
drg40

Perhaps it would be a good idea to save all that money spent on some sort of worthless gesture to a defence strategy in which the UK never played a real part, and instead spend it on the troops who are doing the fighting, short of basics known to be essential in the field in which they are deployed.