This would seem to be alarmist (not surprisingly from a unilateralist) andinclude not using fixed "this year" costings (£2 billion a year in 2035 isn't as much in real terms as in 2020). Further, 6% pa
is exactly what we spend on the current fleet.
Exclusive - Trident programme to cost 167 billion pounds, far more than expected
.............In a written parliamentary response to Crispin Blunt, an MP in Cameron's Conservative party, Minister of State for Defence Procurement Philip Dunne said on Friday the acquisition of four new submarines would cost 25 billion pounds. He added that the in-service costs would be about 6 percent of the annual defence budget over their lifetime. The total defence budget for 2014/15 reached 33.8 billion pounds and rises to 34.1 billion pounds in 2015/16, according to the ministry.
"My office's calculation based on an in-service date of 2028 and a missile extension until 2060 ... the total cost is 167 billion pounds," Blunt told Reuters. "The successor Trident programme is going to consume more than double the proportion of the defence budget of its predecessor ... The price required, both from the UK taxpayer and our conventional forces, is now too high to be rational or sensible."
His figure was based on a presumption that Britain will spend 2 percent of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, as Cameron's government has promised. It also uses existing official government and International Monetary Fund figures, and an assumption of GDP growth of an annual average of 2.48 percent between 2020 and 2060.
Using the same figures, a Reuters calculation came to the same sum of 167 billion pounds.
Asked about the rising cost, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said the government had published an unclassified version of a review on alternatives to Trident which "demonstrated that no alternative system is as capable, or as cost-effective, as a Trident-based deterrent". "At around 6 percent of the annual defence budget, the in-service costs of the UK's national deterrent ... are affordable and represent an investment in a capability which plays an important role in ensuring the UK's national security," the spokesperson said......