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The future of Trident

Trident's lifetime

The operational lifetime of the Trident nuclear weapon system is 30 years. The four Trident submarines entered into service between 1994-2001 and therefore it can be expected that they will begin to be decommissioned soon after 2024.

Preliminary thinking on a replacement system is probably already underway and development would certainly have to start by around 2010 in order for a system to be ready by 2024. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) continues to deny that there are any plans to replace Trident. That may well be the case but the fact remains that the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) Aldermaston can support Trident nuclear warheads indefinitely and has the potential to develop new warheads if required. There have been strong indications towards either further expansion plans or a successor system for Trident.

Government secrecy

There is currently little public scrutiny and debate on the Trident system and British nuclear weapons as a whole. Access to information and parliamentary scrutiny of nuclear policy issues has become more difficult under the Blair government than the previous Tory governments.

Until 1995, the UK Trident programme was subjected to detailed scrutiny by the Defence Select Committee's annual inquiries on the 'Progress of the Trident Programme' . These inquiries were introduced following the misleading of parliament over the upgrade of the Polaris submarine programme to the Chevaline system. Since Labour came into power in 1997, the British government has abandoned the publication of such annual statements, which during the 1980s and 1990s provided regular information on UK nuclear policy.

Given Trident's close ties with the US, one of the key factors in shaping UK nuclear policy in the coming years will be the major changes taking place in US defence policy. Together with significant developments in Aldermaston concerning UK's nuclear force, it is imperative that regular and detailed government reporting to parliament, together with parliamentary scrutiny, are restored.

This is necessary both in terms of UK strategic policy and the governments' policy to eliminate nuclear weapons in line with international commitments made under the NPT.