Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, on Thursdayintensified his dispute with the Liberal Democrat leadership over the future of Britain's nuclear weapons by saying that any alternative to the Trident submarine ballistic missile system was unlikely to be cheaper.
Speaking days after Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, accused him of "jumping the gun" on Trident, Hammond told a defence conference in London: "As it is well known, our Liberal Democrat coalition partners want to look at the alternatives that would still deliver a credible strategic nuclear deterrent."
But he added: "I think the problem in doing that is, if we were looking at a whole new system, maybe that's a question. But given that we have the warheads, we have the missiles, and we are only talking about replacing the submarine, it is difficult to envisage a new complete system which you have to design everything, warheads, missiles, carriers, platforms from scratch, could ever be a more economic proposition."
Hammond later insisted Britain could afford a Trident replacement.
Responding to a question after addressing a conference on air power organised by the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi)on Thursday, Hammond said Britain's Trident missiles and warheads had "many, many years of life left in them". It was the four Vanguard class submarines that carried them that needed replacing.
The Trident Alternatives Review, being carried out by the Cabinet Office, is due to be completed by the end of the year. Hammond also said on Thursday that the government was committed to maintaining a "continuous at-sea deterrent" – something the Liberal Democrats have not signed up to.
The defence secretary added that over its lifetime the submarine-based Trident nuclear weapons system would cost about 6% of the defence budget to operate, less than the proportion of the French defence budget devoted to nuclear weapons.
Hammond said the issue was not about the "through-life cost" of the system, but cash spikes in the 2020s and 2030s involved in replacing submarines. The planned new generation of Trident submarines are estimated to cost between £20bn and £25bn.
Last night, on BBC's This Week, the former Conservative defence secretary Michael Portillo was asked whether he agreed with the Tory plan to renew Trident. He replied: "No, I think it's all nonsense." Pressed further about whether he agreed with the nuclear deterrent, he said: "No, I think it's completely past its sell-by date. It's neither independent, nor is it any kind of deterrent. It's a tremendous waste of money and is done entirely for reasons of national prestige. It's wasteful."
Hammond also told the conference that US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter planes will start to fly from the Queen Elizabeth, the first of two large aircraft carriers planned for the navy, in 2018. The two carriers, originally priced at £3.5bn, are now estimated to cost £6.2bn and could rise to £12bn. High costs mean Britain will initially order only 40 F-35s, less than a third of the total originally planned, and only 12 would be based on an aircraft carrier.
Hammond said the RAF and navy would work together to form a "joint force" that could operate from land bases in the UK, from carriers at sea, or from bases abroad. "We have said that this is a decision that will be taken in the 2015 strategic defence and security review, whether the second carrier will be skeleton-crewed or whether it will effectively be mothballed," he said.
The defence secretary sparked the row with comments made during a visit to the Trident base on the Clyde on Monday, when he appeared to suggest that the government was committed to a like-for-like Trident replacement.
Clegg had responded: "Let's remember the idea of a like-for-like, entirely unchanged, replacement for Trident is basically saying we will spend billions and billions and billions of pounds on a nuclear missile system, designed for the sole strategic purpose of flattening Moscow at the press of a button".
