MP: Trident renewal is ‘missed opportunity’

NORTHERN Isles MP Alistair Carmichael has described the House of Commons vote to spend up to £40 billion replacing the UK’s fleet of Trident nuclear weapons submarines as a “lazy and expensive” missed opportunity.

The Commons voted by 472 to 117 to renew the expensive system, with the latest estimate that the four submarines will cost £31 billion.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has suggested the total cost of replacing the system – including warheads and decommissioning nuclear reactors – could exceed £200 billion over a 30 year period.

Carmichael voted against the renewal, as did every Scottish MP other than the Tories’ David Mundell, who replaced the Lib Dem as Scottish secretary of state.

The four submarines can each carry up to eight Trident missles, with the fleet based on the River Clyde at Faslane. All 54 SNP MPs voted against the “immoral” renewal.

Speaking after Monday’s five-hours Commons debate and vote, Carmichael said: “This was an opportunity to take steps to multilateral nuclear disarmament and we missed it.

“Simply rolling over a weapons system that was designed for the Cold War period is lazy and expensive thinking. It will also make it much more difficult for the UK to meet its obligations to reduce its nuclear capacity in the next ten years.

“A fortnight ago the Commons debated the Chilcot Report and heard the catastrophic consequences for our troops of being sent into battle with inadequate kit and equipment.

“That was a consequence of the imbalance that our defence budget has between nuclear and conventional forces. Until we fix that then the situation that Chilcot described will, I fear, risk happening again.”