The UK said it was “reaffirming” its commitment to its nuclear deterrent on Monday, amid concerns that spiralling costs and ageing submarines were jeopardising Britain’s ability to field the weapon and deter a potential attack by adversaries such as Russia.
“Our nuclear deterrent is as important now as it has ever been,” defence secretary Grant Shapps said, as the government published a 44-page report, titled “Delivering the UK’s nuclear deterrent”.
The paper outlined existing plans to build four new ballistic missile submarines and develop a next generation of nuclear-powered attack boats as part of the Aukus defence pact with the US and Australia. The plans would also create 40,000 jobs — from nuclear physicists to specialist welders — and renovate naval infrastructure.
But what neither Shapps nor the document addressed was the difficult and expensive choice facing the UK, according to officials and analysts. The government, they said, must either risk a gap in the credibility of the deterrent or spend more money on it, despite intense pressure to increase budgets for areas such as health and education, let alone finding more money for the rest of the overstretched armed forces.
“Our nuclear program is essential, but it keeps on eating up the budget headroom we create for it, and we cannot just write a blank cheque,” said one senior defence official.
“We are in a mess and the system has to change. There is no short-term fix — except to keep using sticking plasters, and they are increasingly expensive,” said another UK defence insider.
For 55 years, Britain’s nuclear deterrent has relied on having at least one of four submarines armed with ballistic missiles, which carry the nuclear warheads, patrolling undetected at sea at all times — a concept known as “continuous at-sea deterrence” or CASD.
It is a “foundational component” of UK security, according to the government’s integrated defence review. It also forms a major part of the UK’s military contribution to Nato, as one of the alliance’s three nuclear powers alongside the US and France.
But the cost of maintaining it has mushroomed as consecutive governments have struggled to keep on top of a crucial project to replace the ageing fleet of four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines with new Dreadnought-class boats, which are under construction.
As their in-service date has slipped from the mid-2020s to the 2030s, so costs have risen. Over the next decade alone, the budget for the Defence Nuclear Organisation that oversees the programme is forecast to rise by £38bn, or 62 per cent, to almost £100bn, according to the Ministry of Defence’s latest forecasts.
Moreover, key parts of the programme, such as the nuclear reactors that power the new submarines, have been rated “red” by the National Audit Office, meaning their successful delivery “appears to be unachievable”.
Dominic Cummings, who was chief adviser to Boris Johnson when he was prime minister, described the situation in February as “the dangerous rot of our nuclear weapon infrastructure, the massive bills for this vast failure [and] the way these bills make all official budget numbers . . . fake.”
Although the budget is classified, and the government did not give fresh details on Monday, the overall numbers are jaw-dropping. According to the government, Dreadnought’s capital costs alone are £31bn, with a £10bn contingency.
This contrasts with a 2018 estimate by the independent British American Security Information Council that found the total cost of building and operating the Dreadnought boats was at least £113bn.
A year later the independent Nuclear Information Service think-tank put renewal costs of Britain’s entire defence nuclear enterprise at £172bn. The latter figure includes Dreadnought and the cost of modernising the Trident ballistic missiles, their warheads and the specialist infrastructure needed to maintain and operate the deterrent. It also includes running costs, estimated at 6 per cent of the annual defence budget, or about £3bn a year.
Speaking about the Dreadnought programme in 2015, the then permanent secretary to the MoD Sir Jon Thompson told MPs: “The project is a monster . . . It keeps me awake at night,” explaining it was the “single biggest future financial risk we face.”
The project has been hit by delays and cost overruns from the start. One fateful decision was made by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2010, when it postponed the Dreadnought programme by four years to save money as part of its austerity drive.
That soon proved a false economy. According to the MoD, the cost of replacing the deterrent rose by 75 per cent in real terms to over £43bn between 2015 and 2006, when its costs were first estimated.
“That delay is probably the single most significant decision in bringing us to where we are now,” David Cullen, NIS’s director, said.
The knock-on effect means the ageing Vanguard-class submarines, which entered service during the 1990s, must remain in service far beyond their original 25-year lifespan.
Nuclear submarines are hugely complex machines, comparable to space shuttles, so ensuring they can operate beyond their design life requires ever more expensive refits.
The Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, a network of scientists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015, warned in a recent research briefing that the delays to Dreadnought “may disrupt the UK’s ability to maintain a continuous-at-sea-deterrence,” not least “if one or more of the ageing Vanguard [boats] unexpectedly requires repair.”
But the government insists the UK can maintain its nuclear posture. “The deterrent protects us every hour of every day,” the 44-page report said. “By providing a credible and effective response to extreme aggression, our nuclear deterrent reduces the likelihood of such an attack taking place.”
Nonetheless, the Vanguard fleet is feeling the strain. One of the four boats, HMS Victorious, which was forced to abort a mission in 2022 after a fire reportedly broke out on board, is currently undergoing a second refit, at a cost of £560mn.
The first-in-class HMS Vanguard, which recently completed a second, seven-year refit at an estimated cost of £500mn, is yet to go back on patrol after an embarrassing failed test launch of a Trident missile in February.
That leaves just two submarines to sustain the 24/7 patrols, resulting in punishingly long tours at sea that strain the boats and crews.
HMS Vengeance returned to base in mid-March after a 201-day patrol — twice the previous standard three-month tour. Before that HMS Vigilant completed 195 days at sea in September.
Admiral Sir Ben Key, head of the navy, told parliament’s defence committee last year that the length of the tours and the wellbeing of submarine crews was “always at the forefront” of his mind, and nobody was “comfortable with the really challenging” submarine refits.
The government’s recommitment to the Dreadnought programme this week aims to dispel doubts about its viability — although Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, acknowledged that it was a “huge undertaking” that “requires a truly national endeavour.”
But where to find the money? The government claims the deterrent is on budget, and its funding is ringfenced. Yet the National Audit Office, the government’s independent spending watchdog, recently pointed out it could require another £8bn over the next decade alone.
One option is to divert funds from the rest of the defence budget. But Russian aggression in Ukraine has put the UK in a “prewar” period, according to Shapps, and the rest of Britain’s armed forces are desperate for more investment following 30 years of post-Cold War spending cuts.
Alternatively, the defence budget could be increased at the expense of other departments. But the government’s oft-repeated position that it would only increase defence spending from 2.2 to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product when “economic conditions allow” appears to rule that option out in the near term.
A new government after the general election expected later this year, which opinion polls suggest the opposition Labour party would win comfortably, would change little.
Labour has declared its support for nuclear deterrence as “total” but its leader Sir Keir Starmer would face the same choice as all previous prime ministers. As Cummings put it: either deal openly with the “black hole” of the UK nuclear enterprise or “cannibalise” the rest of the budget.
Either way, the government’s recommitment to the deterrent has sparked a long overdue public debate, analysts and officials said.
“The country has been living in a peacetime dream, and our ability to understand the art of deterrence has atrophied,” the second defence insider said. “Times of war — and we are at war — require different approaches.”
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