The overall cost of replacing and maintaining Britain’s nuclear deterrent will reach £167bn ($256bn), much more than expected, according to a lawmaker and calculations based on official figures.
If the figure is confirmed, it is likely to spur critics who say Britain should not be committing to spending billions of pounds on defence at a time when they say deep cuts under the government’s “austerity” policies are hurting families.
Some military officials also say the money would be better spent on maintaining the army and on more conventional technology, which have also faced cuts.
Until now, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has said replacing the ageing fleet of four submarines which carry nuclear warheads to provide a continuous at-sea deterrent would cost an estimated 15-20 billion pounds.
It has as yet given no official estimate of the cost of its replacement and maintenance.
Critics, who include the Scottish Nationalist Party which has campaigned for the Scotland-based Trident to be scrapped, have said Britain will need to spend £100bn, a figure based on a 2014 report by the independent Trident Commission.
In a written parliamentary response to Crispin Blunt, a lawmaker in Cameron’s Conservative party, Minister of State for Defence Procurement Philip Dunne said on Friday the acquisition of four new submarines would cost £25bn.
He added that the in-service costs would be about 6% of the annual defence budget over their lifetime. The total defence budget for 2014/15 reached £33.8bn and rises to £34.1bn 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 £167bn,” Blunt said.
“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% 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% between 2020 and 2060.
Using the same figures, the news agency calculated the same sum of £167bn.
A final decision on replacing the four existing vessels carrying the Trident missiles -- four Vanguard-class submarines -- is due next year and Cameron has said he will press ahead with the renewal.
The opposition Labour Party had also been a supporter of renewal but its new leader, far-left veteran lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn, an anti-war campaigner, is opposed to the plans.
He was widely quoted last month as saying he would not be prepared to use nuclear weapons if he became prime minister.