Written question asked by Ben Wallace (Conservative) on Friday, 8 October 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 12 October 2010. It was answered by Liam Fox (Conservative) on Friday, 22 October 2010 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Trident

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the likely savings accruing to his Department's research and development budget for the new generation of Trident missiles of postponing the programme for those missiles by one year.

Answer: The Trident D5 missile is expected to remain in-service until the 2040s. While there is some associated life extension work to allow that length of service, as the 2006 White Paper ““The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent”” (Cm 6694) made clear"““decisions on whether we wish to acquire a successor to the life-extended D5 missile and what form any successor might take are unlikely to be necessary until the 2020s””."There is therefore no planned research and development spend on a new generation of ballistic missile at this point.

Secondary information