Written question asked by Julian Huppert (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 26 October 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 28 October 2010. It was answered by Liam Fox (Conservative) on Thursday, 4 November 2010 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Submarines: Finance

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimate he has made of the lifetime costs of the Future Submarine Programme.

Answer: The Value for Money Review concluded that the overall cost of the submarine and warhead replacement programmes and associated infrastructure remains within the £20 billion cost estimate foreseen in the 2006 White Paper (Cm6994) at 2006 prices.As the White Paper also makes clear, once the new fleet of ballistic missile submarines come into service we expect that the in-service costs of the UK's nuclear deterrent, which will include the Atomic Weapons Establishment's costs, will be similar to today.

Secondary information