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Public Accounts

We are not in favour of renewing it, but the decision does not need to be taken now. We have at least another four years before we have to make the final decisions. In those four years, all sorts of things could happen, such as proliferation in states such as Iran, a greater sorting-out of the technology and a better understanding of the alternatives and their costs. I do not think that the debate has reached a point where anybody can make a final decision. There is an objection to Trident in general and to its amazing costs—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) has put it down as one of the big-ticket items that has to be considered given the financial state of the country. We need to develop a clearer picture of what is happening in the proliferation states and those that possess, or seek to possess, nuclear weapons. We need to try to reinvigorate the process of multilateral disarmament, but we will have to make a decision soon—in the next two, three or four years. The report offers an excellent opportunity to go over many of the aspects of it. Finally in the section that we might call "defence" comes the 20th report on the major projects—the 20 biggest MOD projects that have suffered an increase in costs of some £205 million and delays totalling some eight years. By any measure, that is very significant. We all know that defence projects tend to go over budget and to take longer—we have discussed how that happens in defence debates—but at a time when we are looking for significant savings over all aspects of Government expenditure, perhaps we need to redesign how the procurement process is undertaken. The report makes some useful comments and suggestions about how that might be done.