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Trident

I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman's figures have been misunderstood by the Department. I was told that he said a figure around £1 billion. The authority comes from the vote in the House of Commons in the previous Parliament, established custom and practice and all complex programmes. If he wants a historical precedent, I am told that we bought the oak for HMS Victory 15 years in advance of building it. This is par for the course in major procurement programmes; there is nothing unusual about it at all. It is quite simply not true to say that large parts of the build programme will have been completed by main gate, nor is it true to say that we will be locked into contracts and that we will have spent so much that we will have to build the boats when we get to main gate. There is nothing in the current programme that will prevent us from making choices in 2016 about what deterrent capability we want or how many boats we might order. It is self-evident from the decisions that we took during the SDSR to refine the replacement deterrent programme, which allowed us to save and defer £3.2 billion over the next 10 years, that our intent is to pursue value for money rigorously and only commit to expenditure as and when it is required. As agreed in the coalition programme for Government, the Liberal Democrats will continue to make the case for alternatives to a like-for-like replacement. Yes, it is true that the concept phase was extended in January 2010, which involved some extra cost, but some costs will be transferred from the assessment phase to the concept phase as a result. What of the calls for scrutiny of the initial gate business case? Parliament does not routinely review internal Ministry of Defence business cases and I have not yet heard a convincing argument that suggests that this programme should be any different. The initial gate business case is not a grand strategic assessment; that happened in 2006 with the White Paper and the vote in the House of Commons in 2007. The initial gate business case is a technical assessment that presents design choices and programme analysis that is reviewed and agreed by technical, financial and procurement experts in MOD, Treasury and Cabinet Office. What we have committed to do once the initial gate business case has been approved is publish a report setting out the key decisions that we have taken, update Parliament on the latest assessment of cost, and explain the steps that we will be taking in the run-up to the main procurement decision in 2016. I hope that that reassures the hon. Lady. As this is one of the largest programmes in Government, it will be reviewed closely as we move towards main gate, both in the Ministry of Defence and more widely across Whitehall. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence announced last week, the Government are doing more to tighten up the Ministry of Defence's internal processes. The Secretary of State for Defence will chair the major projects review board, which by definition will include the replacement submarine programme, and will receive a quarterly report on our major projects to ensure that they are on time and within budget. Where projects are falling behind schedule or budget we will take immediate remedial measures. Those responsible will be brought to account in front of the project board. In addition, we will publish a list every quarter of the major project review board's ““projects of concern””. That way, Parliament, the public and the market can judge how well we and industry are doing in supporting our armed forces while offering value for money to the taxpayers. Progress on the decisions we have taken during the SDSR, including those on the nuclear deterrent, will be reviewed by the National Security Council. The Government have also established a major projects authority within the Cabinet Office with a specific remit to oversee our portfolio of major projects and assess the health of programmes in it through a combination of quarterly reporting and more focused reviews. The major projects authority will produce an annual report through which Parliament and the public will be able to review our performance. On top of that scrutiny, the National Audit Office has published a report on the deterrent programme and, while it is not for me to task the NAO, I would not be surprised if it were to look again at this programme in the run-up to main gate, giving the Public Accounts Committee a chance to do the same thing. It will be for the next Government to make decisions about scrutinising the main gate decision. For now, I am confident that we are striking the right balance between delivering the programme and ensuring that we are open about how we are performing. As this debate shows, if hon. Members wish to scrutinise the process, there are many avenues open to do that in our parliamentary democracy—many have already been explored by the Select Committee and many other options exist. Our democracy is more secure because of the Trident programme and our commitment to its successor. Question put and agreed to.