The True Cost of Trident

Most cost estimates for replacing Trident have been between £15bn and £25bn, but these have not take into account the annual maintenance costs. The true cost of replacing and operating the Trident nuclear missile system would be at least £76bn, according to estimates revealed today, assuming a 30-year lifespan.

A website, bigtridentdebate, has been set up, calling for a "full and informed" debate about the future of the UK's nuclear deterrent. It is promoted by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but has support from a wider circle of people, including church leaders, who say their motive is to ensure there is an open debate on the issue.

In his presidential address to the governing body of the Church in Wales, the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said money spent on Trident could be better used fighting child disease: "With that money we could prevent 16,000 children dying every day from diseases caused by impure water and malnutrition."

£2.5 billion a year for 30 years. That works out to £12.5 million each year for a city the size of Coventry. £2.5 billion a year for Trident warheads that are eight times more powerful, each of them, than the bomb that devastated Hiroshima (killing over 140 000 people).

Kofi Annan (at the UN Association, London, 31 Jan 2006) admits that:

"The more those States that already have nuclear or biological weapons increase their arsenals, or insist that such weapons are essential to their national security, the more other States feel that they too must have them, for their security."