£350m more pledged for N-submarines (From Free Press Series)

£350m more pledged for N-submarines

12:16am Monday 29th October 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is to announce an additional £350 million of funding for the next stage of designing the future generation of British nuclear-armed submarines.

This investment will sustain 1,200 UK jobs and follows the initial £350 million of design work announced earlier this year, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

Mr Hammond will make the announcement on a visit to the home of the UK's nuclear deterrent at Faslane on the River Clyde in Scotland.

Commenting on the Scottish independence debate, the Defence Secretary reiterated the Government's commitment to keep the naval base in Scotland, saying he was "confident" Scottish people would choose to remain part of the UK.

He said: "We are confident that the Scottish people will choose to remain part of the United Kingdom. The Faslane complex is the largest employment site in Scotland with over 6,500 jobs underpinning the local economy.

"We have no plans to move the nuclear deterrent from the Clyde. On the contrary, we intend to move the Astute and Trafalgar Class attack submarines to Faslane, creating a further 1,500 jobs. The Scottish Government needs to explain how their policy would benefit Scotland's economy and safeguard Scottish jobs."

The announcement followed the successful firing of an unarmed Trident ballistic missile by HMS Vigilant during a test launch in the Atlantic Ocean last week, the MoD said.

HMS Vigilant is one of four Vanguard Class submarines which maintain the UK's nuclear deterrent. They will be replaced from 2028 by the Successor which is currently being designed by British companies. All Royal Navy submarines will be based at Faslane by 2017, including the Astute and Trafalgar class attack submarines, which - along with the Sandown Class Mine Counter Measure vessels - will increase the workforce at the site to more than 8,000 by 2022.

SNP MSP Bill Kidd, a vice-president of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, said: "For the UK Government to boast about spending hundreds of millions of pounds on weapons of mass destruction - while at the same time implementing brutal welfare cuts and slashing investment in the economy - is obscene.

"More than that, Philip Hammond's weak attack on the Scottish people's choice in the independence referendum continues to use fantasy figures relating to the number of jobs associated with Trident at Faslane. His own Ministry's figures, obtained through FoI, show that there are not thousands of jobs dependent on the nuclear weapons system but 520 - all of which and more will be taken up by Faslane continuing as the main Scottish naval base."