Angus Robertson MP, the SNP’s Defence Spokesman at Westminster, has put together figures on the projected maintenance costs of retaining Trident nuclear submarines over the next ten years at their Faslane base in Argyll.

Coinciding with this, a group of distinguished retired military officers has just released a statement describing the Trident weapons system as ‘irrelevant’ and ‘completely useless’ in contemporary warfare.

Angus Robertson’s figures, set alongside this statement, underlines a significant part of the policy basis of the Scottish Government’s stance on refusing to host the next Trident generation in Scotland.

In outlining and welcoming the information drawn up by his Westminster colleague, Argyll’s MSP Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, says:

‘Careful questioning of Quentin Davies, Minister of State for Defence Equipment and Support, by Angus Robertson MP has revealed that maintenance costs for the Trident weapons system, based at Faslane on the Clyde, will soar to £1.5 billion over the next ten years.

‘This is in spite of the fact that only last week in a letter to The Times, Field Marshall Lord Bramall and Generals Lord Ramsbotham and Sir Hugh Beach condemned Trident as “irrelevant” and “completely useless” and challenged the wisdom of even considering the longer term renewal of the deterrent system that would cost in the region of £25 billion.

‘As Angus Robertson observed, “This intervention has exposed the stark truth about the UK’s weapons of mass destruction and even senior defence chiefs now concede that they are a useless waste of money.”  The SNP has consistently opposed the presence and projected use of these weapons and to contemplate spending even more and more badly needed financial resources at a time when we face a period of recession is to compound an existing folly.

‘We have  heard on a regular basis over many years that the MOD is unable adequately to supply our troops serving in combat situations overseas and more recently that the long standing link with the faithful Ghurkhas from Nepal is likely to be severed because we lack the finance to meet our obligations to them.

‘This would seem to be a suitable time to reassess priorities and show the world a lead by giving up the pretence and the madness of the UK’s so-called independent nuclear deterrent’.