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UK cuts back on armed forces, spends up big on nuclear weapons

The huge sum, signed off with little parliamentary scrutiny, has raised questions over the accountability of AWE to the taxpayer and the MoD’s priorities

while all armed forces are suffering cuts, the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is benefiting from significant increases in spending, even before the government makes a decision on replacing Trident, the ballistic nuclear missile system.

Britain’s nuclear spending soars amid defence cuts Secret MoD report reveals £750m bill for enriched uranium plant as Liam Fox announces axing of 1,100 navy personnel. The Guardian, Jamie Doward,  2 October 2011, Government spending on Britain’s nuclear weapons programme is defying the swingeing budget cuts being experienced across Whitehall.

As the Ministry of Defence cuts frontline positions in the military, a previously confidential report reveals that the taxpayer is committed to paying almost £750m for the construction of a new enriched-uranium facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Berkshire.The 32-page MoD report, Defence Equipment & Support … UK Enriched Uranium (EU) Capability Investment Appraisal, spells out the taxpayer’s commitment to funding Project Pegasus, which will replace the enriched-uranium facility built at the site in the 1950s.

The report, marked “Secret UK Eyes Only”, was published in heavily redacted form earlier this year following freedom of information requests. The Information Commissioner recently ruled that the redaction, hiding the full £747m investment cost of the project, should now be made public.

The huge sum, signed off with little parliamentary scrutiny, has raised questions over the accountability of AWE to the taxpayer and the MoD’s priorities. Last week, after announcing that 1,100 naval positions would but cut, the defence secretary Liam Fox attacked how the previous government had run the MoD, allowing “a department of that size to operate without controls on its spending”. However, while all armed forces are suffering cuts, the UK’s nuclear weapons programme is benefiting from significant increases in spending, even before the government makes a decision on replacing Trident, the ballistic nuclear missile system.

The investment in AWE will benefit AWE Management, the private-sector consortium that has a 25-year non-revokable contract to run the base and comprises US operators Lockheed Martin and Jacobs and the UK’s Serco.

The money being spent on Project Pegasus is in addition to the £500m allocated for Project Mensa at nearby AWE Burghfield that will improve its warhead assembly facilities. But there are concerns about how the money is being spent…..

Peter Burt of the Nuclear Information Service said the huge sums being spent on secretive projects at AWE bases should be a concern to the taxpayer: “The inescapable conclusion is that the Atomic Weapons Establishment has not been delivering value for money to taxpayers in years past.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/02/ministry-of-defence-nuclear-spending-project-pegasus?newsfeed=true

October 3, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | UK, Uranium, weapons and war