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The economic argument

Kate Hudson

The Defence Committee' s firstreport on Trident replacement was much better than I haddared hope for.
Of course it didn' t oppose a replace -ment, but the fact that it listed abolition as one of the options on the table waspositive in itself. Most importantly , at this moment in the political process, itadded its voice --with considerable force--to the demand for a full debate,with proper government participation. But ever lar ger numbers of people areactually now explicitly opposing T rident replacement itself.

A compelling argument

Recently, Unison, Britain' s lar gest trade union, which or ganises public sectorworkers, had a debate and vote on Trident replacement at its annual conference. Theunion, which is affiliated to CND, voted overwhelmingly against (in fact only onevote in favour!) of T rident replacement. The ar guments which were particularlycompelling for the members --and which can be used in campaigning morewidely--were the economic ones.
The original procurement costs for theexisting system were around #12 billion. Each year the T rident nuclear weaponssystem costs us around #1.5 billion. The rebuilding of the Devonport Dockyardsat Plymouth to allow for the periodic refitting of the T rident submarines thatcarry the weapons cost around #1 billion. Additional billions have recently beengiven to the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment for the develop -ment of new buildings and facilities. The full cost of developing a replacement,including missiles, submarines and base facilities is estimated to be as much as#25 billion.

Better spent elsewhere

As a minimum, just to keep the existing system going, we are paying in excess of#1 billion. What could we spend that on instead? A recent article in the Guardianstated: "Closure of big NHS acute hospi tals may be required to eliminate theNHS's #512 million deficit." This deficit is less than half the annual spend just onkeeping the weapons going. Another use ful comparison is that we spend an aver -age of a billion a year on the occupation of Iraq. There are other examples too, of where the money could be better spent. There isa #2.2 billion shortfall in local government funding for next year , caused by centralgovernment giving extra, unfounded duties to local councils. This will probablyresult in an increase in council taxes of up to 10%. But the annual cost of keepingour nuclear weapons and occupying Iraq would more than cover the shortfall. There is also a #1.8 billion gap in fund ing for social care, which means that fourout of five local authorities are moving to tighten the eligibility rules for services forelderly and disabled people. This could be met instead of killing people and main -taining weapons of mass destruction.
But of course the big pot of money isthe cost of replacing T rident--up to #25 billion. There are many ways in which itcould be spent: hospitals, schools, 120,000 newly qualified nurses everyyear for the next ten years; 100,000 extra community midwives every year for thenext ten years. Or looking more widely afield, we could meet our UN Millenni -um Goals aid tar get of 0.7% of GNP every year for the next six years. Relating to the personalLast autumn's poll, which showed that 54% of the population oppose a replace -ment of T rident when they know how much it will cost, also demonstrates theimportance of showing people the figures, so we know what we could have instead.
Of course the legal and moral ar guments are crucial too, but concrete factsrelating to people' s everyday lives can support us in our campaigning.

Kate Hudson is Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
CND, 162 Holloway Road, London N7 8DQ (020 7700 2393; fax 7700 2357; enquiries@cnduk.org; http://www.cnduk.org/ ).

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