Summary
Replacing Britain's ageing Trident nuclear deterrent may be too expensive, a former Ministry of Defence permanent secretary has warned. Sir Michael Quinlan said that it was still unclear how much a replacement system would cost. Giving evidence to an opening session of an inquiry by the Commons Defence Committee into the UK nuclear deterrent, he said the Government would need to weigh the costs against the risks involved in abandoning it. 'The hard question is, 'How much is it worth?' I am not an absolutist on this question at all. I want to know how much it is going to cost,' he said.
'When we are dealing with something which is an insurance against a very unspecific, very distant, possible set of circumstances, given that we can't afford to cover every eventuality with utter certainty, one has to look at how much one is prepared to pay for that insurance. In other words, how much risk we are prepared to accept.See the full content of this document
Extract
Replacing Trident 'May Cost Too Much'
'My own view is...
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