Nuclear Weapons: Procurement
Defence
Written answers and statements, 12 September 2007

Dai Davies (Blaenau Gwent, Independent)
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when development work began on the high surety warhead at Aldermaston; how much has been spent on the warhead; and what the total projected cost for the new warhead is.

Des Browne (Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence; Kilmarnock & Loudoun, Labour)
There is no programme to develop a new warhead at AWE Aldermaston.
In section 7 of the December 2006 White Paper: The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent (Cmd 6994) we explained that decisions on whether and how we may need to refurbish or replace our current warhead are likely to be necessary in the next Parliament. As part of the work to inform those decisions we are now reviewing the optimum life of our existing warhead stockpile and identifying the range of replacement options that might be available.
Annotations
Ken Brookman
Posted on 14 Sep 2007 6:09 pm (Report this annotation)
Mr Davies or his staff could have found out this information with a little research I suppose. That's why he is getting over £80K PA for staff.
Here is a copy of a reply to a letter to my MP complaining about the number of silly nugatory questions he has asked at a cost of £138 a time.
"I am prepared to consider any constructive criticism as can be seen from the fact that I have reduced the number of Parliamentary questions in favor of writing directly to the relevant Minister and from the content of my EDM."
I am either lucky that they have reduced to nearly 400 when they could be 1000 or he is telling porkies. I'm not too sure which is correct but I wish he would stop wasting ao much money. His value in general to the people here as an MP is down near Zero I suggest. All he seems to do is act as an overpaid councillor at the moment and not a very effective one at that. He has to do something to get noticed so these questions and his equally ridiculous EDM's are the result.
