Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Defence – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 30 March 2009.
The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that the current overhaul includes refuelling the reactor with a new core, core H, which will fuel her for the remainder of her operational life. On the storage of reactors, it has always been our policy to store reactors in situ, in this case in Devonport, until the ISOLUS—interim storage of laid-up submarines—programme comes into force, under which we will put forward a new policy for dealing with the long-term future of these nuclear reactors. We will make an announcement on that subject next year, after the strategic environmental assessment, which will take place later this year.