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Nuclear Weapons

Volume 457: debated on Monday 5 March 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the costs of building a new uranium processing facility, warhead assembly and disassembly facility, core punch facility, explosives handling facility and material science facilities at the Atomic Weapons Establishment are included in the estimates for (a) the procurement costs in paragraph 5-12 and (b) the in-service costs in paragraph 5-14 of the White Paper, “The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent”. (124011)

These facilities are part of the programme of investment in sustaining capabilities at the Atomic Weapons Establishment, both to ensure we can maintain the existing warhead for as long as necessary and to enable us to develop a replacement warhead if that is required. The costs of building, and subsequently operating and maintaining, these facilities are included in the estimates set out in paragraphs 5-13 and 5-14 of the White Paper: “The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent” (Cm 6994).