Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what amount was spent on the Trident nuclear weapons system as a proportion of UK GDP (a) across the lifetime of that system and (b) in each year of the Trident programme for which estimates for that spending have been made.

In line with the December 2006 White Paper, 'the Future of the UK's Nuclear Deterrent' (Cm 6994), we estimate the in-service costs of the deterrent are around 6% of the annual Defence budget.