Value for money, or the Emperor's New Clothes?

Apparently £1.2 billion will be spent on maintaining the deterrent beyond its shelf-life to allow for the deferred programme and the savings outlined in the Coalition's SDSR.

According to the Defence Secretary, 'we have deferred the successor submarine in-service date from 2024 to 2028, for which we expect to spend around an additional £1.2 billion in maintaining the Vanguard class'.

The sums seem odd. The Trident Value for Money Review claims £3.2 billion in savings (actually £1.2 billion in real savings and £2 billion in 'deferred' savings), but will cost — according to Fox — £1.2 billion to maintain Trident through the deferred period. This surely means the VfM review is only deferring costs, not making any real savings.

According to the Coalition, the VfM review cost the taxpayer £320,000. All it has really said is that if you delay replacing Trident by ten years, you can delay the cost until then too. That is one expensive statement.