Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
MR PETER
WHITEHOUSE AND
COMMODORE (RTD)
TIM HARE
28 MARCH 2006
Q160 John Smith: Not in terms of
the transfer of data and access to satellite communication?
Commodore Hare: We are independent.
The dependency on the United States is that it is the design authority
for the missile and its fire control, launcher and navigational
sub-systems. We depend on them for design authority information
and logistics support, but that is all. As to the other things
you mention, we are truly independent.
Q161 Linda Gilroy: Mr Whitehouse,
since the original agreement with the Americans, in what ways
has our deterrent developed differently, and does that give us
any different added value in capability?
Mr Whitehouse: The 1958 agreement
came about as a result of the American decision to cancel Skybolt.
That resulted in the UK being given access to the Polaris capability.
From the very first days of the submarine programme the US has
encouraged divergence in terms of the technologies in the platform,
obviously with the exception of the missile and its sub-systems.
In most respects the submarine platform itself outwith the missile
compartment and what it carries is a UK solution which has diverged
significantly from US technology and the way that that has itself
developed. What we have in the existing Vanguard-class submarines
and the overall Trident solution is fundamentally a UK platform
and approach to carrying the American missile system for delivering
UK nuclear warheads.
Q162 Linda Gilroy: Does that give
us the ability to do things which the United States deterrent
cannot do, perhaps to go places where it cannot go?
Mr Whitehouse: Insofar as the
submarines that we deploy are slightly smaller than the American
ones, that is probably the only obvious external difference. In
terms of capability—where a submarine goes and what it can
do in terms of launching missiles—essentially it is the
same as the American system. At the end of the day, the warheads
built in the UK are deployed in American re-entry vehicles which
come off the missiles when they deploy the warheads. Thereafter,
in all essential terms the capability is the same as that of the
Americans, probably even down to arming, fusing and firing.
Q163 Mr Jenkins: Commodore Hare,
there are a number of British warheads depending on the requirements.
Where are the warheads fitted? Can they be fitted or changed on
board, or do the missiles have to be taken back to a British port
to be refitted with different warheads?
Commodore Hare: All of this is
very much a UK activity. The weapons are designed and constructed
at AWE Aldermaston and transported to the operational base in
the north-west of Scotland and fitted there.
Q164 Mr Jenkins: We have spent a
lot of time and money on this submarine-based system. What is
the advantage and disadvantage, apart from the horrendous cost?
Why do we not have a shore-based system? Why does it have to be
a naval option?
Commodore Hare: The main reason
is the vulnerability of the system. If one houses a deterrent
system in a submarine it is virtually invulnerable. The submarine
can sink beneath the waves and it is extremely difficult to detect
once it is away from its home base. Any other land-based or air-based
system is hugely vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike. One may recognise
some Cold War thinking about that, but that is the rationale behind
the focus on a submarine-launched system as the primary system.
It is interesting that France, which has a dual capability—air
and sea—still focuses heavily on the submarine. I suspect
that, should the Americans decide to move down from their current
triad of land, air and sea capabilities, the very last one they
would give up would be the submarine-launched system. The decision
that faces you today is whether to extend the current capability
rather than start from new. If the decision is made to have a
continuing capability, I would argue strongly that there are a
number of real advantages in terms of cost, expediency et cetera
in pursuing the submarine option rather than the alternatives
of land and air.
Q165 Mr Jenkins: I think that publicly
there is a mistaken belief that we are thinking of replacing the
existing system. I do not think that that is the debate. The debate
is to find out now whether the existing system is the best option
in future and what the alternatives are.
Commodore Hare: I would argue
that at the moment the Government's position, as I understand
it, is that it wishes to keep options open for continuing the
capability perhaps after the life of the current Vanguard-class
system runs out, and certainly there must be study and debate
on what the most cost-effective system might be, be it a submarine,
land or air option. I do not know the maturity of that debate
and study work within government, but I am sure that that is what
is going on. I agree with you. If it is helpful, I am happy to
articulate why I believe that the submarine option is the most
expedient for the country, but that may be a different point.
Q166 John Smith: I think it would
be a good idea to develop the argument as to why it is the most
expedient option and to build into the argument the affordability
options within the sea-based system.
Commodore Hare: Perhaps I may
start in a rather negative way, if you like, and articulate what
I perceive as some of the disadvantages of having a land-based
or air-based system. First, with a land-based system one would
have to build a number of silos somewhere in the UK to house the
ballistic missile that is required. That in itself brings with
it huge difficulties in terms of costs and safety. Where would
one site the air base? Can one just imagine the planning issues
surrounding the siting of a silo anywhere in the UK? There are
some practical issues there. Certainly, it would be extremely
expensive. We have, laudably, very strong safety criteria relating
to all nuclear installations in the UK. To meet those regulations
would be very costly. Secondly, this country does not have a ballistic
missile capability. We would have to buy a new missile which would
be a new experience for us, and a pretty costly one. We would
certainly have to design from square one a new warhead and go
through all the very rigorous safety criteria for that missile
and warhead. I believe that the cost of such a system would be
extremely high. Of course, one is also left with the fact that
it is vulnerable to pre-emptive strike. The air-based system that
is being fielded in literature that I have read is the so-called
cruise missile option. I have difficulty with cruise missiles.
First, by its very nature a cruise missile is a military weapon,
not a political one. Currently, with its conventional warhead
it is used to achieve military objectives. I would be worried
about housing our nuclear deterrent capability in something that
could be confused with a weapon that is essentially a military
device. Never mind the more practical fact that one would have
to devise a new warhead to fit those missiles. One would need
a lot of cruise missiles to deliver the strategic strike that
one can achieve with Trident now. To fuse that with the aeroplane
will be a very costly business, and again there is a whole raft
of land-based infrastructure issues. Where does one store the
weapons? Where would one site the airbase? Again, that would be
a costly issue and politically it would be pretty difficult. I
return to the submarine platform option which to my mind has some
benefits. The shore-based infrastructure is a given now; there
is an accepted footprint of cleared nuclear installations, if
you like, which is able to support the current Trident programme
and will continue to support it at relatively modest cost for
the foreseeable future. A lot of the infrastructure is already
there. I cannot say that we know all the technical challenges
that might face us in procuring something to replace the Vanguard-class,
but certainly Mr Whitehouse and his team and others in British
industry are expert at procuring nuclear submarines and pairing
them with a missile system such as Trident. All that knowledge
is there. The indications from the United States are that Trident
works and fits the nuclear policy of both the Americans and this
country. It seems to me that it is the most expedient path to
follow. As to the absolutely pivotal issue of cost, my gut reaction
is that it would probably turn out to be the cheapest of the three
options, although I have no studies or figures to support it.
Chairman: Mr Whitehouse, is there anything
you would like to add to that?
Q167 John Smith: Would you deal also
with affordability?
Mr Whitehouse: I agree with what
Commodore Hare has said. There is no doubt in my mind, having
looked at this simply as someone who is interested in it rather
than in my professional role, that given the amount of infrastructure
and capability in the UK at the moment to create and support a
follow-on submarine, in the event that the UK has a deterrent
of this type, the submarine option is the logical and, I believe,
the most affordable one to go for. My understanding is that it
has military advantages. I think there is a big issue sitting
behind it, in that in the event we moved away form Trident D5
and the Mk4 re-entry vehicle and the warhead it contains we would
be off on another major exercise to develop, without underground
testing and proving, a new class of warhead. That is a very significant
undertaking, bearing in mind that the existing warhead is based
largely on American experience, albeit the detailed design and
manufacture have been carried out in the UK. To go through what
was gone through to create the Trident warhead in conjunction
with the development of a new delivery mechanism and system would
be a massive undertaking.
Chairman: We will now move on to the
timetable.
Q168 Mr Borrow: If I may just give
a general overview, the government has said on several occasions
that it will need to make a decision on the future of the UK's
strategic nuclear deterrent during this Parliament. Exactly what
decisions need to be made, and what is the timetable for those
decisions?
Commodore Hare: First, it is clear
from free and open literature from the MoD that the clock stops,
if you like, on Continuous-at-Sea Deterrence—the posture
to which I referred earlier—around 2020. As to the timetable,
I was impressed by the evidence the Committee heard from Michael
Codner and Lee Willett from RUSI, so my answer will be broadly
along similar lines to theirs. That is in published literature.
Therefore, by 2020 something has to be done to ensure a continuing
capability. My personal view is that the most likely option which
will then occur is that there will be an extension programme for
the four Vanguard-class submarines. Again, in the published literature
I think that some study has been made to look at the feasibility
and costs of that. While the actual timelines and costs are not
public knowledge—certainly I have no visibility of them—to
extend those submarines is doable, probably not for very long,
maybe for five or six years or something like that. That gives
one a bit of a breathing space to procure a successor to the Vanguard-class
submarines, be it land, sea or another submarine design, which
takes us to having something operational by about 2024 or 2025.
If you take my favoured submarine option, traditionally it has
taken us rather a long time from concept stage to delivering an
operational capability in nuclear submarines. Historically, it
has taken up to 19 years. That is a very long time. I am sure
that with today's knowledge and expertise we will be able to cut
back on that. If we want something deployed by, let us say, 2025,
we are talking about my favoured date for decision time of 2010.
That is the first time that one has to take some big decisions,
by which I mean that one has to start spending money. To my mind,
2010 is the time when one has to start making perhaps some fairly
modest expenditure which ramps up later to extend the current
Vanguard-class. One would also have to start spending some money
on the design of the successor submarine system, if it was a submarine,
with perhaps greater expenditure coming in the middle of the next
decade, 2014 or 2015. In the smart procurement jargon, I am talking
about the initial and main gates, but they are all to do with
approval times for major expenditure. While I believe that some
conceptual study work should be conducted now, and probably is
but I do not know, I do not see any key decisions having to be
made until 2010 if we want to continue capability after the Vanguard-class
runs out.
Q169 Mr Borrow: Your view is that
the existing Trident system is likely to become difficult in about
2020. It could be extended to about 2025. Therefore, 2025 is the
date by which one needs to have a new platform and system in place?
Commodore Hare: Yes.
Q170 Mr Borrow: Your view is that
the extension of the life of the existing system is four or five
years?
Commodore Hare: That is my view.
Mr Whitehouse is probably better qualified to answer this. I should
have made it clear that there is no difficulty with the US-procured
Trident system. The missiles, fire control, launcher and navigational
sub-systems are fine, and there is a programme in place to extend
them until time immemorial or 2040—something that is way
outside the timeframe that we are talking about. It is the submarine
platforms which is the issue, in particular the nuclear steam
raising plant which has a safety justification of 25 years. To
renew that safety justification is a non-trivial activity largely
because of the very laudable, strong safety rating and criteria
that have to be met. To extend the safety justification is non-trivial.
It can be done but, to my understanding, not for much more than
five or six years.
Mr Whitehouse: In terms of the
life of the nuclear steam raising plant, that is an inherent function
of the design features, metallurgy and duty cycle when the system
is in use. Once the Vanguard-class has had its series of first
refits the fuel life is not an issue because the fuel will be
good for another 20 to 25 years. Within the MoD experience has
been that the older classes of submarine have become less available
and reliable because of reactor system issues in a third commission;
in other words, beyond the 20-year point. One of the key issues
is the extent to which the Vanguard-class reactor plant, which
is a totally new generation plant, has inherently the same design
features and issues that could cause problems and loss of availability
towards the end of a second commission, if you will. There is
an issue as to whether having had a second non-refuelling refit
the Vanguard class can run beyond the five or six-year period.
In that second refit the major systems within the non-nuclear
components of the submarine itself would have to undergo major
overhaul. We know what these systems and equipments look like
as a result of the first overhauls after an eight or 10-year commission
and, therefore, that could be tackled around the middle of the
next decade in Vanguard and on the subsequent submarines. It is
really the nuclear steam raising plant that one needs to focus
on towards the middle of the second commission; in other words,
after five or six years in service following second refit. There
is in my mind, however, a totally different enter-left-stage issue
that influences this decision. There is a big facility at Barrow
with highly specialised skills and capabilities which builds these
submarines. If the Astute-class runs to seven submarines—there
is a massive affordability issue in relation to that—with
an output of one every two years that build programme would be
likely to end in about 2018. If there is not to be a significant
strategic gap in their throughput and we are not to see them facing
the possible loss of skills and capability they need to be getting
on with the design and build of a successor submarine, perhaps
the SSBN, to maintain capability. Once it disappears it would
be very difficult to recreate. A lot of the difficulties with
Astute have been associated with a gap in the design and build
programme. It is not just an issue relating to the existing platform
and the systems it carries; it is also a matter of the existing
industrial infrastructure to build the submarines at Barrow and
subsequently to support them at Devonport. As part of the submarine
industrial base, we face our own issues with gaps appearing in
our refit programme. Given the present scale of the entire submarine
programme, industrial infrastructure, fixed cost and capability
retention issues are becoming very significant as an industrial
dimension to this decision.
Q171 Mr Borrow: Are you saying that
the Government is not in a position to say that it will not bother
with a refit or life extension but will move straight to the building
of a new platform, and the timetable is now so tight that there
will be practical difficulties in delivering that by 2020?
Mr Whitehouse: If we look at the
Vanguard-class build schedule, based on what appears to be publicly
available information the period between the decision to go and
having the submarine in service is 13 to 14 years. That timescale,
however, benefited very significantly from a technology development
programme which was in place for a number of years before that,
associated in part with the new attack submarine planned at that
stage. The Astute-class will have taken, in the event that it
goes into service in 2009, 15 years to get there. It has, however,
a number of cost issues associated with it. Therefore, if those
are to be addressed and not replicated in a new class of missile-carrying
submarine the Government/MoD will need to look at the adoption
of perhaps more radical platform concepts rather than just putting
the missile compartment into an Astute-class submarine. It will
obviously need to do things in terms of the fundamental engineering
of the submarine to address the problems of cost escalation associated
with the supply chain and infrastructure that is needed to build
these things. It is also probable that consideration will need
to be given to the inclusion of some new technologies, perhaps
moving towards fully electric propulsion to get away from all
the mechanical equipment that sits in the machinery space. If
one accepts that those things must be factored into the decision
one would take a slightly different view from Commodore Hare and
say that the concept work would need to step up a gear and get
going sooner rather than later, and before 2010 if one is to have
submarines becoming available perhaps in the early to mid-2020s.
Finally, thinking a very long way ahead, that creates an interesting
issue. The submarine class that enters service in 2025 with a
life of 25 to 30 years will be carrying a missile system that
the Americans have committed to supporting only until 2040 to
2042. That is a good illustration of the sorts of dimensions that
have to be factored in in deciding when to start in order to have
submarines available to maintain a Continuous-at-Sea Deterrence
which requires three available boats to ensure that there is one
at sea at any given time.
Q172 Mr Borrow: Looking at the political
cycle, given that the Government has said that a decision needs
to be made in this Parliament, which could run until 2009/2010,
if the main expenditure takes place post-2010, on which there
seems to be agreement, but work needs to be done before that,
irrespective of the decision of the Government whether or not
to go for a replacement of Trident and maintain the independent
nuclear deterrent, we must ensure that work is done between now
and the next election so that whichever party is elected to form
the government it is in a position to make a decision about the
big expenditure to retain the capability. If that work is not
done before 2009/2010, irrespective of which party forms the government
after the next election, it will be too late to meet the timetable
to replace Trident when it runs out?
Mr Whitehouse: If some pretty
fundamental concept, assessment and optioneering work is not started
imminently one closes off the option. If one does not close off
the option,[3]
it makes it much more difficult to retain Continuous-at-Sea Deterrence
some time early in the 2020s.
Q173 Mr Borrow: If the Government decided
not to pursue the submarine option but to look at a land, ship
or air option, how would it affect the timetable? Would that take
even longer?
Commodore Hare: It is speculation.
I am afraid that I do not know the answer to that question. I
would guess that it would be a similar timeframe because of some
of the technical challenges to be faced. While Mr Whitehouse and
I may differ slightly on some of the key decision points and timeframes,
we are absolutely agreed that there needs to be some modest expenditure
now on conceptual study work to look at the options, timelines
and potential costs to enable government to make a decision later
on in the timeframe. That should be happening very soon, if not
now.
Q174 Mr Hancock: The Americans have
launched a new submarine with Trident capacity within the past
two years, according to a paper I read. One boat has been built
in the past two years and they are now looking at their next generation
of boats. What is the difference between what they are going to
do and what we would have to do?
Commodore Hare: I did not know
that a new Trident submarine had been launched in the past year.
What I do know is that they are in the process of converting a
number of their Trident submarines to what are called SSGNs. They
are redesigning the missile tubes so that instead of using them
for Trident nuclear missiles they can accommodate Tomahawk cruise
missiles. That has happened in the past two years. There is also
the SSN generation of Virginia-class submarines which are non-nuclear
ballistic missile submarines, but I do not know of any other.
Q175 Mr Hancock: Have they extended
the life of any of their submarines?
Commodore Hare: Yes, they have.
Chairman: Mr Holloway, do you want to
raise a particular issue about service length?
Q176 Mr Holloway: Are they not extending
the life of the Trident submarines?
Commodore Hare: Until 2042.
Q177 Mr Holloway: What does that
involve?
Commodore Hare: My understanding—Mr
Whitehouse is better able to answer—is that their safety
criteria are different from ours. They take the view that their
SSBNs do not operate in such a hostile, aggressive environment
as their SSNs and therefore they are able to take a slightly different
attitude to the extension of reactor plants. We have a much stronger
and different safety regime.
Q178 Mr Holloway: Mr Whitehouse,
what would that involve for the Americans?
Mr Whitehouse: The original life
of the submarines, based on what I have read publicly, was in
part a function of the planned life of the D5 missile. A few years
ago they took the decision that they would extend the planned
life to 40 to 42 years by adopting a refuel and refit at the 20-year
point. The maintenance regime that they follow is not too dissimilar
from that in the UK, except that once they convert four of the
existing 18 submarines to the SSGN to carry Tomahawk they will
have 14 Trident-capable submarines each with 24 missile tubes,
whereas we have 16. Seven will be deployed on each coast. The
fundamentals, therefore, are that they have a rather less stressful
deployment regime. They have far more submarines with more missile
tubes deployed more widely geographically. That means that their
work is less hard. There is no doubt that at the 20-year point
they will be addressing some fundamental obsolescence issues in
the equipments installed and basically doing everything that we
do in our refits but at intervals that are twice as long as ours.
It is really basic engineering. Obviously, they have taken the
view that because of the operating cycles of their reactor plants
they are able to perform up to that point in time.
Q179 Chairman: Mr Whitehouse, you
mentioned the possibility of putting Trident missiles into Astute-class
submarines. If that is possible when would an initial gate and
main gate decision be needed?
Mr Whitehouse: My understanding
is that the Polaris submarines, the Resolution class, were essentially
a development of the attack submarine of the day with a missile
compartment in the centre section. I am not involved in any of
the classified optioneering and so I cannot talk about it. One
of the options must be to look at carrying out a similar transition
with the Astute-class submarine. It does, however, carry forward
a lot of the technology from the preceding classes of submarine.
It has obsolescence issues just sitting there waiting to jump
out and it has affordability issues. One of the matters that the
MoD will need to do is to look among other options at the creation
of a new generation of SSBN, if it decides that that is what it
wants.
3 Note by Witness: Sentence amended: If one
does close off the option, it makes it much more difficult to
retain Continuous-at-Sea Deterrence some time early in the 2020s. Back
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