UK to spend £350m on new nuclear submarine design

Britain's Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, believes the submarines are an ultimate safeguard to Britain’s national security.

The planned new fleet of Trident submarines is officially estimated to cost up to £25 billion but anti-nuclear campaign groups have put the real cost of a full replacement at more than £100 billion.

However, there is one potentially tricky problem for the UK government. The trident submarines are based in Scotland, and future plans of a replacement may not go ahead. That's because Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, has made it clear that his Scottish National Party would ban nuclear weapons if Scotland became independent.

He said: "If Scotland, by majority, doesn't want nuclear weapons, the SNP proposition is to write that into the constitution of the state. So, that would make the possession of nuclear weapons illegal."

Analysts have ridiculed the UK government’s plan to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on weapons of mass destruction, while at the same time implementing what they call brutal welfare cuts and slashing investment in the economy.

The UK coalition government are themselves divided on the issue of nuclear deterrence. The Conservatives support a replacement, whereas the Liberal Democrats oppose it. The Lib Dems say that Trident was designed to counter the threats of the Soviet Union, which has passed away a long time ago.

Some political experts believe that Britain's nuclear weapons are illegal and that the UK's policy of spending billions of pounds on trident when at the same preventing countries like Iran from pursuing a peaceful nuclear programme, sends out a very contradictory message.