Plans to replace the Trident nuclear deterrent with another £20 billion submarine-based system must be re-examined, a group of senior political and military figures said yesterday.

Britain can no longer afford to buy the biggest and the best weapons or finance every type of military capability and should instead focus on fewer, more specialist tasks, they said.

They called for a comprehensive review of Britain’s future security needs to include Trident, the proposed two aircraft carriers, the Joint Strike Fighters they would be armed with, and other expensive equipment programmes.

The main authors were Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former Labour Defence Secretary and Nato Secretary-General, and Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrat leader.

Other members of the commission included Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, former chief of defence staff, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former ambassador to the United Nations, and Sir David Omand, ex-Permanent Secretary at the Cabinet Office.

While rejecting the idea of scrapping Britain’s nuclear deterrent altogether, an independent Commission on National Security questioned the cost-effectiveness and strategic value of a direct replacement for the current four-boat Trident force.

The commission, sponsored by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), said that Britain still needed a minimum credible deterrent because of the uncertain dangers that the country might face, but that a strategic review of security was needed to look at the best and most cost-effective way of providing it.

This should include, they said, consideration of “whether we should replace the Trident system as currently planned, seek to extend the life of the current system further or decide that some other system for providing Britain’s deterrent in a nuclear armed world would be better suited to the strategic circumstances in which we then find ourselves”.

The report, called Shared Responsibilities, said that detailed work should start on the costs and viability of running the present four-boat Vanguard class force of Trident ballistic-missile submarines beyond 2024.

This approach, the authors said, would send a positive message to the international community “and in particular to the non-nuclear weapon state signatories of the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]”.

It was important for Britain not to prejudge attempts towards multilateral nuclear disarmament “by locking itself into a Trident extension programme any earlier than was absolutely necessary”.

“It could also push some of the heavier spending years of the Trident programme further into the future, take some shorter-term pressure off budgets and give the UK extra decision-making flexibility, should we find ourselves a few years down the line in a context in which major US and Russian cuts in strategic arsenals might begin to impact on the US programmes on which the UK’s Trident deterrent depends,” the report said.

The two-year study reviewed every aspect of Britain’s security policy and concluded that Britain could no longer afford to buy the biggest and the best weapons or finance every type of military capability. “We can’t go on as we are at the moment,” Lord Ashdown said at a press conference.

The report said that the Government should explore all options for “capability downgrading and quantity reductions as well as complete cancellation of some equipment programmes”.

There was also a case for focusing on cutting the number of Challenger 2 main battle tanks. “At over 350, we arguably have far more than we need,” the report said. Also, the number of RAF Tornado fighter and ground-attack aircraft could be reduced more quickly, “especially given the recent decision to buy Tranche 3 of the Typhoon (Eurofighter)” (potentially giving the RAF 232 Typhoons).

The report urged cutbacks in anti-submarine warfare platforms, limits to air defences, and possibly a reduction in naval bases. Lord Ashdown said that cuts were necessary because the MoD was facing a £9 billion hole in its budget.

To deal with future challenges, Lord Robertson and Lord Ashdown urged the Government to rearrange Whitehall’s finances in order to create a single, cross-government security budget that would include the MoD’s expenditure and elements from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and other ministries, such as Health and Transport.

They estimated that, taking all aspects of security funded by different government departments in 2007/2008, Britain probably spent about £61 billion on national security, or 4.2 per cent of GDP. The MoD’s budget in 2007 was £34.4 billion, 2.5 per cent of GDP.

Lord Robertson said that a single security budget would enable government to focus far more effectively on priorities and that the Civil Service would be able to devise such a system. Lord Ashdown claimed that this recommendation was the most radical in the report.

Other key recommendations included:

— Strengthening co-operation with European partners on defence and security. “The cosy status quo in which the US takes much of the strain while Europe dissipates its limited defence and security resources on duplicated costs and Cold War museum armies will not be available indefinitely”. Lord Robertson, however, ruled out any notion of forming a European army. He also admitted that it would be a challenge to persuade the rest of Europe to co-operate better on defence. Lord Guthrie said: “We have some allies that won’t go out at night.”

— Instead of trying to do everything, Britain’s Armed Forces should focus more investment on speciality capabilities such as tactical ground-air support, especially helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (spy drones), heavy-lift aircraft, and special forces. Lord Robertson also urged the development of a permanent “stability and reconstruction brigade” that would be available at short notice to go into a war zone to start development projects.

— Britain’s strategic gas storage capacity needed to be expanded to reduce the country’s exposure to “energy blackmail”.

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