George Osborne delivered a rebuke to the defence secretary, Liam Fox, when he declared that the costs of Britain's new Trident nuclear deterrent will come from the main defence budget.In a sign of the Tory's leadership's growing impatience with Fox, who has embarked on what Downing Street sources have dubbed as "freelance" missions, the chancellor said there could be no special accountancy exemptions for the defence budget.
Speaking to Bloomberg in New Delhi, Osborne said: "The Trident costs, I have made it absolutely clear, are part of the defence budget. All budgets have pressure. I don't think there's anything particularly unique about the ministry of defence. I have made it very clear that Trident renewal costs must be taken as part of the defence budget."
The chancellor's blunt remarks will be seen as something of a reprimand for Fox who complained recently that his department was being asked to pay the £20bn costs of replacing Trident. Fox believes that the costs of replacing Trident should come directly from the Treasury because Britain's continuous-at-sea defence is a matter of national security.
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This will come as a blow to those who were optimistic in the fact that the MoD as a department was only being asked to find 20-25% savings over the coming years compared to 30-40% in most other departments. When Trident is factored in (£1 to £2 billion a year) and the suggestion that all the MoD's savings will come from non-service areas... it seems likely that MoD civil servants might well face real cuts of between 30 & 40% over the coming two or three years!
