Over recent years, NIS has uncovered the severe challenges facing the UK’s ability to deliver its nuclear weapons projects—not just on time and on budget—but at all. There are various risks to delivery for each project, including design and engineering delays, poor management and budgeting choices, and over-ambitious procurement plans. To address these problems, the government has approved huge increases in funding to avoid production delays for key nuclear weapons projects, such as the new class of Dreadnought submarines.
In January, the government released data on its Major Projects Portfolio for 2023-24, which provides further detail on the troubled Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE). The MOD describe the DNE as the “network of organisations and arrangements responsible for maintaining the UK’s nuclear deterrent and submarine forces”. These data releases are coordinated by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA)—a quasi-independent branch of government—in its annual report. The data (compiled last March) should have been released last July, had the usual timetable been followed, and so is now nearly 12 months old.
The IPA sits under the Cabinet Office and is supposed to help ensure the government’s large projects are well managed and provide value for money. Projects are given a traffic-light colour rating. In recent years, many of the projects relating to the nuclear weapons programme have been given an ‘Amber’ or ‘Red’ rating. This respectively showed that they faced serious problems, or appeared unachievable.
Alongside the report published by the IPA (which summarises the ratings for each programme and makes some general observations about their management) data is published by each government department on their respective programmes. This data includes predicted end dates, costs and a brief explanation of progress and/or problems.
To support the IPA’s 2023-24 report, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) provided a range of data on projects that it is responsible for delivering. As outlined in the table below, all but one of the nuclear-related MOD projects are rated Amber, the exception being the Core Production Capability, which is rated Red.
| Project / Programme | Summary | Rating |
| Astute Boats 1-7 | Delivers the UK’s seven new conventionally-armed nuclear submarines. Sustains the UK’s “submarine design and manufacturing capability.” | Amber |
| Clyde Infrastructure | Updates facilities at HMNB Clyde to enable the operation of the UK’s submarines, including the next generation of Dreadnought nuclear-armed submarines. | Amber |
| Core Production Capability | Delivers nuclear reactor cores for the Royal Navy’s submarine programme. Provides a manufacturing capability for future submarine cores. | Red |
| Dreadnought | Building four Dreadnought Class submarines armed with inter-continental ballistic missile nuclear weapons. | Amber |
| Future Materials Campus | Renews facilities for the manufacture and storage of nuclear materials. Improves “science and analysis capabilities”, and invests in “renewed capability for material recovery.” | Amber |
| MENSA | Replacement capability for assembly and disassembly of current and future nuclear warheads. | Amber |
| Submarine Dismantling Project | Preparation and execution of dismantling the first defueled and decommissioned Royal Navy submarine, in Rosyth, by 2026. | Amber |
| Submarine Waterfront Infrastructure Future | A £2bn+ infrastructure project at Devonport to support the maintenance of Astute Class nuclear-powered submarines. Facilities include: “a new non-tidal maintenance berth, a repurposed dry dock, and associated buildings and services.” | Amber |
| Submersible Ship Nuclear AUKUS | Developing a new class of nuclear-powered, conventionally armed attack submarine in partnership with the US and Australia for the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. Enables “information and technology sharing and closer integration of security and defence-related science and technology, including propulsion plant systems, common vertical launch systems and conventional weapons from the US.” | Amber |
| TEUTATES | Developing a joint radiographic/hydrodynamics capability with France. The programme covers the joint construction; funding; and operation of a new hydrodynamics facility in France at Epure; and a technology development centre and interim firing point in the UK at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. The trials will be in a jointly operated facility but conducted on a national basis and “underwrite the safety and performance of our nuclear weapon stockpile.” | Exempt |
Amber
“Successful delivery appears feasible but significant issues already exist, requiring management attention. These appear resolvable at this stage and, if addressed promptly, should not present a cost/schedule overrun.”
Red
“Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.”
Exempt
“Data can be exempt from publication under exceptional circumstances and in accordance with Freedom of Information requirements, i.e. national security.”
Notable problems with the UK’s military nuclear projects
Problems with delivering the UK’s military nuclear projects—where they are specifically explained, and not just attributed to “ongoing challenges”— are described by the MOD in the Major Projects data as being caused by issues including:
- supply chain issues relating to difficulties recruiting skilled and experienced personnel; and obtaining necessary infrastructure and materials
- productivity issues
- inflation caused by increases to staff pay, equipment and materials costs
- complex schedules, overlapping work programmes, and tight delivery timetables
The following projects are key for the UK’s future as a nuclear power and are important examples of what is going wrong with the DNE:
Core Production Capability
This project is rated as ‘red’ for the third year running. The MOD explain this is primarily due to: “Ongoing challenges associated with achieving the required delivery date for the first Dreadnought submarine nuclear core and the importance of that milestone to sustaining the Continuous at Sea Deterrent. The programme is working closely with the supplier to address the risks involved to ensure core delivery remains aligned to Dreadnought Boat 1 delivery progress, whilst delivering the last core for the Astute-class of submarines.”
Dreadnought
The MOD state that this project remains at ‘amber’ because, “for a programme of this complexity, scale and duration, there is real risk, not least from interfacing programmes of work, and it is therefore appropriate to assess as Amber in Delivery Confidence.”
The Dreadnought programme was forecast to be over-budget by more than £123mn for 2023-24. Notably, the data sheet published by the MOD only describes cost variances for projects at over or under 5%, so an explanation for the increased costs for Dreadnought is not provided.
As NIS has previously explained, the Defence Nuclear Organisation (DNO)—which oversees the majority of the MOD’s spending on nuclear weapons—saw its 10-year equipment plan spending increase 62% to £99.5bn in 2023. We observed at that time that, “the DNO appear to have been given approval to spend whatever is deemed necessary to avoid delays in the production of the Dreadnought submarine class.” The National Audit Office’s 2023 report on the affordability of the MOD’s equipment plan said that the DNO had therefore “prioritised delivering the replacement nuclear deterrent to schedule over immediate cost constraints”.
Submersible Ship Nuclear AUKUS
The MOD state that this project remains at ‘amber’ primarily due to: “A degree of risk relating to the ability of the Defence Nuclear Enterprise and the wider UK supply chain to resource the programme with the necessary skills, experience and infrastructure to deliver against a demanding schedule, without adversely impacting the delivery of the Dreadnought (SSBN) programme.”
This programme is forecast to be over-budget by £31mn for 2023-24. The MOD stated that this was a result of “unanticipated costs due to the insertion of US Technology. This opportunity arose as a result of the AUKUS agreement at the start of the financial year.”
The Bigger Budget Picture
As Malcolm Chalmers has noted, spending by the UK on its nuclear arsenal and submarines “now accounts for almost 40% of planned equipment spending”. NIS has previously explained that this means that either: cost reductions to the nuclear weapons programme will need to be found; funds will have to be diverted from non-nuclear to nuclear military projects; or the MOD’s budget will need to be significantly increased, likely entailing cuts to other departments.
The debate on how much the UK should spend on defence is well underway. US President Donald Trump has demanded that NATO member states increase their defence budgets to 5% of GDP. A better idea for the UK is that the government’s Strategic Defence Review—which is scheduled to be published this Spring—addresses the MOD’s unaffordable spending plans, rather than let it continue to throw money at the many problems it faces.
NIS will continue to push for increased transparency and accountability from the government so that the public can make informed decisions on whether the UK can afford to remain a nuclear power, or whether it should pursue other options, including disarmament.