Strategic Defence and Security Review

I rather agreed with the right hon. Member for Coventry North East, who said that that point is largely academic: the cost all comes out of the Treasury as a whole, and the particular line on which it is accounted is neither here nor there. We would want to be clear that the funds for Trident were on a separate line from that of the core defence budget. That is what the White Paper said, and as I understand it, that is still the position. However, where precisely it is accounted is neither here nor there; it is a completely semantic and academic point.