New nuclear subs vital to keep UK skills base -BAE

LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) The effect on Britain's skills base would be catastrophic if the government decided against ordering a new class of nuclear submarines, the head of the submarines unit at defence firm BAE Systems said today.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the government will decide later this year whether or how to replace Britain's ageing nuclear defence, which consists of Trident missiles carried aboard four Vanguard class nuclear-powered submarines.

BAE Systems is also currently designing and building the first batch of Astute class nuclear-powered attack submarines, which carry conventional weapons.

Finance minister Gordon Brown, Blair's presumed successor, has signalled his backing for replacing Trident, but such a decision would be bitterly contested by some ruling Labour Party lawmakers who think Britain should give up nuclear arms.

Murray Easton, managing director for submarines at BAE Systems, said British submarine design work would suffer if the government decided against a new generation of nuclear submarines as the platform for nuclear missiles.

''This country has to get its mind around the fact that there will be no nuclear submarines designed and built in Britain, so we will lose ... a sovereign capability,'' he told reporters after testifying to a parliamentary defence committee looking into the impact that the decision on the future of Britain's nuclear deterrent would have on manufacturing and skills.

In a defence industrial strategy published last December, the government said it would seek to ensure Britain retained the industrial capacity needed to ensure national security.

''If you are going to retain it, you need to fund it,'' Easton said.

FRAGILE CAPABILITY In a memorandum to the committee, BAE Systems said the capability to design and build nuclear submarines in Britain was fragile.

''It is BAE Systems' view that sustaining the required capability and skills is critically dependent on establishing and maintaining a regular drumbeat of nuclear-powered submarine production work - a boat every 22 months is considered the minimum necessary,'' the memo said.

To avoid damaging the industry, BAE Systems needs an indication of whether there will be a successor to the Vanguard class ''early in the first half of 2007'', Easton said. The new submarines would be delivered around 2024.

Employment at BAE Systems Submarines' Barrow-in-Furness base in northwestern England has fallen from 14,000 in the 1990s to 3,450 now, which is the ''critical mass'', Easton said.

BAE Systems is currently building three Astute-class submarines but hopes Britain will buy seven. The first Astute submarine is due to be delivered on August 31, he said, and the second and third at 22-month intervals after that.

But the British Ministry of Defence and BAE have not yet agreed on a price for the second and third submarines, and until they do so, the government will not confirm the order for the fourth, Easton said.

''We are confident and very hopeful that by the end of this calendar year we can agree prices for boats two and three and then they (the Ministry of Defence) can open the gate for (submarine) four,'' he said.

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