I WATCHED the seven person debate on Thursday and was rather surprised that even the representatives of the SNP,.the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, who are all against the renewal of Trident did not point out that one the obvious ways to raise extra funds the for the social expenditure they wanted was to decommission Trident and cancel plans for its renewal.

Renewing Trident will cost over £25 billion to build and £75 billion to maintain and decommission over the lifetime of the system. The government also spends £6.6 million a day maintaining the current system

Why on earth is Trident treated as a national treasure, when it is a terror weapon ( and aren't we supposed to oppose terrorism?) to which social welfare spending on housing, schools and hospitals must be sacrificed? And we do so knowing that the world is a much more dangerous place if we do not decommission Trident! We have acknowledged as much in being a party to the sanctions which aimed to prevent the mere possibility that Iran would develop its own nuclear weapons because, if it did so, it would make the world a more dangerous place. The arguments used against Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are equally valid when considering our own . If Iran shouldn't acquire them then by the same token we should decommission ours

Malcolm Pittock

Bolton