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The Future of the Strategic Nuclear Deterrent: the Strategic Context, Defence Committee Inquiries

Annex C

Investment at the Atomic Weapons Establishment

Background

1.  In the early 1950s, the main research and development activity in support of the UK's atomic weapons programme were transferred from Fort Halstead near Sevenoaks to a former air base near the village of Aldermaston in Berkshire. Since then, all the UK's atomic and nuclear weapons have been designed and manufactured by the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE, formerly Atomic Weapons Research Establishment) on this site and a neighbouring facility near Burghfield.

2.  In 1993, AWE moved from its position as a Government establishment to one which was still Government-owned but operated by a private contractor. Nuclear licensing was introduced in 1997: site licenses and discharge authorities for Aldermaston and Burghfield were granted by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the Environment Agency. This brought the AWE sites under the same regulatory controls as the civil nuclear industry. On 1 April 2000 - co-incidentally, fifty years to the day after its foundation - and following a competition, the Ministry of Defence placed a contract with a new company, AWE Management Limited (a consortium comprising Lockheed Martin, Serco and BNFL) to manage and operate the two sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield. The contract was initially awarded for an initial period of 10 years with an option to extend to 25 years with access to private finance. This option was taken up in 2003.

Capability at the Atomic Weapons Establishment

3.  A major feature of this new contract was for the replacement of many of the major science, manufacturing and assembly facilities on the two sites. This was driven by three factors. First, over 80% of the infrastructure at Aldermaston and Burghfield pre-dates 1960 and was becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to sustain. Second, the introduction of a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing required the introduction of significant new methods to underwrite the safety and reliability of the UK's nuclear weapons stockpile. This is all the more important as the UK is the only recognised Nuclear Weapon State whose nuclear deterrent is wholly dependent on a single warhead design. As has been reported in detail elsewhere[ 1], the UK has introduced a major science-based programme to ensure we can retain the current very high levels of confidence in the safety and performance of the stockpile. This approach requires investment in a range of new facilities, such as super-computers, high energy lasers and hydrodynamics facilities. The nuclear regulatory regime also rightly imposes stringent safety requirements on the establishment itself, which are increasingly challenging to meet without additional investment in facilities built to modern safety standards.

4.  When AWE ML's initial contract was awarded, it was recognised that a detailed appraisal would be required of the condition of the infrastructure and skills base within the establishment to ascertain whether this was sufficient to deliver the requirement set out in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review, specifically: