CND General Secretary Kate Hudson has written to George Osborne, urging him to consider cutting funding for Trident.
This follows an analysis of submissions to the Spending Challenge consultation found that the submissions tagged under ‘Defence’ have been dominated by those seeking spending cuts on nuclear weapons.
At both the stage of submitting ideas and the second stage of voting on them, Trident has dominated in the area of Defence. There is little or no support for cutting infantry numbers or aircraft carriers, a significant number do wish the war in Afghanistan to end, but the greatest concern is wasting public funds on the Trident nuclear weapon system and its proposed replacement.
Of 1926 original submissions tagged with the Defence label, over 600 call for spending on Trident to be cut – with the overwhelming majority for the system to be cut altogether.
Looking at how members of the public have voted on the Defence submissions, the four with the highest number of votes call for Trident to be scrapped, as do 18 of the top 50 submissions and 38 of the top 100.
Of those top 100 defence submissions, around 37% of votes cast have argued for the ending of, or a reduction in, the funding for Trident.
In her letter, Kate Hudson wrote,
“This is yet another demonstration of public opposition to Trident replacement. Cutting Trident would be a popular and progressive spending cut, in contrast to public opinion on almost all other public spending cuts.
I hope the Treasury will publish all the relevant data, acknowledge the extent of public opposition to Trident replacement and account for it in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review.”
CND will be launching a new briefing entitled ‘Trident, jobs and the UK economy’ at the TUC on Tuesday 14th September. You can read a copy but coverage of which is embargoed until 00.01 Tuesday 14th September.
For further information and interviews please contact CND’s Press Officer, on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 35,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.