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By Lesley Foottit - 23rd September 2009
Gordon Brown is set to announce a reduction in Britain's Trident nuclear submarine fleet.
The move will come at a United Nations security council nuclear non-proliferation conference, hosted by US president Barack Obama in New York.
Britain will build only three instead of the original proposal of four Trident missile-carrying submarines, the prime minister will suggest, as part of an international deal to reduce the world's nuclear arsenal.
The president and prime minister are pressing for all nations to come together and reduce nuclear weapon production and the existing stockpile.
"If we are serious about the ambition of a nuclear-free world we will need statesmanship, not brinkmanship," he will say, according to an advance extract from his speech to the UN general assembly on Wednesday.
His address will cover the intended £20bn Trident modernisation programme, which includes a reduction in number of boats.
Critics will argue that the cuts may be prompted by the government's attempts to cut spending and that the reduction will not greatly affect the UK's nuclear capability.
The government has already announced that the UK's stockpile of warheads has been decreased from 200 to 160, with some Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrats pushing to abandon the deterrent altogether.
Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Edward Davey said: "Once again, Gordon Brown is tinkering around the edges rather than taking the radical action we need to see.
"It is no longer possible to justify replacing one obsolete expensive Cold War nuclear system with another.
"Liberal Democrats have already ruled out like-for-like replacement of Trident. Gordon Brown should do the same, rather than persisting with empty gestures."
Officials warned that reducing the number of submarines would not cause a proportionate cut in cost, as more would have to be spent on the remaining boats to maintain overall deterrent capability, but added that the cut would send an important message.
The prime minister will cover the nuclear issue along with the economy, climate change, terrorism and poverty as five 'world priorities' in his address to the general assembly.
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