SNP Westminster Leader Urges to Delay Monday's Vote on Trident Renewal

Scottish National Party's Westminster leader Angus Robertson urged UK Prime Minister Theresa May to delay Monday's vote on renewal of Trident nuclear deterrent program, as the parliament needs to access full costs of it before making a decision.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The decision on Trident would be one of the most important the parliament had ever made, Robertson stressed.

"The enormous cost of Trident appears to be spiraling out of control — before MPs can come to an informed view, they must have access to full costs across the lifetime of the programme," he was quoted by the BBC as saying on Saturday.

The SNP Westminster leader noted that it would be morally and economically indefensible to spend hundreds of billions of pounds on weapons of mass destruction, while funding for public services were being cut.

The SNP is supposed to vote to reject the Trident renewal.

The Trident system is deployed at the UK Royal Navy’s Faslane submarine base in Scotland. The UK Conservative Party, which has been in power under Cameron's leadership since 2010, has been campaigning to renew it despite rising maintenance costs.

The total estimated cost of Trident renewal is 167 billion pounds ($244 billion) over the 32-year lifespan of the system, between 2028 and 2060, according to the International Monetary Fund.