TOM MITCHELL (letters, June 19) describes as peanuts the £1 billion cost of refurbishing Rolls Royce at Derby to build reactors for the replacement Trident nuclear missile submarines.

Not everyone may agree with that description, but the cost of buying and running the replacement Trident system over its expected lifetime is in excess of £76 billion – hardly peanuts in anyone’s book.

Furthermore, many in the top services brass regard Trident as militarily useless, and a very expensive way of making us less safe than we would be without it. To cap it all, Parliament has not voted for Trident replacement, yet the Government is using salami tactics to push through spending commitments, like the Rolls Royce one, which will eventually create an accomplished fact.

MPs should act now to stop this scandalous contempt of Parliament.

Mark Gladwin, Huntington Road, York.