36 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review •• Establish a new team in the MOD headed by an experienced, commercial specialist to act as the single sponsor for all aspects of the defence nuclear enterprise, from procurement to disposal, with responsibility for submarines, nuclear warheads, skills, related infrastructure and day-to-day nuclear policy. •• Strengthen our arrangements for the procurement and in-service support of nuclear submarines, establishing a new delivery body with the authority and freedom to recruit and retain the best people to manage the submarine enterprise. •• Intensify efforts, with our industrial partners, to improve performance, including through sustained investment in skills and infrastructure. •• Put in place new industrial and commercial arrangements between government and industry, moving away from a traditional single ‘Main Gate’ approach, which is not appropriate for a programme of this scale and complexity, to a staged investment programme. •• Further invest more than £600 million in the design phase, including buying essential long-lead items for the fourth submarine. This will take the total cost of the design phase to £3.9 billion. •• Finalise investment proposals to begin the next phase, focused on risk reduction and demonstration, in 2016. 4.76 This will be a 20-year acquisition programme. Our latest estimate is that manufacturing the four Successor submarines is likely to cost a total of £31 billion (including inflation over the lifetime of the programme), with the first submarine entering service in the early 2030s. We will also set a contingency of £10 billion. The revised cost and schedule reflect the greater understanding we now have about the detailed design of the submarines and their manufacture. 4.77 We are committed to delivering this vital but demanding and complex programme. We will hold a debate in Parliament on the principle of Continuous At Sea Deterrence and our plans for Successor, and will continue to provide annual reports to Parliament. Nuclear proliferation and our commitments to international treaties 4.78 We will continue to build trust and confidence between Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Weapon States, and to take tangible steps towards a safer and more stable world, where countries with nuclear weapons feel able to relinquish them. We have reduced our own nuclear forces by over half from their Cold War peak in the late 1970s. Of the recognised Nuclear Weapons States, we possess only approximately 1% of the total global stockpile of nuclear weapons. Our submarines on patrol are at several days’ notice to fire and, since 1994, we do not target our missiles at any state. 4.79 As a responsible Nuclear Weapons State we are committed to the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons and we recognise our obligations under all three of the pillars of the NPT. We will work with our international partners to tackle proliferation and to make progress on multilateral disarmament. The UK plays a leading role on disarmament verification with the US and Norway. We will continue to press for key steps towards multilateral disarmament, including the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and successful negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty in the Conference on Disarmament.