The new British government joined America last week in officially declaring how many nuclear warheads it has.

Earlier in the month, the US revealed it had 5,113 nuclear warheads in military arsenals. Now William Hague, the British foreign secretary, has revealed that the UK’s overall stockpile “will not exceed 225” nukes.

“This is a significant step forward on previous policy, which was to publish only the number of warheads classed as “operationally available”, the maximum number of which will remain at 160,” he told Parliament.

“We believe that the time is now right to be more open about the nuclear weapons that we hold. We judge that that will further assist in building the climate of trust between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states, which has been lacking in recent years, and will contribute to efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide.”

The big questions for UK nuclear weapons now centre on the renewal of the expensive submarine-launched Trident system, which is currently under review. The FT notes:

Some Whitehall insiders have told the Financial Times that the review will contain an extensive examination of whether Britain should move to a land or air-launched deterrent. Moreover, the government has not yet said whether it will reduce the total number of submarines in the new fleet from four to three.

Image: US military launch of Trident ballistic missile /