3.1 The October 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review had a number of consequences for the Department's equipment programme. A key issue was to address the long-term imbalance between the anticipated Defence budget and forecast expenditure. To address this challenge the Department cancelled the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft, and also delayed introducing the Successor nuclear deterrent submarine by four years to 2028. To ensure that a gap in submarine construction did not arise as a consequence of this delay and to further reduce short-term costs, the Department slowed the build programme of the Astute Class submarine. In addition to the financial consequences, these decisions have affected the Department's ability to undertake a number of defence tasks.
3.2 Figure 13 outlines the key impacts on the Major Projects from the Strategic Defence and Security Review.