The Dunfermline and West Fife MP, who is also a Rosyth councillor, spoke out after it was revealed that the cost of storing and maintaining the vessels during the last five years was more than £13 MILLION.

He said that storing the hulks has been a “running sore” for people in the town and was keen for the MoD to produce a long-term strategy for the storage of radioactive waste that will allow dismantling work to begin.

The decommissioned subs have been stored at Rosyth since 1980 and the large costs are to ensure that any nuclear material on board is prevented from getting into the environment.

As well as calling on the MoD to take action quickly, Mr Chapman insisted that the submarines should “not be replaced by other ageing subs which have come to the end of their natural life”.

In February, then Defence Minister Philip Dunne stated that the MoD were “not planning to dismantle any additional submarines at Rosyth”. Mr Chapman said, “The workforce at Rosyth have built up a level of expertise in managing the seven submarine hulks and they will be at the vanguard of the dismantling process.

“The deal must be though that once the seven subs have been safely and successfully dismantled, then they will not be replaced by other ageing subs which have come to the end of their natural life. Once the seven are gone, they’ve gone!

“The seven laid-up subs at Rosyth have been a running sore locally for many years and we are keen to see the MoD make swift progress with their plans to dismantle the subs and remove any residual radioactive waste from Rosyth.

“There are huge costs to the taxpayer in keeping these subs afloat and in storage but, to date, and even with those huge cost pressures, the MoD have been reluctant to identify a suitable site where residual nuclear waste could be stored. The cast-iron guarantee from the MoD is that no dismantling can begin until a safe, long-term solution can be found to the storage of radioactive waste. There are also issues around the safe transportation of any radioactive waste between Rosyth and the site for long-term storage.

“Our plea is that the MoD get on with ensuring that the dismantling process is carried out to the very highest safety standards and is done without further delay to allow Rosyth to be radioactive waste-free at the earliest possible point.”