SCOTTISH taxpayers will face a multi-billion-pound bill to pay for a new generation of nuclear weapons if plans to renew Trident are backed, according to a Holyrood minister.

The Westminster Government is due to make a decision about renewing the programme in 2016.

The Scottish Government has set out plans to remove Trident from Scotland if the country backs the Yes vote.

Veterans minister Keith Brown yesterday told MSPs the decision on renewal "appears to have been made", with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour backing retention.

He added the cost of renewal will also have implications for the UK's conventional defence forces.

Mr Brown added: "The Scottish Government position is that Trident should be removed from an independent Scotland by 2020 - before we are hit with a share of the further £100 billion in lifetime costs, at 2012 prices, which are estimated for its replacement.

"We will also propose a constitutional prohibition on nuclear weapons being based in Scotland.

"As the Trident Commission reported, when spending reaches its peak in the next decade, taxpayers will be spending nearly £4bn a year on nuclear weapons at 2012 prices, the equivalent of swallowing up almost one third of the entire current defence capital budget - with clear implications for other defence projects.

Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: "They (the SNP) imply you are not serious about nuclear disarmament unless you support independence. I would put aside that in this chamber we are all disarmers - some are multi-lateral disarmers, some are unilateral disarmers."