The Prime Minister gave the clearest indication yet that Britain’s fleet of nuclear-armed submarines could be based in the Westcountry, in the event that Scotland votes for independence.

On a visit to the region yesterday, which took in Devonport Naval Base and the Royal Marine barracks at Stonehouse, David Cameron insisted that despite recent cuts the “Royal Navy is going to pack a huge punch in the future”.

He said that Devonport dockyard “has a very secure future” while he also indicated that the Daylight Saving Bill could be resurrected – a move which would deliver massive economic benefits to Devon and Cornwall.

With Scotland due to vote whether to break away from the union, the future home of Britain’s nuclear deterrent submarine fleet has become a crucial issue.

While Mr Cameron gave no indication on how quickly the submarines might have to be moved – with Plymouth the most practical destination – he was clear they would have to be transferred.

“Obviously I want Scotland to vote to stay in the United Kingdom,” he said yesterday. “I will be doing everything I can to persuade the UK to stay together.

“We have to make a decision and that is why I think it is right to bring forward the referendum in Scotland and put the question so it can be determined decisively. I hope it will be a decisive yes to stay in the United Kingdom

“But obviously if Scotland wasn’t in the United Kingdom, then defence facilities would have to be based within the United Kingdom, if I can put it that way.”

The Scottish National Party has said Trident nuclear missiles would be removed from the Clyde under independence.

In that scenario, ministers would be forced to strike a deal with Scottish leaders allowing the Navy to go on using Coulport, where missiles and warheads are stored, and Faslane, where the subs are based, until an alternative was ready.

Plymouth would be the obvious choice, already being home to three nuclear-powered submarines, and having the only facilities capable of maintaining the current and future submarine fleet.

Mr Cameron, who chatted to Royal Marines at Stonehouse barracks before touring the submarine HMS Vigilant, which is being refitted at Devonport, painted a bright future for defence in the region.

Asked whether the dockyard would simply be left scrapping redundant submarines, after losing several ships under the Strategic Defence Review, Mr Cameron said: “I don’t think that is right at all.

“We decided in the Strategic Defence Review to keep our naval bases, and to keep the Plymouth base, and I believe there is a lot of work going on here and a lot of work that will be going on here.

“If you look at the bigger picture of what is going to be happening to the Royal Navy under our defence plans, we have got the new aircraft carrier coming, we have got the Type 45 destroyers, we have got the new global combat ship coming on stream, we have got the hunter killer submarines and we have got a replacement for Trident as well.

“There is a big future programme and the Royal Navy is going to pack a huge punch in the future and a lot of that punch will be coming straight out of Plymouth.

“You should never in de fence terms put all your eggs in one basket and Plymouth I think has got a very strong and secure future.”

He added: “In terms of what is happening to the Royal Navy, yes we are having to make defence savings, but at the end of that period, by 2015, we will be spending £35 billion a year. We will have the fourth largest defence budget in the world.

“I get frustrated sometimes with people who don’t see that at the end of this process, at the end of the defence review, we are going to have a very, very capable Royal Navy and with Royal Marines absolutely at the heart of it.”

His visit came at the end of the week which has been dominated by the Government’s plans to reform the welfare system.

A series of defeats inflicted in the House of Lords were reversed by MPs despite protests from disability and poverty campaigners.

“On the welfare reforms this week I think people will be very supportive of the welfare cap,” he said. “I think there is a very simple principle here that if you go out to work and do the right thing you shouldn’t find that people who live on benefits but could work are better off than the average family.

“When you look at typical wages in the South West people will look at the welfare cap of £26,000, and don’t forget you have got to earn £35,000 a year to have an income like that, would think that the welfare cap is quite generous, and it is absolutely right that we have brought it in.

“I was delighted that the House of Commons voted to reverse what the House of Lords had done and I think that people would be pretty amazed that Labour, supposedly the party of working people, refuses to accept that we shouldn’t reform this system.

“The welfare reforms we are putting through are right for Britain, they are fair and we will make sure that the people in real need are looked after that.

“That’s what our reforms of disability living allowance and employment support allowance are all about. Those who really need help will get help.”

'We’ll ensure no repeat of the Falklands'

About 150 Devonport dockyard and naval base workers yesterday attended a “PM Direct” session where they put questions to David Cameron.

He was faced with a diverse range of questions ranging from the economy and adoption to the future of the dockyard and nuclear decommissioning.

Asked whether Britain could still defend the Falkland Islands if the Argentinians invaded again, Mr Cameron said: “We are capable of protecting the Falkland Islands and the way to do that is to maintain the forces there.”

He said he believed the islands were now adequately defended, and added: “We have to make sure that what happened in 1981 doesn’t happen again.”

In 1981, Argentina overran the lightly defended islands, which they have long claimed as their own.

“I want to send a clear message and have no misunderstanding that we are committed to defending the Falkland Islands as long as the people there want to remain British. I want Argentina and others to understand that.”

Mr Cameron told one member of the audience, who asked why the Government was helping India, which is spending large amounts on defence, that overseas aid was vital to protect Britain’s interests.

“When we got into power we ended the aid programme to some countries, like China. We are still giving some aid to India but it is concentrated in the poorest areas.

“There are more poor people in India than there are in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

“We should focus on things the public can have confidence in, like childhood vaccinations. The idea that children are dying of diarrhoea is appalling.”

He said there were three reasons to continue with overseas aid.

“We promised to, and Britain is one of those countries which keeps its promises. We are talking about money for people who are staggeringly poor. And think of the problems we get in Britain from those states that have gone wrong.”

He gave Somalia as an example, where people were taken hostage, ships hijacked and extremists exported terrorism.

“How much more dangerous will our world be if these countries go on being broken, poor, exporting illegal migration and exporting terrorism?

“Aid gives Britain an enormous influence. Don’t underestimate the aid programme as part of Britain’s ability to get things done in the world.”

Cameron says plan to introduce daylight saving is still ticking

David Cameron has indicated plans to push the clocks forward an extra hour could be resurrected after legislation was killed off by Tory backbenchers.

The Prime Minister told the Western Morning News he was “disappointed” a small number of MPs from his own party talked out the daylight saving Private Members Bill.

On a visit to the Westcountry, which would benefit financially from lighter evenings, Mr Cameron said there “might be opportunities” to bring forward legislation in the next session of Parliament.

His remarks raise the possibility of a clocks bill featuring in the Queen’s Speech in April, which sets out the Government’s legislative agenda.

The Bill was being taken through Parliament by Conservative MP Rebecca Harris, but had backing by the Government and a majority of MPs in the Commons.

So long as all four countries in the UK agreed, it could have eventually led to a three-year trial time shift of having the clocks at Greenwich Mean Time plus one (GMT +1) in the winter and GMT +2 in the summer.

It is estimated that longer evenings would increase tourism revenues by up to £4 billion in the UK, and create tens of thousands of jobs. It could spell a £100 million annual windfall for tourism businesses in Devon and Cornwall.

Tory MPs Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset), Christopher Chope (Christchurch, Dorset) and Philip Davies (Shipley, West Yorkshire) derailed plans to explore Britain moving to Central European Time by speaking at length as the Bill was debated in the Commons, meaning it ran out of parliamentary time.

Mr Cameron said yesterday in Plymouth: “We can go on examining this issue. It is something that needs to be done on a UK basis, that was the condition, and obviously there might be opportunities for it to be brought forward in the next session.

“I was disappointed that it fell in the way that it did but the Bill as amended was already saying that it needed to happen in the UK all at the same time and I think that is important.”

Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable previously told the WMN he was “disappointed” the Bill had fallen by the wayside despite a “a fair degree of consensus” among MPs.

Many in Scotland oppose the move over fears that the country would be plunged into darkness. But the Bill would only allow for a study into the benefits, which supporters claim would cut road deaths, boost tourism and reduce energy use.

Main event when PM comes Westcountry

Not for the first time has David Cameron’s attention been diverted when visiting the Westcountry, writes London Editor Graeme Demianyk.

Yesterday the Prime Minister was in Plymouth, home of Western Europe’s biggest naval base, Afghanistan heroes and a substantial commercial dockyard. Defence of the realm, valour and jobs. The Holy Trinity for a Conservative Prime Minister.

But Devonport dockyard was 250 miles from the political centre of gravity at 10am yesterday, when all eyes were on the Crown Prosecution Service’s headquarters in London. It’s not every day Mr Cameron will get a “Dear Prime Minister” letter – signifying a ministerial resignation – from one of his Cabinet. Yesterday’s missive, dashed off by Energy Secretary Chris Huhne amid allegations of perverting the course of justice, was his third.

Cucumber cool, the Prime Minister barely batted an eyelid. “I think Chris Huhne has made the right decision, given the circumstances,” Mr Cameron insisted.

Job done. Back to the glad-handing. But Mr Cameron must be used to things not going entirely to plan when Devon and Cornwall enter his diary. Last summer, a family holiday to North Cornwall was interrupted as euphoric Libyan rebels swept into Tripoli. That’s what happens when you chair the National Security Council. A day later, though, he was back buying locally caught scallops from a Port Isaac fishmonger.

A year earlier, the diversion was more domestic: the early arrival of the Camerons’ fourth child, Florence Rose Endellion, the girl with the Cornish middle name.

Harold Macmillan’s possibly apocryphal saying – “events, my dear boy. Events” – seems to resonate when Mr Cameron visits the far South West.

Cameron's hard hat 'disgrace'

Union leaders were angered after the Prime Minister’s visit halted refit work on the Trident submarine HMS Vigilant.

David Cameron and his party were allowed to tour the submarine in 9 Dock without safety equipment including hard hats, after work was stopped in some areas.

The boat is nearing the end of a three-year, £300million refit and workers have been offered a £400 bonus to complete on time in March.

“It’s a disgrace,” Peter Smith, chairman of the Devonport Dockyard Works Committee said.

But Babcock said it was normal and that workers’ bonuses would not be affected.

Mr Smith said: “I understand that they changed the risk assessment so there was no overhead lifting going on.

“Staff have been promised a £400 bonus if the work finishes by March 5. I hope this won’t put bonuses at risk.

“To my knowledge this has not happened before.

“The company has been driving safety with the unions and this sends out the wrong message to the workforce.”

John Hall, managing director technical at Babcock, said: “From time to time we have VIP visitors and at those times we look at the risk assessment.

“This would not have affected our programme. The critical work was continuing inside the submarine.”

Interviewed by The Herald before the submarine tour, Mr Cameron would only say that he would be doing a question and answer session at the Dockyard “and I don’t think anyone will be wearing hard hats there”.