PRIME Minister David Cameron would not support plans to designate the Clydeside home of the Trident nuclear deterrent as sovereign United Kingdom territory if Scotland votes for independ-ence, Downing Street said.

A Number 10 spokesman said that no such idea had been presented to Mr Cameron or to Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, adding that the move – which would give the base the same status as British military bases on Cyprus – would not be a "credible or sensible" course of action.

Reports quoted an unnamed defence source as saying that the idea of a sovereign base would be "an option" to avoid the "eye-watering" cost of decommissioning the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, which would run into tens of billions of pounds.