With your permission Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Defence Investment Plan.
Our Armed Forces represent the very best of us
From our sailors patrolling the High North and protecting the seabed.
To our pilots, aircrew and air defence teams in the Middle East defending the skies.
Our Paras in the South Atlantic and Marines in the Channel.
As I speak, we have personnel supporting the humanitarian mission in Venezuela.
Submariners beneath the waves maintaining our unbroken chain of protection.
And planners in Permanent Joint Headquarters making the most extraordinary complex challenges appear routine.
Our service men and women rightly inspire respect, gratitude and pride across this House and across the nation.
We all recognise that they serve at an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable moment in history.
Now the central purpose of this Defence Investment Plan – which we publish today – is to ensure they have the kit and technology they need to do the difficult job we ask of them.
I know first-hand just how important that is and when I was appointed Defence Secretary just a couple of weeks ago, I promised to get that right.
Today, I make good on that promise.
Before I set out that detail, I want to take the opportunity to thank the many hundreds of colleagues in the Ministry of Defence, in uniform and out, who have worked very hard to prepare this Plan.
Over the last few weeks, it’s been a privilege to work with them as it has been my ministerial team.
In particular, I pay tribute to my Honourable Friend, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, who I know has invested many months in getting this plan right.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I also want to place on the record my profound thanks to my Right Honourable friends, the Prime Minister and Chancellor.
For their support and the spirit of goodwill which has guided our negotiations over the past fortnight.
They have – for two years – demonstrated steadfast commitment to our national security
And our Armed Forces are today better prepared and better supported as consequence of that.
I think its important to also make the point that Ukraine is still strong in the fight.
And Britain has proven itself to be a reliable ally and trusted partner.
I also pay tribute to my friend, the Right Honourable member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough, who dedicated his time as Secretary of State and worked in order to deliver this Plan.
He set out to this House in clear terms why he could not support an earlier version of the Plan.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will lay out what has changed and why I can.
This Plan now commits more investment in our Armed Forces
£298 billion over the next four years.
That includes an additional £15 billion on top of last year’s Spending Review settlement, of which most is extra day-to-day spending for training and improving availability of ships and aircraft to increase our war-fighting readiness.
That is £1.5bn more than when I took up this job, just a couple of weeks ago.
This means that defence spending will now increase – in real terms – by 27% between 2023/24 and 2029/30.
That is a bigger increase across a parliament than any present member of this House has ever seen.
It means the £74 billion allocated to our Armed Forces next year is now £20 billion more than the last year of the previous Government.
And it means – by the end of this decade – the proportion of GDP spent on defence will now be higher than at any time during the last thirty years.
Now we have made some difficult but necessary decisions to fund this.
But our fiscal rules have been upheld and day-to-day spending on frontline services has been protected.
All departments were asked to contribute 1% of their capital budgets from this year.
While those with larger resources – the DfT roads budget and DESNZ – were asked to make further contributions.
Full details will be set out in a Written Ministerial Statement today.
And to reinforce this additional investment, this Labour government is announcing a new £50 billion Defence Export facility to support British defence firms to go out and win contracts across the globe.
More money matters, of course it does.
But so do the choices we make on how to spend it.
And so, I have taken the decision to reprioritise a further £1 billion within the Plan, to ensure that it better reflects the way war is waged today.
It will provide our service personnel with the capabilities they need to deter and fight now and, in the years, ahead.
The war in Ukraine has seen battlefield technology advance faster than at any time in history.
And few have done more to ensure our Armed Forces kept pace than my Honourable and Gallant Friend, the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak.
I thank him for his service and for the work he did as a Minister.
He will know, artificial intelligence, autonomy and uncrewed systems are no longer capabilities of the future.
Through this DIP, they will now receive the sustained investment that reflects their strategic importance.
So today, we commit the UK’s largest ever investment in drone warfare.
£5 billion for strike, protector and surveillance drones across the Royal Navy, the Army and the RAF.
Anti-submarine vessels, uncrewed ground vehicles and fighter jets.
A new Uncrewed Systems Taskforce to rapidly develop and field new autonomous capabilities.
And funding for Europe’s biggest drone testing site, the Uncrewed Systems Centre in Swindon, which I opened on my first day in the job.
A project which owes thanks to the efforts of my Honourable Friend, the Member for Swindon North.
We will also invest nearly £2 billion to integrate our Armed Forces through a new Digital Targeting Web, underpinned by the most advanced AI and software.
Cutting the time from decision to strike faster than ever before.
£100 million for the Defence AI taskforce and another £115 million to raise our defences against the threats of AI.
Now Madam Deputy Speaker, it would be reckless to ignore the lessons from Ukraine.
But it is important to remember that we are not Ukraine.
We are a member of NATO and a nuclear power.
And just in this year, our Armed Forces have been deployed to the High North and the Middle East.
They are now readying themselves for the prospect of regenerating Ukraine’s Forces and re-opening the Strait of Hormuz.
All the while, they protect our island home and retain the ability to respond to crises in dangerous and distant lands.
Britain needs a flexible, hybrid, integrated, “high-low” force that can deter and fight across every domain.
It’s why we’re committing £8.6 billion to the Global Combat Air Programme, proudly in partnership with Japan and Italy.
This next generation stealth fighter jet is in addition to the £1.1 billion Typhoon upgrade and will ensure our RAF maintains control of the skies.
We will invest £26 billion to fund the most extensive naval base upgrades for nearly half a century, including at Faslane, Portsmouth and Devonport.
£790 million to protect the UK homeland and our overseas bases from air, drone and missile threats.
£11 billion for munitions and weapons to increase UK stockpiles, including long-range strike capabilities, low-cost cruise missiles and one-way effectors.
And by 2030, we will build at least six new energetics factories.
Madam Deputy Speaker, today, we commit £64 billion to fund Dreadnought and AUKUS submarines, a new warhead and other crucial nuclear work.
Our independent nuclear deterrent is the ultimate guarantor of our security.
And in providing the funding to renew it, we extend that promise long into the future.
We will also purchase F35As and join NATO’s nuclear mission.
Because our security is now contested in every domain, we will invest over £3 billion in space capabilities, £2.5 billion in cyber and £400 million to protect our undersea cables and pipelines.
But Madam Deputy Speaker, in the end it is our people who win wars and preserve peace.
With three above-inflation pay rises, extending childcare provision, and putting fully into law the Armed Forces Covenant, this Labour government has demonstrated its commitment to what matters most.
Building on the work already done to fix 1,200 of the worst homes, we today commit
£9 billion over a decade to raise the condition of military family housing to a standard which matches the service and sacrifice of those living in them.
Through a new Defence Housing Service, we will implement the Defence Housing Strategy in full, fulfilling our moral obligation to personnel and their families.
The DIP represents significant progress in implementing the vision set out in our Strategic Defence Review.
We will invest more, target better. But there is much more work to be done.
And not for nothing, the UK made a promise to our allies, as they did to us
3.5 by 35.
In a more dangerous world, our commitment to NATO is absolute.
I gave my word to the Secretary General, and to all our allies that promise will be met and a credible plan will be produced to ensure that it is.
We will reach 3% in the next Parliament.
With funding set out at the next Spending Review, in which defence will be the number one priority.
Britain has always met our NATO spending commitments.
Under this government, we always will.
Britain has always stood with our Allies.
And under this government, we always will.
This Plan accelerates deep precision strike weapons and close support artillery with Germany.
It creates an amphibious combined fleet with the Netherlands.
We will also invite JEF nations to join our “Northern Navies” initiative and build a hybrid Force together.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I now have a responsibility to make this Plan work.
Not least given what Cabinet colleagues have forgone from their budgets in order to support mine.
My commitment to them – and indeed the British public – is that with the requirement to spend more on defence comes a duty to spend more wisely on defence.
So this Plan includes a pledge to make substantial savings by the end of this Parliament, as well as a commitment to drive down fraud and error across defence.
I am grateful to our partners in industry for their counsel and support during this process.
I know that recent months haven’t been easy.
With the DIP now published, I am relying on the full spectrum of our industrial base to make it a success
Primes and SMEs, workers and trade unions, innovators and investors.
Together, we will ensure that benefits of this Plan will be felt right across the United Kingdom.
We will develop sovereign and dual-use technologies.
Increase exports, generate growth and reindustrialise our economy.
And, today, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am proud to confirm that with the publication of the DIP comes the promise of greater security for families and new opportunities for our people.
According to MOD analysis, this Plan will support nearly 60,000 additional good and skilled jobs right across our Union.
This will be achieved alongside a culture shift in procurement.
Madam Deputy Speaker, ultimately the success of this Defence Investment Plan will be measured by where it commands the support of those amazing men and women who serve in our armed forces.
They remain our most important asset.
Respected by those who stand with us.
Feared by those who stand against us.
We know they are equal to any task.
And with this Defence Investment Plan, we give them the means to match their courage.
I commend this statement to the House.
