Putting off the bulk of Britain’s planned increase in defence spending until the years immediately before the 2035 target would be a serious mistake, the Director-General of Make UK Defence has warned MPs.
Andrew Kinniburgh told the Treasury Committee on 3 June 2026 that the government should resist the temptation to make only small increases in the next few years before a late surge to reach 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035. “We need to be really careful not to fall into the trap of saying we’ll back load this,” he said, warning against the idea of “tiny incremental increase for the next few years, and then at the end we’ll suddenly put a load of money in”. Such an approach, he said bluntly, would be “a disaster”.
His argument was that the value of later spending depends on investment made now. The research, science and technology funded today, he said, was what would improve productivity and capability later on, so deferring it would blunt the effect of the money spent at the end. He illustrated the point with a 30-person company that had designed an automated robotic welding jig expected to save a large defence firm £35 million over a decade, an investment in productivity made possible because the smaller firm could see an order book stretching ahead of it.
The session was examining how the UK will fund its defence ambitions, and the committee pressed Kinniburgh repeatedly on what a credible spending path would actually look like year by year. He was unable to give the profile of annual increases the committee sought. “I’m not sure I can answer that question, to be honest,” he said, arguing that the figures depended on what the equipment programme required rather than being a simple block of money. “We’re not just asking for a block of money, it depends what the capability is that we require to deliver for the military,” he said.
Lucia Retter, Assistant Director for Defence and Security at RAND Europe, supported the warning against deferral, framing it as a matter of credibility with allies and adversaries alike. She pointed to Germany, which she said had set out in some detail how its own spending increase would be profiled and what it would be spent on. A clear signal of that kind, she argued, was exactly what needed to enter the public domain, both to demonstrate commitment to NATO and to deter potential adversaries. Back-loading carried real risks, she said, including the possibility that programmes would later be cancelled under a future government or changed economic circumstances.
Max Warner, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, offered a more cautious view of long-range commitments. He said he could see the value of certainty for industry but did not regard a fixed 10-year spending plan as an unambiguously good thing, since governments generally avoid setting budgets that far ahead and like to retain the freedom to respond to changing economic and fiscal conditions. Even a published 10-year profile, he suggested, might not prove credible, since spending plans tend to shift over time, though he accepted there could be a case for some intermediate targets.
The committee said its next session on defence spending, held jointly with the Defence Select Committee, would seek to question the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and a defence minister directly, though no date had yet been confirmed.
Not much there that anyone here would disagree on. I don’t see how these sessions can influence government decisions, though as it’s all stuff the select committees should know anyway.
does he know something we don’t?
Labour won’t survive beyond 2029, so this 2035 Target means fuck all in the grand scheme of things.
Puts a lot of pressure on the next government to honour it regardless of their political affiliation. But quite rightly one parliament cannot bind another, every parliament is sovereign. That’s the law we have lived and prospered with for hundreds of years.
Not sure prospered is the word for it. The short termism it creates has wasted billions upon billions and been a lead weight round the countries ankles.
He is right about not backloading defence spending but there is also an argument to be made about not front loading. Massive increases in spending into an institution as leaky as the MoD would result in massive waste.
Sustained increases of 0.1% per annum of GDP up to 3.5% by 2035 seems about right.
There is every chance as well that Russia falls off a cliff and the threat dissipates. Countries like Germany and Poland that sucked far too deeply on the peace dividend and are much closer to the threat environment than the UK and France needed to panic buy. We need something different, sensible sustained investment.
Yes agree, you need to plan funding increases and know how, why and when you are spending your money.
A 0.1 per cent increase will just tickle the figures. The UK economy is flatlining and has been for the last year. Betweeen the Spring budget and the November “statement” from Reeves defence expenditure in real terms has gone down, albeit not by much. Official figures show a real sum defence budget of £62.2 billion in 25/26.
The problem with moving forward at a cash balance increase of 0.1 per cent is that defence inflation is currently running at between 4 and 5 per cent .There was amuch heralded announcement, which I whoeheartedly support, about close ties with JEF countries. This is good news but guess who comes at the bottom of the member states for expenditure as a percentage of GDP? Correct, the United Kingdom. Unless Labour grasps the nettle there will be no real increase in the defence budget for a decade or more.
Wouldn’t it be nice if this were laid out clearly in some form of Defence Investment Plan? Rather than having the current Defence Investment Pause.
I have never understood why defence of the realm should be subordinate to economic and fiscal considerations – the level of threat to the UK can be existential and is the first responsibility of the Government. Yes, we want new schools/hospitals/benefits but this should not override spending to defend the country. Sadly it is already becoming apparent that backloading is actually the intention regardless of the threat level (presumably the bad actors will cooperate by not making any serious moves until after 2035?). I had hoped that the change in rhetoric signalled a genuine wake up moment, it now looks more like putting off the real decisions for the next lot in government to deal with. Hence all the projects with in service dates somewhere vaguely in the “mid 2030s” or even later.
The debate should not focus on some arbitrary monetary target. Rather we need to define precisely what capabilities we need and plan long term to deliver and support them. We have had 10 year equipment plans since 2012 ( the last in 2023) but looking at the design and build timescales of key equipment- submarines, warships,combat aircraft and even some vehicles, a 20 year plan would make more sense. This should cover all core capabilities. But in addition we need a contingency reserve to cover UORs, much as we have had in the past.
The biggest problem the UK defence budget faces is the proportion already committed to two very costly programmes- GCAP and AUKUS. GCAP keeps UK in the combat air business so is economically and militarily useful. Whether the AUKUS agreement can deliver the same is more questionable: DNE is already absorbing over 40% of the entire defence budget. Until SSN availability is vastly improved, it is not unreasonable to question whether increasing numbers makes sense.
Be ready to fight and maybe our opponents will be discouraged to try it on.