Andy Burnham has been Prime Minister for over two weeks and is already trying to rip up the rulebook when it comes to UK politics.
He has purged Starmer’s allies and is wasting no time driving his new agenda, announcing a number of ambitious policies focused on improving the cost of living, establishing a “Number 10 in the North” and proposing to deliver the biggest shake up to the UK’s economic model in 40 years, albeit he clearly has some way to go to prove that he can.
But while there will be no shortage of domestic policy issues jostling for attention in his in-tray, it is defence, and specifically, shoring up Britain’s defence capabilities after years of underinvestment and uncertainty, that may well prove the defining challenge of Burnham’s premiership.
The Defence Investment Plan, which Burnham has inherited and must now implement, disappointed allies and contractors alike when published earlier this month, with questions arising over its funding “black hole” and unresolved roadmap to meet NATO’s 3.5% defence spending target.
Those judging the Defence Investment Plan solely by its headline costs, however, are missing half the point, especially now that ex-Defence Secretary John Healey, who resigned over Rachel Reeves’ reluctance to increase defence spending back in June, has now been himself appointed as Burnham’s Chancellor, signifying a clear break from the previous direction of travel.
Rather, with almost £300 billion of planned investment, the plan reflects a fundamental shift in Britain’s defence priorities, moving us away from an over reliance on legacy weapons systems in favour of a new generation of autonomous and “attritable” systems; relatively low-cost, expendable or replaceable technologies designed to operate at scale.
At its heart, the Defence Investment Plan is funding resilience, reindustrialisation and sovereign capability, alongside an acknowledgement that Britain has entered a new era of modern warfare, and must adapt accordingly.
If Britain is truly to rebuild its defence readiness, therefore, the real challenge lies not in the ambition of the plan but the pace of its execution.
The speed of Britain’s defence procurement has long been criticised for being too slow, too expensive. As such, Burnham, and the Defence Investment Plan, will be judged not by how many new contracts have been secured, but on how quickly these new capabilities, from autonomous systems and advanced manufacturing to maritime and digital technologies, have been translated into operational effect.
Only faster delivery can truly move the dial in shoring up the UK’s defence capabilities. To accelerate this transformation, unlocking the relationship between defence and industry will be critical. As both the Defence Investment Plan and this month’s NATO Summit made clear, defence capability and industrial capability are becoming increasingly inseparable.
Britain’s national security will depend not only on the Armed Forces, but on a broader industrial ecosystem: engineers developing next-generation technologies, manufacturers scaling production, SMEs driving innovation in dual-use capabilities, and resilient supply chains able to respond at pace.
Building this capability requires physical capacity as much as financial investment.
The Plan’s commitment to sovereign munitions production, autonomous systems and expanded stockpiling all point to one conclusion: modern deterrence begins long before equipment reaches the front line.
It begins in factories, engineering centres, testing facilities and logistics hubs, making industrial real estate a key part of the national security equation. Flexible industrial estates that can support defence businesses and their adjacent ecosystems are rapidly becoming strategic assets in their own right.
At Sirius Real Estate, the FTSE-200 property company where I am a Strategic Defence Adviser, the team has spent £150m on estates near Kidderminster and Gloucester with exactly this thinking in mind. The scale of this industrial challenge is perhaps best illustrated by the UK’s renewed commitment to its nuclear deterrent.
The Defence Investment Plan’s ambitious recommitment to expand submarine capability, including up to 12 SSN attack submarines, represents one of the most complex industrial programmes Britain has undertaken and will drive demand far beyond the main defence contractors to the wider industrial supply chains supporting them.
Secure, agile space will be important, but this space must also be developed in the right locations.
Defence investment is likely to reinforce existing industrial clusters, from submarine and shipbuilding expertise in the North West and Scotland to advanced manufacturing and autonomous systems hubs emerging in the South West and within the M4 and M5 strategic corridors, which is now home to one of Europe’s biggest drone testing centres in Swindon. Yes the Defence Investment Plan has a funding challenge. But ultimately, Britain’s defence strategy will be measured not by the size of a cheque, but whether it can manufacture more, innovate faster and deliver capability when it is needed most.
In this new era of security competition, Britain’s deterrence must rely not only on investment but on the industrial capacity, physical infrastructure and expertise that can turn ambition into action. This is the real challenge facing Britain’s newest Prime Minister, and the true benchmark against which his defence legacy must be judged.
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This is a good, well written, punchy article; and enjoyable read.
Andy Burnham does not have to implement in whole or in part the DIP. To govern is to chose. The priorities of this new administration are different. There will be improvements, I expect, but it is going to be a long time frame. Politically it would be difficult even for a very right-wing government, to significantly reduce so called ‘welfare’, which is predominantly pensions and “in work” benefits for the many earning a pittance – it can only be slowed in its expansion – but the economics of UK are as they are; difficult.