Ministers faced renewed pressure in the House of Lords on Tuesday over delays to the government’s defence investment plan.
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Bruce of Bennachie questioned why the plan had yet to be published, asking whether internal disagreements within government were contributing to the delay. He raised doubts about how Britain could expand its own defence production while reducing dependence on the United States, particularly after the UK chose not to participate in joint European procurement initiatives that have since been joined by countries including Canada.
Responding for the government, Defence Minister Lord Coaker acknowledged the scale of the challenge facing the UK’s defence industrial base, arguing that decades of decline had hollowed out domestic capacity. “Much of the ability of defence infrastructure to produce the things that we need has gone,” he said, adding that the government was seeking to reverse that trend through measures including new munitions factories and the forthcoming investment plan. He argued that future war-fighting requirements depended on rebuilding an industrial base capable of delivering equipment at scale.
Conservative peer Lord Harper warned that industry confidence would depend on delivery. He noted that ministers had previously indicated the plan would be published by the end of 2025, a deadline that has now passed, and pressed for clarity on whether publication could be expected by the end of the month or the end of the quarter. Without visible progress, he cautioned, government commitments risked being seen as “just words, not actions.”
Lord Coaker declined to give a firm timetable, saying he would not commit to publication “next week or by the end of the month.” He argued that rushing the plan to meet an arbitrary deadline risked producing a document that failed to deliver the required military capability. Instead, he said the government was focused on ensuring the plan reflected the right long-term choices.
To underline the scale of future spending, Lord Coaker pointed to projected increases later in the decade. He said defence capital spending would rise from £22.7 billion in 2024–25 to £31.5 billion by 2028–29, while total departmental spending would increase from £60.2 billion to £73.5 billion over the same period. Much of that additional funding, he said, was intended to be spent in the UK with domestic industry.
They had better pull their fingers out pretty sharpish, now that we have two rabid dogs at out heals, Putin has passed his rabies onto Trump who is now threatening to end Nato with him threatening to “take control of Greenland” so unless we can stall him till the Mid-terms in November when “hopefully” he will lose a lot of his bight then we (the UK and Europe) are well and truly f–cked.
Absolutely Steven, so matters could be out of hand as our closest ally goes ape. If any other country had committed an unfriendly takeover of a sovereign nation, there would be hell to pay with serious face announcements from No. 10 and threats of sanctions plus other measures. However, what have we witnessed from the key powers? I liken the reaction to the father of the bride having an almighty ‘Follow Through’ whilst delivering a wedding speech. Everyone pretends they didn’t hear or see the results, after all, this is the daddy we are talking about! Sadly, the next target will receive the same pathetic, serious faces, only this time the World leaders will be clipping on nose protectors.
Good news is Donald Trump cannot take control over Greenland. He has no such power.
As president he can already send troops there at his discretion, nothing he does changes that. The US has been pulling troops out of Greenland because it’s expensive and kills morale, good luck sending more plus he will need congressional appropriations which he won’t get.
To annex territory he needs a two third majority in congress, I have more chance of bedding Sydney Sweeney that he has of getting that.
This is all just pantomime, we should treat it as such while preparing to remove the US from our deface architecture long term.
Jim, where were these so-called instruments of control/rule when he took over Venezuela?
He has yet to actually “Take over Venezuela”, so far it’s just been a highly controversial head of state removal mission, with a side of targeted killings.
It’s what happens next that History will judge.
History has already judged him.
It is an ongoing delayed process.
Unless Trump is impeached and removed from office, I’d bet he will establish his own Venezuelan cabinet made up of indigenous and American people firmly planted in his camp. Trump will major on the energy gains, and that, to some extent, will appeal to some US voters as gas prices at the pumps have been increasing exponentially in recent times. As for Greenland, most US folk haven’t a clue where that is on the map; therefore, it won’t trouble them too much, so Trump has carte blanche if allowed.
The control of Greenland has nothing to do with defence despite the garbadge coming out of the Whitehouse it is all to do with the wealth of minerals that Greenland has under the ice and snow. Just like the garbage about drugs coming from Venezuela being used as an excuse to kidnap its president it was about controlling the biggest oil reserves in the world. The UK is now between a rock and a hard place and the look on Starmer’s face yesterday after the meeting of the “coalition of the willing” said it all, the realisation that your best friends bullmastiff has got rabies and must be put down and in the mean time you have no defence as you have thourght you would save money by living under its protection.
In theory yes, the president is the commander in chief and directs military action but it’s congress that decides which military action is allowed.
Practically the president can order it in the event of a direct and imminent threat to the US, he will just hide behind that to order the action, if he decides to do so.
Steve, Trump did not seek Congress approval before he launched attacks on multiple Venezuelan military sites and spirited away their President. He did not even inform Congress about his intended Course of Action. Apparently he did though inform a number of US oil companies in advance.
Yep, which is why there is a fair bit of debate in the US on its legality. The issue is maga controls Congress and so even if it’s not legal, they won’t vote against him.
Sadly it looks like the U.S. is moving to become a corporatist authoritarian and aggressive state. I always did say the world was heading for one hell of a war, but I always thought the west would stay a cogent power block. Now, fuck me the liberal western democracies are going down the plughole of history quicker than you can say fall of the Berlin Wall.
I would suspect that had to do with the USD 7billion they owed by Venezuelan for nationalisation, hence why I suspect the oil company were whispering in Trump ear or it was just about rigging the stock market
Jim, good points. Apparently the US used to have 15 bases in Greenland (during the Cold War) and chose to reduce to just one. Its curious this U-turn.
Trump says that many Russian and Chinese ships (he doesn’t say if they are commercial or naval vessels) pass by Greenland and that only a US takeover of Greenland can prevent that. If what he says is true, this is a NATO issue, and NATO should increase its presence in Greenland. Trump is only after their minerals. That is clear.
Basically, yup…
Rachel better stop crying and actually deliver a budget the MOD need for this deteriorating new world order.
Churchill made himself a bloody nuisance during the years of German military build-up, so much so, the Commons ceased listening to him. I can’t help thinking we are at a similar point in history. Britain simply closed down heavy armoured manufacturing, along with ship building, passenger airliners and railway vehicle production. The result, we now buy most railway stock, airliners, and armoured vehicles from abroad, leaving mostly fringe manufacturers building items under licence. So, in truth, we are paying through the nose for items we once produced here in the UK. No wonder Whitehall is holding back; it has made a complete Horlicks of procurement, and mostly based on the ultimate generous support promise of ‘Big Daddy’, the United States, and in 2026, he’s just about to move out and leave the children to fend for themselves.
It’ll be well worth the wait, you’ll see.
It’ll be raining equipment orders like the monsoon.
😉
The D.I.P is yet another example of the governments fantasy world that all ministers seem to live in. The chances of there being more money and more orders is near, if not at, ZERO. Huge amounts are being wasted on benefits, council reorganisation, public sector interference and ridiculous “environmental improvements” There will be no real money for defence increases because there are no votes in it.
While the DIP is well overdue, there is perhaps a more pressing matter…
If Trump thinks the USA should take Greenland from Denmark, then he probably thinks the same about The Falkands, Ascension Island, Diego Garcia, and probably Iceland too…
How on earth do we plan for this?
Diego Garcia sort of presents It’s own Issues given the rediculous deal about to be sealed. Iceland would be a logical step, Ascension maybe a step too far and I doubt the FI’s would even be remotely thought of as a sensible plan given the UK’s historical will to retain them.
I would also expect that many Americans would be horrified at the suggestion of possible force being used against this Country given their love for It’s Royal Family.
Good comment though.
One might think it useful to have a NATO member to have real estate in the South Atlantic.
But then, NATO might not exist.
That was presuming Trump getting the Argies to gain sovereignty.
Trump’s supporters couldn’t give a sh*t about the Royal Family.
“Many Americans”. 👀
after the chagos island surrender, I wouldn’t put it past Starmer to give away Gibraltar or the Falklands for the sake of “peace and harmony”
Trump is the least of our worries when it comes to our rightful territory abroad. Denmark probably does have to worry a little on the other hand…..
hw,
‘I would also expect that many Americans would be horrified at the suggestion of possible force being used against this Country given their love for It’s Royal Family’.
Reagan, another Republican, had no compunction about launching a fairly major assault on Grenada without informing or consulting with its Head of State (our late Queen).
So I recall and yes I remembered that little episode but attacking the UK ? (or London as most Americans seem to know it)
When the gun goes off on the Antarctic extraction race everyone is going to want to steel the Britain’s Antarctic territory and the best way to steel it and secure the Antarctic peninsula is to hold the Falklands….
I thought you’d gone AWOL ?
Whilst the statement seems fair, the issue is huge and needs to be strategically dealt with, but surely they have had the time by now to come up with a plan, it’s been months.
I don’t like their justification for the delay, honest though it probably is.
There is a real risk that after 18 months of practically no orders, the SMEs and niche industries on which the future procurements will defend will have shrivelled and died with no means of continuing to operate. So what the government should have done is begun issuing the smaller contracts immediately after the SDR, and allowed the 10 year DIP to focus on the most important long-term decisions.
Deciding what happens with Ajax? Keep and fix means one set of contracts and timescales; cancel and replace means wholesale rethink. Both routes mean funds have to be found from somewhere.
Then publish the rest of the plan with a caveat that Ajax needs extra work and put a bit of budget aside. There’s no reason for it to paralyse the rest of UK defence.
The problem we are facing is the UKs geostrategic position is turning to shit quicker than anyone could ever imagine.. I have no idea what will happen next but when people like Wes streeting a classic internationalist social democratic is saying the international order is falling apart before our eyes.. we know the game is now up. Let’s be honest NATO is dead, what we have left is the last minutes of agonal breathing of a body that’s heart has already stopped.
The world we are in could now at any time explode in a conflagration of violence that covers the globe, the stage is set for an organic war of such complexity that we in the Uk are going to struggle to understand who our allies are and who our enemies are ( once the world explodes in a complex organic world war sides and allies can and do shift like the sand…In WW2 the Soviet Union attacked our allies and was our natural enemy and yet ended up our ally, a nation like Finland should have been a natural ally ended as an enemy and our natural allies such as Poland were abandoned and left to our future enemy).
We now must assume NATO is gone and will fulfill no role in a future global conflict.. in reality it has split and is politically and so militarily dead ( there is no point to military power without political will) the US, core EU, miss aligned EU nations (that are Russia focused), Turkey and finally the UK… each now have either massive differences making them essentially geostrategic competitors ( US and EU) or not sure where the new world will take them UK, Russia aligned EU nations and Turkey.
What we know ( and what I have been saying will come for a while now) is there are now three large power blocks staring dead eyed at each other and all in geostrategic conflict.. the US, china and EU… with the EU probably being the weakest due to political weakness and lack of investment in military power. Around these three great powers/super powers sit a small number of medium sized independent world powers.. Russia, UK, India, Japan..then a line of medium sized regional powers ( Korea, Middle Eastern nations, Brazil etc) and a very very long line of victim to be milked and used as resources farms by the three major powers..
Now the medium sized world powers and Meduim sized regional powers better have very very solid plans for..
1) which of the big three they will align with.. because when the shit hits there will be no sitting on the fence.
2) how are they going to secure the resources they need and arm themselves to the point they can cause a shift in the balance of power between the big three..because only of they can shift the balance will they have any power to direct their own destiny..
3) if they decide they are sailing for glorious independence.. essentially be ready to be able to knock the crap out of any other power.. and even if they were to fight and loss one of the big three make it so any victory against them would be pyrrhic.
What this means essentially is the UK needs to grow up and realise everything has changed and any war can now come at any time and we may be fighting it alone… we need to be able to hurt any anyone that harms are interests to the an extent they will not harm our interests.. and it needs to be done now at almost any cost… hopefully we will have an allies but we need to swallow the fact the EU and US may end up as geostrategic competitors ( as much as the U.S. and china are) and we are going to be sat like a prize turkey with all the trimmings ( our overseas territories being trimmings) in the middle with Russia loving a bit of Christmas dinner on us.
Can we just have ONE generation without an existential crisis, please? Wouldn’t that be nice? I have a life to live.
Part of me is sort of happy because the current events vindicate all of the reasons why we have said to increase spending, the rest is annoyed that the world might actually just go to pot during my lifetime.
Well.. no… we had 35 good years that’s our lot, I spent my entire childhood up until I was 20 being told I was going to get incinerate at any moment and the world would end and my only hope was how quickly me and my dad could take the doors of the hinges and turn them into a bomb shelter.. even that slim hope was taken from me after being forced to watch threads when I was 13 ( all teenagers should be forced to watch threads at 13)….
‘The chances of there being more money and more orders is near, if not at, ZERO.’
I wonder why you say that Geoff. A fairly sizeable boost has already been announced.
Defence spending will go from £60.2bn a year in 2024/5 to £73.5bn a year in 2028/9. That is an increase of 22%.
One can of course argue that it should be even more, but the nation’s budget is already fully stretched and there is a limit to how much Parliament, particularly Labour backbenchers, and people will accept, when there are many other valid calls on the exchequer.
At least defence spending is at last moving in the right direction. It is a marked contrast with the 14 years of Conservative rule, when defence spending fell from 2.5% of GDP in 2009/10 to barely 2% before 2020. Sunak started to right the ship by putting in an additional £6bn.
It may be time to flog some of the family silver to be honest… get some oil and gas extraction licenses sold.