Defence firms and industry bodies have raised concerns in evidence to Parliament’s Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy that engagement around the UK’s security plans has been limited, with one group saying consultation “consisted only of a few roundtables of experts” while civil society was “otherwise absent”, and techUK pointing to a “shortage of formal engagement with the private sector and notably the tech industry”, calling for government to “conduct widespread engagement with industry”.
Concerns over transparency were also raised during the inquiry into the 2025 National Security Strategy, with ADS warning that the absence of a published China Audit is making it harder for companies to understand policy direction, while the committee itself noted that “the lack of publicly available detail, particularly around the issue of China, risks eroding public trust” and complicates efforts to bring industry and wider stakeholders along.
Witnesses told the committee that the way policy is being delivered across government is adding to the problem, describing “fragmented initiatives” and a lack of clarity over who is responsible for what, with techUK arguing for clearer ownership through “department leads to certain delivery ambitions”, echoing wider concerns that better “oversight and co-ordination would benefit day-to-day work and crisis response”.
Funding uncertainty is already affecting behaviour in the sector, with companies saying they need clarity on what counts towards the Government’s 1.5% of GDP target for security and resilience in order to plan investment, as Northrop Grumman UK said spending should include activity that “genuinely strengthens UK security and resilience”, while Thales argued it must cover supply chains and critical infrastructure, with the report noting it is still “not wholly clear where funding will come from” for longer-term upgrades.
Skills and workforce issues were also highlighted during the inquiry, with evidence indicating “we just do not have an understanding of where we have skills shortages” and warning that “erosion in [the] underlying skills base is slow but ultimately more dangerous than crisis shocks”, while in areas such as artificial intelligence there is a pipeline of graduates but concerns that industry can be “somewhat extractive” and that they “could well do with more time in the lab to develop … skills”.
On the industrial side, firms pointed to structural weaknesses in the UK base, with evidence that there is “good capacity for assembly of final products” but a lack of “immediate component production capacity”, and operational experience showing that sourcing items such as propulsion systems, motors and compute can be “incredibly hard”, underlining calls for a clearer assessment of gaps and priorities.
The continued delay to the Defence Investment Plan was repeatedly raised as a core issue, with industry warning that government has “not yet indicated how funding will be allocated across the sector”, making it difficult to align research and development with national priorities and leaving smaller firms exposed, particularly in a system where “we do not allow anything to move from the ‘S’ to the ‘M’ in ‘SME’”.
I find the title deeply concerning, I didn’t know we had a strategy!!
I thought the grand plan was to endlessly blame the Tories and postpone the DIP, until funding it became the next government’s problem….
John, Parliament has a ton of recesses – they are on a 16-day Easter recess now!
Next recess starts on 22nd May. Expect DIP to be published on 21 or 22 May so there will be no time to debate it!
We have a strategy? 😳
Isn’t there a minister for Defence Industry and Technology to coordinate all this and keeping all parties informed at some level of where the government is at or not at on a regular basis?
So ‘ Not at’ on a regular basis, sounds a cushy job, definitely work from home, quick call every month to say, “still in decline” and you get a great wage and pension plan…
The MoD just need a “Gaps” Manager to fill in the gaps….lol.
Ab the tried and trusted British Defence Strategy of ignoring the warning signs and do nothing until it is too late. No wonder we are a laughing stock.
Oh Britain is a laughing stock for multiple reasons, not just a ever decaying military 🙂
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‘it is still ‘not wholly clear where funding will come from”
The funding isn’t coming from anywhere while ‘net zero’ subsidies soak up available budget
‘In the period 2002 to the present, the total cost to the electricity consumer of those renewable electricity subsidy schemes that we can quantify has amounted to approximately £220 billion (in 2024 prices), equivalent to nearly £8,000 per household. The annual subsidy cost is currently £25.8 billion a year, a sum equivalent to nearly fifty per cent of UK annual spending on defence. Subsidy to renewable electricity generators now comprises about 40% of the total cost of electricity supply in the United Kingdom. The total subsidy cost per unit of renewable electricity generated has risen by nearly 50% in real terms since 2005 and now stands at approximately £200/MWh. This contradicts government and industry claims that renewables are becoming cheaper but is consistent with expectations from the physics of energy flows, the empirical study of the capital and operating costs of both wind and solar, and the grid expansion and reinforcement and system management costs known to be imposed by renewables.’
Not only is ‘net zero’ threatening national security, it is also disastrous for the taxpayer and the economy:
‘We conclude that these costs in large part explain falling electricity consumption in the UK, which has declined by 23% since 2005 when the cost of the subsidy schemes first became salient. These findings shed valuable light, we believe, on both the cost-of-living crisis and the stagnation in UK productivity growth.’
‘Net zero’ is will not save the taxpayer any money; quite the reverse:
‘Renewable electricity generators have now enjoyed generous financial support for over twenty years without showing any significant progress towards independent economic viability. On the contrary, the requirement for such support seems to be rising. The public is surely entitled to ask when government will bring this extraordinary and insupportable level of subsidy to an end.’
The Renewable Energy Foundation 2025
Long since time to get rid of the dotty ‘net zero’ nonsense and direct resources towards national security….like everyone else!