A cross-party debate in Parliament today highlighted critical vulnerabilities in the UK’s air and missile defence systems.
The Westminster Hall session, led by Luke Akehurst MP (Labour, North Durham), follows recent global developments, including Russia’s deployment of an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine.
Addressing the chamber, Mr Akehurst underscored the UK’s inadequate ground-based air defences against ballistic missile attacks, stating:
“This lack of active homeland defence is fundamentally a strategic failure… Addressing this capability gap needs to be an urgent political, funding and industrial priority for Government.”
He spoke of the need for comprehensive action, noting that without significant upgrades, defending London from such attacks would require permanently mooring a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer in the Thames Estuary. The debate also examined emerging threats from drones operated by hostile state and non-state actors, referencing recent incidents where unidentified UAVs targeted three RAF bases.
The session follows a House of Lords committee report in September, which concluded that under-investment had created “substantial vulnerabilities” in UK air defences.
Responding to concerns, Maria Eagle MP, Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry, recognised the urgency of the issue, stating:
“The global air and missile threat is advancing; it is proliferating and converging. So given this increasingly volatile and contested threat environment, we have to ensure that we have the capability and capacity to counter threats in the most appropriate way.”
She affirmed that the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review would address these threats, adding:
“We have got to consider properly the range of threats – from the low-cost drones we see affecting the UK today to the strategic long-range weapons that Russia threatens to use.”
The debate marks a call for immediate political and industrial prioritisation to secure the UK against a rapidly evolving range of aerial threats.
Oh good. More taking. That will solve the problems.
Why put a T45 in the Thames estuary? We would be much better off with all those muppets gone!
The MP was making the point that we do not have any land-based systems that can provide the missile defence capability that the T45 was designed for.
Neither can the T45 without a missile upgrade.
Yes I noted that it’s prospective at best as things stand though it could probably give a 20 second warning if everyone is on the ball.
What Air Defence ? 3 batteries of Sky Sabre do not count as they are for army formations and the T-45’s are at sea protecting QE/PoW as designed (when they work). Uk has not had Land based air defence since Bloodhound.
Does the Type 45 even have a ballistic missile defence?
Yes and a proven one as well as it shot down a ballistic missile this year.
Technically true as some of the targets it can handle are indeed ‘Ballistic’ but we know its present limitations, in the future much more capable at least for medium range more sophisticated targets than present.
all ABM systems are limited
Currently Aster 30 which is limited, but will be upgrading to Aster 30 block 1.
…better start dusting off some of those old bunkers and command centres. I wonder if there are any “Thor” holes still in the ground to stick some TAAADS in …if we had ’em?
Better quickly start thinking of an alternate to submarine delivery of nukes to help with deterrent. Start gluing some Vulcans back together or something.
On a more serious note: UK politicians need to smell the coffee and forget 2.5% and put the UK on a war footing. I sense we are back in 1938, but even buy then we had started re-arming and putting in serious air defence systems.
P.S. Buy some more UK Typhoons PDQ.
A War footing? Really?
Problem is back then it could be done with a degree of stealth and it was with the support of the printed media, the public knew little of the attempted upgrading of the RAF at the time because powers that be were deeply concerned about the pacifist lobby and the public’s determination to avoid another war at all costs. Cant do that today in the same way though it would be nice to see some evidence of stealth tactics to hide the true move to re arm. Would love for the recent scrappings were that, but have grave doubts that they are or that the true dangers are recognised despite the warnings. I can only presume that if the Russians break out into the North Sea or worse that the Govt will form a Committee to determine what we should do about it.
My biggest concern is that if Putin did fire the odd missile at an outlying part of Britain and even if it were a tactical nuclear what would we do without US or perhaps French help? We have nothing to retaliate with in reality without our strategic response.
…back in the day Maggie Thatch managed to squirrel billions on Corsham underground facility, I just hope that the UK is doing the same again with directed energy and anti-drone stuff.
At lest Dowding AND Chamberlain were doing their best to get the RAF up to speed back then, with an integrated air defence system and great aircraft. I suspect Chamberlain was trying to buy time for this and other re-armaments, but sacrificed his reputation.
…and yes, the odd missile lobbed this way, is my real concern too. All-out nuclear was is impossible to defend, but the odd missile just fired by Putin or a rogue general is the biggest risk. Sort of embarrassing if we can’t even defend against that.
“THAAD”
Good Day,
One does have to ask what on earth has been going on over many years! Conservatives, Labour as well as Parliment in general and indeed some Defence Chiefs should have done something years ago before we landed in this mess.
Having said that it’s essential to start putting the wrongs right! Increase defence spending as required and place orders immediately. To much talk s as ND5 not enough action!
Looking forward to some good news!
Army brass is obsessed with saving as many infantry battalions as possible and says air defence should be paid form by RAF. RAF doesn’t want to pay for air defence says it’s an American thing.
Very little to do with parliament or politicians.
Very much to do with an incompetent officer class recruited from the wrong end of society.
I mean we’re going to need as many infantry battalions as possible if anything kicks off, so maybe strategic air defence going under the RAF (as per the Bloodhound days) is a sensible idea.
What do you mean ‘wrong end of society’ Jim? Is there a wrong end?
Do you want well educated, competitive and determined officers? Or do you just want a class war?
Do you want senior officers with an international network through their university, and military education or do you want senior officers who are well networked in their local gang?
This kind of chip on the shoulder attitude doesn’t drive performance, it just drives resentment. You know what? Want to be an officer? Should have tried harder at school.
I worked with plenty of very good, very effective officers. I saw very ineffective ones too. Both sorts came from the privately educated, both sorts were first generation university, working class. Your background doesn’t make you good or bad. Your attitude and aptitude does. I also worked with good and bad NCOs – same there. Attitude and aptitude. Some excellent NCOs would have made poor officers – it’s a different job, you need both.
The Army is not obsessed with saving infantry battalions for the sake of saving them, they want to save combat mass. Combat Mass is a key determining factor in winning in land warfare. No Mass, no tempo. No tempo, no mission success. Pretty simple.
Some of us have been pointing this out for decades!
Unfortunately it got put in the leave it to the Americans category so we can save cap badges because what Washington really wants is more infantry battalions in the Middle East.
Unfortunately our army leadership is s**t and the RAF don’t want GBAD.
Thank god the RN had enough sense to invest in something useful.
See my reply above – you have a tremendous chip on the shoulder over this…. The Army don’t want air defence beyond tactical air defence BECAUSE IT ISN’T THEIR JOB. It is not in the mission set given to the Army. It’s the RAF’s job.
This seems like a pretty easy gap to fill especially given the MOD just found £500 million in annual savings and its budget is being increased, sky Sabre is already best in class and we already participate in Europes premiere missile defence systems via EuroSam. An off the shelf purchase of 6 SAMP/T batteries using the Leonardo Kronos radar and a doubling of sky Sabre batteries is all that’s needed. Medium to longer term just add in participation in Aster 30 NT blk 2 and job done.
Is there much information on how capable Sky Sabre is? As far as I know CAMM has only shot down a couple of Houthi drones so far, not exactly mind blowing stuff.
It has shot down a ballistic missile as Jim stated but the issue is it’s defended area against ballistic missiles is very small. The plan upgrades should bring it to a level similar to that of the Patriot system.
Where has Sky Sabre (CAMM) shot down a Ballistic missile? I think you are confused.
Defence Analysis did a piece on Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) recently, it suggested that many billions were required, it will not happen.
As stated by others IAMD has been absent for decades the view being no threat exited, or it could not be defended against other than via manned aircraft.
From my rough calculations each battery can cover about 3000 square miles (about 32 mile range for the missile), so given the UK is about 94,000 square miles we would need about 30 batteries to cover the UK. In reality you mainly want to cover the coastline and major population centres so could be less. If we had a much longer range missile, closer to the radar range, then we would need less. Ultimately it comes down to a government spending the money on the infrastructure and the batteries to accomplish this. Either way a fixed installation is cheaper but more vulnerable… it will cost Billions but whats the alternative!
There are 4 Batteries. Each of 2 Fire Groups.
Each FG reportedly has 3 Launchers.
GBAD needs to be in place for at least two dozen critical sites in the UK, and a handful abroad, the loss of which would paralyse UK defence.
And to add, these assets, in 16RA, are for the Field Army. They are NOT for the home defence of the UK.
Give more money to the RAF for expansion of the CRF to create GBAD Sqns.
At least it’s been debated in Parliament. These lot are new, so let’s judge them on their actions. They deserve a chance.
We don’t need vitally important T45s, that we have far too few of, for this, we need land based missile sytems covering the whole UK. That is a GBAD, glaringly lacking for decades while HMG crossed fingers hoping nobody targets us.
We should be thinking of constructing air/missile raid shelters. But leave the T45s to escort task gropus & escort merchants, which is what they’re meant for. CIWS too for vital infrastructure.
Israel has Iron dome, we have open skies, absolutely nothing.
“gropus” should be groups. No edit any more?
Hate the new icons & format on comments.
An effective GBAD system for the UK was estimated earlier this year to cost £10Bn – do we see Reeves and HMT shelling out for that?? Not a chance!
Apparently we were bystanders in the latest onslaught by Iran against Israel as we were unable to engage the missiles they used. I am sure the Russian and Chinese versions will be a little more upmarket, so floating around anywhere, let alone the Thames isn’t going to be of much assistance.
We’re more gap than not these days!
This MP clearly has doctorate in stating the bleeding obvious. There cannot be anyone in Government or the military that does not know that the UK is wide open to attack from the air. They live in a parallel universe where any European conflict would rage in Eastern Europe and we would just carry on as if nothing were happening. We have no civil defence structures, no homeland defence forces or technology and we just hope its Poland’s cities that get bombed and Lithuanias fields that get ploughed up and it will all stop and go away before it gets any nearer.
Sort of related, there is no article as yet where we can discuss the ongoing UAV violations over successive nights at RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Feltwell, and Fairford. It’s reported that the RAF Reg with its C UAS capability has been deployed.
George is busy getting wet on the south coast, so probably not had the time.
It’s interesting that they’ve all been USAF operated bases so far, considering the proximity of Marham to both Lakenheath and Mildenhall, could it potentially be more targeted towards the Americans?
Don’t forget a drone was also spotted sniffing around HMS Queen Elizabeth whilst in Germany.
Well we have seen Rocks deployed this week to counter drones of unknown origin. Think, a simple drone could disable an F35 or anything. A lot of drones could wipe out a lot of aircraft in a very short time. Simple solution? Ban all civilian drones. As for missile defence? We have none of worth. So sites of importance, refineries, power facilities, gas terminals? All kaput within hours. Fact, politicians and most of Joe Public are ignorant. Until the lights go off and they here a few big bangs. Some of us have been stating the obvious for decades. We are wide open.
In 1994, Russia joined NATOs partnership for peace. In 1998. the SDR prioritized expeditionary capability so we committed to new carriers and F35. As recently as 2021, the Integrated Review mentioned Russia as the most significant threat to the UK but this was almost a throw away comment, lost in the waffle about global Britain and a tilt to the Pacific. There has to date been no serious consideration given to the weaknesses of Britain’s self defence capabilities. This is an abject failure on the part of useless politicians and their apparently equally useless senior military advisors. The result is that we have spent vast sums on equipment that is at best of marginal use.
If there is at last a recognition that defence priorities need to change, the only way that sufficient funding will be available is a radical cutting of existing non essential capabilities.
Whether the choice is to build GBAD or weapons that would deter a non nuclear attack( ie missiles capable of hitting critical targets in Russia) it won’t be cheap. Israel has both, plus nuclear weapons, but these haven’t deterred drone or missile attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah or their Iranian paymasters. So we need to think long and hard about what, if any, system would make the UK safer.