Peers from across the House of Lords have intensified pressure on the government over defence spending and planning delays, with senior figures warning that postponing clear investment decisions risks undermining the UK’s military credibility and industrial base.
Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Smith of Newnham questioned whether the government’s approach would allow the UK to avoid slipping into what she described as a “middle-ranking power, not a diminishing power”. While welcoming increased defence spending in principle, she said Parliament needed reassurance that promised funding would materialise in time to deliver real capability, asking whether ministers believed the UK was moving “in the right direction” to play a full role within NATO.
Defence Minister Lord Coaker rejected the characterisation outright. “I will not have our country categorised as a middle-ranking power or a diminishing power,” he said, insisting the government was committed to ensuring the UK retained the capacity and capability required of a leading NATO member. He acknowledged the need for sustained investment and said he looked forward to working across the House to ensure the armed forces could fulfil that role.
Conservative peer Baroness Goldie sharpened the criticism, arguing that government rhetoric on defence priority was not being matched by delivery. She pointed to a reported £2.6 billion budget gap in the Ministry of Defence, a lack of orders reaching industry, and silence in the Autumn Budget on how spending would rise towards 3% of GDP. The continued delay to the defence investment plan, she said, was “taking longer than an elephant’s pregnancy” and sat uneasily with claims that defence was a top priority.
Lord Coaker responded with humour before addressing the substance of the challenge, saying the plan would be published only once ministers had made the necessary choices to deliver “war-fighting readiness” in the short, medium and long term. He said in-year funding decisions were still being worked through, with the service chiefs fully involved in those discussions.
The most forceful intervention came from former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Stirrup, who described the government’s approach to long-term spending increases as “wholly irresponsible”. He warned that if the UK was serious about reaching 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035, alongside expansion of the defence industrial base, planning needed to begin immediately rather than being deferred to future parliaments. “We need a plan for doing it now,” he said, “and it needs to start today, not in 2030.”
In response, Lord Coaker restated the government’s current position, noting a plan to reach 2.6% of GDP, an ambition of 3%, and a recent commitment by the Prime Minister to aim for 3.5% defence spending within a wider 5% security commitment. He described that pledge as “an important step forward” and said the government intended to work towards meeting it.
Nobody is fooled by the current government’s position anymore. I’d like to think the SDR gave us the priorities to make the choices and it didn’t need any more ministerial deliberation, but it does, because the SDR was written delieberately ignoring budgets, as was insisted on by the Treasury. Real prioritization only starts when the money is factored in. That’s why the DIP is taking so long.
I tend to switch off when Stirrup comments, much like West and Carter.
He presided over the 2010 debacle I recall.
Did he really have much of a choice?
Maybe how it was spent but not how much.
At least he didn’t have his new artillery system chosen for him.
It’s not that. None of them fall on their sword like a good Postumus should, but shout afterwards when safely tucked up with pension or on the board of a big MIC company.
I follow all uk military stuff very closely, as you no doubt know. I still recall the excuses we wheeled out for the cuts at the time that even then was obvious bullshit.
Just one, just one to resign when faced with such national mutilation of the nations armed forces, rather than the compliant yes man who agrees.
It might not make any difference, but would embarrass HMG.
Carter and West are the worst. West laments Escort levels but precided over some of the biggest cuts to numbers, while Carter was desperate to reduce our Tank compliment when CGS before now lamenting on Sky News that we lack Tanks.
They should not be allowed to get away with it without calling them out.
So to me, no, not a voice I’d give any credence to at all, and that goes for the entire opposition benches in Parliament as well.
These politicians care nothing for another man’s thirty year career.
They care about a vote by an ignorant public in three years time.
It is folly to compare the dignity of a career forces person to that of a politician who got up the greasy pole.
totally agree – the ethos of ‘Service before self’ should run throughout the services
Exactly. He was a poor CDS who kept his mouth shut and increased his pension entitlement.
“intensified Pressure”? The government couldn’t care less what the Lord’s say.
No sh!t Sherlock…
Publishing the f@cking DIP now and get on with it.
Exactly! Even if it’s version 1 high level, version 2 with any amendments can come later! But, have they done the work?
Methinks too much time extension given already on overdue homework?
Its getting seriously unfunny listening to all this postponement. Politicians need to show up when asked.
With all these delays it better be a masterpiece…LOL.
Supposedly it’s held up by issues over Ajax but…
(a) it’s fixed-priced contract so if fixes are needed then it’s down to General Dynamics to pay for them
(b) if they cancel because GD didn’t fulfil the contract, then they the MoD will be reimbursed.
The only plausible reason for delaying is if they’re anticipating having to set aside new money for a replacement to Ajax… and quite frankly, in the age of cheap drone reconnaissance , the Ajax requirement is arguably now redundant anyway.
It should be the 1st question, in PMQs every single week until it is published.
The only other reason I can see for a delay, is to increase the budget now that the USA has gone rogue and could become an adversary.
This government like the last is a total shower of shit. How are we continually served such mediocre, spineless, limp wristed wastes of skin? Decisions need to be made and they just kick the can down the road. Our armed forces are in an appalling state and need massive, sustained investment to restore capability and credibility. Would the unthinkable a broken SSBN patrol even force a drastic increase in pace of change or would it just be followed with more delay?
The individuals are trying to buy shares before the orders are publicised, or at least engineering future jobs.
The time taken for HMG to do its Defence ‘staff-work’ is extraordinary. 11 months to produce SDR (2/6/25), and a further 7-8 months (estimated) to produce DIP.
Also, Lord Coaker says that “I will not have our country categorised as a middle-ranking power or a diminishing power,”
Surely by any sensible and significant output metric of conventional forces: manpower count (Reg and Reservist); platform count; munitions stockpile count; readiness….we must be either or both of those things.
No-one yet has challenged/corrected my understanding that the only significant platforms ordered in the last 18 months across all three services is for 53 Jackal Extenda vehicles… whilst they cut and plan to cut legacy platforms without replacement in many different areas. That’s a very poor record when we are in a wartime era.
They ordered 11 sets of NSM ‘at pace’…but so far only 3 sets have been fitted with 1 set removed from Portland.
The only other order was for 3x RCH155.
I thought the 11 NSM were under the previous government.
This lot have ordered a handful of Sky Sabre, 2 Dragonfire, some Jackal, and the RC155 trials vehicles.
Other purchases like Triton, Boxer, and others were all programmes ongoing before they came in.
you’re correct – was highlighting that even if ordered by previous govt they’ve not really been fitted under the current government – they are that bad!
They can’t order anything for 100 years, or untill the Chagos deal has been paid for.
It’s a truely pathetic list, considering how quickly the world order and geostrategic situation is going down the toilet.
RMJ, surely the NSM is a missile rather than a platform? Thanks for reminding me about the three Boxer RCH-155, but for evaluation, rather than for quick fielding – such a significant order!
Even more concerning is the huge amount of funds being spent on SSBN which cannot be relied upon.
Why can they not be relied on?
If we’d behaved this complacently, this duplicitly(towards the British people) back before WW2( as though we were just talking about starting a plan to get ready for WW2 in 1940/41), we’d all be talking German.
We have Russia trying to eat UKR, conducting greyzone efforts, China very threatening in the far east & Trump threatening to become the 4th reich & break up NATO, invading our allies.
We either up our game in fact rather than more smokescreen soundbites, or become a MAGA clone/colony.
Who would believe anything this failed government says.
I would not ‘blame’ this Government anymore than the last, at this point.
There is no money and no will, either in Parliament or the general public, to spend the sums required.
Anyway, given the time taken to precure and train if anything goes wrong in the near future we’ll only have what we have got right now.
If the World can wait until 2035 there might be some more kit.
I suggest all need to get better at spending what we currently get from the Government.
All talk, no action.
Raising defence spending to 3% is going to close all the capability gaps? I doubt it
I don’t envy the service staffs or even the Treasury on producing this Defence Investment Plan. We already have a very lengthy list of equipment procurement items that I think will exceed the budget by miles. (1) Now we have to factor in all.the other elements that have been sidelined, scrimped on or ignored for the last 14 years.
Things like the foundation stones of service pay, family and barracks housing, a new recruiting structure, infrastructure like major works at the RN bases, the proposed floating dry dock(s) for submarines, etc, etc.
Now the staffs have to add on a whole raft of ‘transformation’ projects, like the many component parts of Bastion Atlantic, three new USVs for the army, system development of Castle MCMV MAC and Proteus MROS, and so on. Most of these transformational elements haven’t got a staff target yet, let alone designs and costings.
Then comes the rub: add up that lot, and there is no way it will all fit in the budget, even though the budget has been increased by 22%. There is going to be quite a battle, which is no doubt going on just now, over which elements we can afford to progress in the ten year budget plan and what is going to have to be cut back or cancelled.
One central issue will be: what is the budget forecast we are working to? We know it is going to increase from £60bn in 2024/5 yo £73bn by 2026/7 – but what about the following eight years? Is it going to increase exponentially at say 0.1% of GDP per year or what? HMG is very quiet on this. I suppose they have to consider that they might win a second term in office and will have to provide the funds to get up to 3.5% of GDP, which will be a very large increase.
The Lords, Kemi and the absent Nigel can chunter on in the background, trying to make political capital out of the delay. But we should be a lot more pragmatic here, the staffs, MOD agencies and contractors will need the time they need to spec and cost all the new elements involved and it would be far better to take another month or two to get it right, rather than put forward a bunch of best guesses on the back of an envelope.
And anyway, there is a whole heap of procurement going on at the moment, we are not going to be any weaker waiting a couple of months for the masterplan.
One of the problems of producing a DIP is that there are so many moving parts (areas to cover) compared to a straightforward Equipment Plan. It doesnt really seem like a good idea now. We used to have SDR then DCP then EP. That seemed to work.
Nothing will be ordered – treasury want £5Bn off the next defence budget
Increase then decrease? Maybe they should look elsewhere for more savings, get better value for money spent and reduce wastage and huge cock-ups like Ajax for starters.
Waste is hardwired into MOD.
New 3* orders all acoustic screens in HQ open plan offices removed.
Noise volumes increases to near dangerous.
New 3* orders all acoustic screens put back, offices are too loud…..but.
The previous 3* had ordered all the old ones scrapped so hundreds of new ones had to be bought.
Repeat this across the MODs huge estate
Where foes this info come from, I haven’t heard anything like that.
Do you mean that the services bids fir funding for the next 10 years are £5bn over budget? If so, that would be normal for the equipment plan, there is slways a lot of horse-trading at this point and hard decisions have to be taken about what gets the green light and what needs to be parked or cancelled.
Or are you saying that the extra £5bn allocated for the coming year, the Treasury now wants back? That would be very surprising and serious and would create a real rumpus in Parliament. So far there is no sign of any such thing.