The UK will spend more than £400 million this financial year on long-range precision and hypersonic weapons, as the government moves to scale up joint missile development programmes with key European allies.
In a statement issued on 13 February, the Ministry of Defence said the investment will support a range of collaborative projects with France, Germany, and Italy, with a focus on developing next-generation deep strike weapons intended to strengthen NATO deterrence and improve the UK’s ability to engage high-value targets at range.
Central to the effort is the Stratus programme, a joint UK-France-Italy initiative intended to develop a stealthy replacement for the Storm Shadow missile. According to the MOD, the project is working on both stealth and high-speed missile variants and already sustains more than 1,300 high-skilled jobs in the UK. The MOD said the missiles under development are intended to defeat high-value targets, strike enemy warships, and suppress hostile air defence systems.
Alongside this, the government said work is also progressing on a long-range strike programme with Germany, with a new joint study phase expected to begin shortly. This effort is linked to the Trinity House Agreement, signed in 2024, which established a framework for closer UK-German defence cooperation. The future weapon system, described as “Deep Precision Strike”, is expected to have a range exceeding 2,000 km and is planned to enter service in the 2030s. The MOD described it as likely to be among the most advanced weapons systems ever designed by the UK.
Defence Secretary John Healey said the new spending reflects the lessons of Ukraine and the need to strengthen allied capability in the face of rising threats. “To meet this new era of rising threats, we need hard power, strong alliances and sure diplomacy.” He added: “We can see from the war in Ukraine the decisive impact of long-range precision weapons, so the UK is stepping up, investing more than £400 million for long-range and hypersonic weapons this year.”
Healey said the UK’s cooperation with Germany, France and Italy would help deliver advanced new capabilities for NATO. “Alongside Germany, France and Italy, we will deliver the cutting-edge weapons that will keep the UK and NATO safe, boost deterrence, and build a new deal for European security.”
The MOD said hypersonics funding will cover critical technology development, ground and flight testing, and support for academic training, including postgraduate study.
The announcement comes ahead of the Munich Security Conference, where Healey is expected to hold discussions with European and international partners on long-range weapons programmes, industrial cooperation, and continued support for Ukraine.
Well this is nice for a change.
The 2000km weapon definitely sounds like a ballistic/hypersonic thingamabob if it’s the most advanced designed in the UK (have they checked the 1950s ICBM designs?), so that’s nice.
I notice the government does not say how much of that £400m is new money rather than what was scheduled to be spent anyway.
Talk up existing spending; announce a study; order nothing.
Still, it’s not as if we’re at war or anything…
No doubt a significant chunk of the £400 million is spending on FC/ASW, SPEAR and stomshadow, all current defence spending is based on Conservative Party budgets labour has not been in power long enough to allocate any actual funding to departments (two years required)
However spending £400 million in a single year on a single weapon type is significant money and should not be treated as anything other than a major investment in capability.
Where’s the defence investment plan, Jim?
It’s MIA but the DIP only covers spending from 2027 onwards.
I think the DIP will start from FY 2026/7, Jim,.so kicking off in April this year?
Criticism of the slow progress on the DIP is all well and good. It is taking time. But those quizzing it and using it as a politicsl stick to beat the government with need to factor in two things.
1. Forward defence spending is a 10-year rolling plan, which gets updated every year. The last update, in 22/3, was not agreed and not funded. RAF and Army had put forward their plans, based on the budgets they were given. The RN instead put forward an extensive wishlist which.greatly exceeded its budget. It was heavily criticised by the NAO and HoC committees but never resolved. So the DIP has to pick up the pieces and hammer the RN back into working within its budget. That wrangle is apparrntly still going on.
2. Defence has inherited a pretty grim equipment legacy from previous years of non-replacement of ageing kit (AS90, Bulldog, T23, Hawk etc), gapping (AEW, FSSS, Hercules, Sentinel, NMH etc) and greatly slowed-down delivery of new kit (GMLRS, Sky Sabre, Chinook ER and now it looks like the frigate programme too, etc). Sorting that lot out will use up all the new money a few times over.
3. So after (at least )14 years of grievous underspending.and endless cuts, the DIP is facing a perfect storm, trying to fit 5 things into a budget that is about half what is needed. We cannot at the same time…
* maintain and increase conventional force numbers and equipment, as well as
* boost service pay and housing, infrastructure and weapons stockpiles, as well as
* increase the lethality of the new generation of weapons such as Stratus, this Deep Precision Strike hypersonic weapon, DragonFire laser weapons, FC/ASW, low earth satellites. etc, as well as
* adding a raft of new ‘transformational’ unmanned weapons and systems, of which there are a heap on the wishlist for land, air and particularly sea, as well as
* increase personnel and equipment to counter the endless number of grey zone threats, as well as
* maintain funding for Ukraine to keep these brave guys in the fight as well as
*.fund our Defence Nuclear programme, by far the largest item on the equipment budget, dwarfing.the single service budgets
There is basically not the money there to fund half of that, maybe not even a third. In that light, anybody calling for more frigates, 12 SSN-A, more VLS and suchlike naval additions is baying for the moon. I would expect that T83, MRSS and a few other programmes will be pushed back until post-2036.
Basically, the DIP faces a lot of hard choices and pain trying to fit everything in an inadequate budget. It is not surprising that it is taking time and that a lot of the things on everyone’s cherished wishlists will prove to be unaffordable.
Cries for more money from HMG are equally pointless, defence is getting a generous budget uplift but that is it, there is no more money to be had from government revenue.
The only feasible way to increase defence spending is to borrow the cash to fund a one-time big investment in new equipment. This is what our European allies are doing through the EU’s SAFE fund, which offers long-term, low interest loans. Some are making extra defence spend an exception to their fiscal (aka borrowing) rules. We have the option to join that or set up our own version of it. We could use defence bonds to raise the money and there are other ways to do so. But unless HMG and Chancellor show some initiative along these lines, the DIP is going to be slim pickings.
Now I knew you were going to ask that, well, it was done, honest, but it was accidentally left on the bus, when Starmer found it in lost property a few weeks later, somone had spilt coffee over it, so its going back to be re printed, heres the thing, Ken at the printers is off with Covid at the moment and he’s having a new carpet fitted next week, so it will be reprinted the week after next.
If you don’t buy that, then the dog ate his homework.
If they can’t allocate money to department budgets in 20 months they shouldn’t be in power.
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The can and they do, Jim is talking rubbish.
Ahh the usual pro-Labour mantra … blame the Tories .. nothing to do with Labour
We’re in 2026. – the election was in 2024 and Labour in charge since then.
Starmer is keen to continue the Ukraine war and prod the Russians, but does it while further gutting the Uk Military.
Rumours of delay to Tempest coming as well as cuts to frigate numbers and virtually no tanks or decent armoured vehicles (can blame Tories for the armour issues but he’s done nothing to rectify that)
He’s just talked about us “being ready to fight” … idiot … we’d be laughing if they weren’t so dangerous.
Some people believe everything Russian trolls put out.
Starmer’s Government is moving in the right direction on defence but annoyingly it shows little of the urgency that is needed, and this is my main criticism of his approach in general.
Captain Slow is at the helm and chugging along while admiring the view on either river bank.
And it’s not just our defence where this is true: our politics and electoral systems are wide open to corruption and abuse from foreign powers and interest groups but he shows little real understanding of the dangers we face and so the urgent need for reform to protect us.
As for your party political rant in favour of the Tories, it is entirely right that the Conservative Party and its (supposedly patriotic) supporters take the lion’s share of the blame for the current situation. Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and while the Tories under Johnson and Sunak did some good things, they, as with all Conservative Governments since 2009, have knowingly presided over a deliberate collapse in our defence capability. They could have reversed course from Osbourne’s stupidly anti-State orthodoxy, and stopped harping over tax cuts and a smaller state, but they couldn’t help themselves.
This very obvious decline in our defence has been festering for well over a decade now and has left us in the parlous state we see before us; but you now expect Labour to sort it all out in a couple of years? Madness.
You hold the Conservative Party to much a lower standard than the Labour Party, that much is clear. Party politics are its most pernicious.
Money spent on more ‘studies’ when will the F wits in Whitehall actually buy something that maybe be of used this decade 🙁
How many are we ordering and when? and what’s the delivery mechanism?
They don’t know and neither do we. £400 million for missiles sometime is chicken feed.
Yes though not insubstantial though when it has to be added to the investments in these projects our partners are investing in them too.
Maybe, but which partners? France who really want us to get on (!); Germany perhaps now and maybe Italy but the latter are going to get reaaly pissed off if we don’t sign up on GCAP soon. Why are we waiting.?
Hi Geoff, that’s how government works. I’m not sure if you have ever run a major budget before but obviously you can’t run much on a 12 month funding cycle.
All new governments use the previous government budgets for two years. It’s standard practice and makes massive sense. Whitehall typically works on three year funding cycles.
All thing are relative Jim. My own budget decisioin making was in the region of £40 million, probably £100 million today, and the programme was sealed and actioned in three months from inception, reviewed in the fourth quarter each year and ready for the onefollowing. No problem. This government can’t even decide once they’ve introduced a policy, if it’s still going to there in the next quarter, once they have made a U turn.
A Quick Look on google says that’s not true. Dead easy to get a list of the huge levels of ADDITIONAL spending since labour got to power in 2024.
Labour is spaffing money all over the place.
As Thatcher said: Socialists soon run out of other people’s money to spend.
That’s why we are skint
Jim is talking utter bollox.
“The UK government budget cycle operates on a fiscal year running from 6 April to 5 April, with the main Autumn Budget serving as the primary annual fiscal event where the Chancellor outlines tax and spending plans. Following the autumn statement, Parliament approves departmental funding through the Estimates process—Main Estimates in spring and Supplementary Estimates in early the following year—to authorize expenditure”
Hard to believe anything this government announce on Defence.
If the plan is 60 or so M270 , it would be nice if they announced some substantial orders for war stock for that. The longer range option goes out to 150km and would make up for only 13 Archer systems
Are they committing to PrSM or has that fallen behind some other projects? That will go to 500km and reports say the manufacturers are aiming for 1000km.
Small budgets for weapons in a decade doesn’t suggest war footing.
🥱
At the other end of the spectrum, are they still committed to the 11 sets of NSM? Any thoughts of any extras for atop the T26 or, will the FCASW be offered in cannister launch too?
With just 24 VLS slots T26 might well need deck mounted somethings.
Even Indonesia’s Type 31s will have 64 VLS slots …. MOD always buys the minimum.
Promise everything, deliver nothing
Never mind missiles what about drones?
Reports are coming out that during the Hedgehog 2025 exercises in May 2025, a force of 10 Ukrainian drone operators ‘destroyed’ two NATO battalions in a day.
While Russia’s conventional strength has been greatly diminished by 4 years of war, Russia like Ukraine now has 4 years of experience in fighting this new drone-dominated warfare.