Britain will spend more than £63 billion over the next four years strengthening its nuclear deterrent, funding new submarines and a replacement warhead and buying twelve F-35A fighters to join NATO’s nuclear mission, the government said as it published the Defence Investment Plan.
The investment, set out in the plan launched on Tuesday, covers the Dreadnought submarines that will carry the Trident missile system and the SSN-AUKUS attack submarines being developed with the United States and Australia, along with a new sovereign warhead and the wider body of work that keeps the deterrent credible, and the government described the funding as amounting to some £20 billion more for the Defence Nuclear Enterprise over the next four years than over the previous four.
The money is meant to deliver what ministers have called the nuclear triple lock, the commitment to build four Dreadnought submarines at Barrow-in-Furness, to sustain the deterrent that is kept continuously at sea, and to fund future upgrades including the replacement warhead, and to that the plan adds the purchase of twelve F-35A jets, the conventional-runway variant of the Lightning that is certified to carry nuclear weapons, allowing the Royal Air Force to take part in NATO’s airborne nuclear mission for the first time in decades.
A major naval base programme runs alongside the deterrent investment, with the plan setting out around £26 billion over the next decade for Project Royal Oak to upgrade the home ports on which the submarine force depends, and the government casts the deterrent itself as the ultimate guarantor of national security, declared to the defence of NATO, with the Prime Minister describing its renewal as “a truly national effort” taking in new submarines, a sovereign warhead and the F-35A purchase.
The UK’s single most important military capability are its nuclear submarines. The SSBNs ensure our great power status and the respective perks that come from that, whilst the SSNs give us global reach.
If you want to have any say in a Pacific conflict, you need nuclear submarines. They’re the only survivable British asset against Chinese A2D2.
I agree, but we can all see where the money is going, keeping up with the big boys ain’t cheap but compared to the rest of our forces it’s money well spent.
ENATO has an embarrassingly large conventional force to Russia or China but it lacks nuclear weapons and submarines. That’s why we and the French are doubling down but we should do more. 500 warheads and a nuclear triad.
This financial commitment only bolsters the make-up of the RN provided the carriers remain and at least some T26/31s get commissioned by 2030. The current availability of Astute’s is vital, and all seven should also attain at least 60% operability within three years. I totally support the surface and subsurface remote policy, and hopefully it will enable a sizeable increase in vessels.
‘ENATO has an embarrassingly large conventional force to Russia or China’
Jim, there is no such thing as ‘ENATO’.
You have NATO as it exists today as a formal alliance, you have European member states within NATO, and you have Europe as a continent made up of a wide range of states with different political systems and strategic cultures.
You keep using ‘ENATO’ as if all European NATO members would automatically function as a single, politically aligned and militarily coherent bloc if the US were removed from the equation. That assumption is carrying far more weight than the evidence supports.
Additionally, those advocating for split fleet choose to ignore the knock-on effects upon the nuclear deterrent.
SSKs would disrupt nuclear production for a shittier version of an established capability.
Yep
There should be a focus on getting our Astute subs off the wall and onto patrol!
I dont see that 12 F35As are a credible force especially considering they will be carrying a US warhead so weather we can deploy it will be based on how Trump feels that day! 12 F35A and the nuclear bombs must add upto a few billion that could be better spent on a conventional deterrent.
Has there been any mention of how many SSN Aukus? Hopefully still the 12 originally mentioned!
Should be 12 as that was announced last year.
They are talkijg about DIP in parliment this afternoon for full details
Now they have committed to 12 F35A, I suspect this procurement will end up morphing from a ‘B’ continuation trainer/ bucket of sunshine thrower, into the first tranche of 60 odd airframes, to build a lower tier fleet to fly alongside Tempest.
I would put my house deeds on it, in fact. With both types replacing Thypoon by the early 2040’s.
The RAF ( given the opportunity) will now push ‘very hard’ for a larger A fleet. Many within the junior service have been lobbying hard for F35A for years.
If GCAP faulters, then F35 will be procured in quantity, I would think the RAF is very happy today, a commitment to a large next gen fighter and its fall back preferred option!
Faster, more weapons, more agile
Not a credible force it’s a minimum viable deterrent designed to provide escalation options.
Those 12 are a contribution, not a force in it’s own right. Countries like Germany have nuclear enabled aircraft as well, using US bombs. Although I don’t agree with the purchase of F35As, I do think we need to double our nuclear arsenal using warheads that do not depend on the US and that are initially carried either by Typhoons or on land based missiles.
Wow so that’s the number 1 announcement, and it’s exactly the same as it was and it isn’t over the next 4 years the investment in the entire DNE is ongoing.
Funnily he didn’t mention that Australia has provided some of that investment ! As for the 12 F35A they were announced when we had last years “Placate Trump” Day and it is just a re jiggling of the previous allocated funding for 27 F35B (which was actually a small cut as 12 A’s are cheaper than 12 B’s).
So zero extra anything News !
What would have been useful to UK industry would have been an announcement of how many SSN(A) will be built for the RN.
It’s 12 boats for the RN per current plans.
For the Astute Class 12 SSNs were planned by the RN, then it became 8, then only 6 were actually ordered and ……..nothing. Finall BAe, RR&A had to point out that the resulting order gap would obliterate the industry before the next SSBN class (Dreadnought) would be ordered. That got the 7th ordered and the entire process slowed down to a crawl so it matched the HMT staged payments.
Moral is planned doesn’t mean anything till that translates into long lead items and delivery schedules and if Starmer wanted to really impress NATO that would have done it quite nicely.
I think the plan remains 12, the question is can Barrow build them. You will know more than me but I don’t think we managed an 18 month build even back in the Cold War and both Barrow and the US yards seem to get slower and slower all the time even with buckets of cash being spent on them.
God knows what’s taking Astute 6 and 7 so long.
barrow can definitely build them – its a real success story (as is BAES Glasgow) given the abject performance of successive governments in supporting these critical industrial facilities
got to give BAES some credit here – it has taken the hits (some big ones at that) but is still a Global prime with a fantastic workforce.
Both Barrow and Glasgow can build more – there’s a lot of investment gone into both areas, what is needed is a properly funded drumbeat. I am still not seeing that.
F-35A’s are a total waste of money. Cancel and spend it on the lads and lasses accommodation like Labour promised.
A confirmation of everything we knew anyway. F35 A is a waste of time and money unless we have about thirty.
totally agree, much better to put that money into Tempest or more F35bs or even a BMD which we are now desperate for
Its virtue signalling again and a very performative decision
A previous 1SL was very definite that a large fleet of SSN was much more useful to the RN than any number of escorts.
SSNs are the apex predator of the oceans.
Yeah, but they’re spending £100 Billion on a choo choo train.
What’s the better defence and interest for the country???
A previous 1SL was very definite that a large fleet of SSN was much more useful to the RN than any number of escorts.
SSNs are the apex predator of the oceans.
Why do we continue with two air forces but only a handful of aircraft?
12 F35B is a major step in the right direction, together with France’s 40 Rafale B it will increase overall European deterrent, even if there is always the issue of the F35s being US and not a sovereign solution.
I don’t doubt that modernizing infrastructure js absolutely vital but £26 billion on modernizing one naval base in 4 years seems like an eye watering amount to a simple minded fool such as myself.
could anyone explain?
Until the actual DIP is available and can be compared with the previous 2023 10 year plan, it is hard to judge what has really changed and how much of Starmer’s presentation was spin.
I was hoping that the F35A purchase would be dropped. We are struggling to keep the current F35B fleet available because of shortage of parts and qualified engineers. Adding another variant with limited commonality will add to those problems. CASD just about makes sense. Adding tactical nuclear capability using US weapons over which, unlike Trident , USA retains operational control, doesn’t.
The cost of DNE together with the refurbishment of dock infrastructure is enormous and will continue to put immense pressure on conventional equipment budgets.