Defence Investment Plan

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement.

After months and months of delay, we finally have the defence investment plan, but it is quite simply a case of too little, too late. It is too little because there is virtually no more cash than there was in the plan that led the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), to resign because he believed that it would make the country “less safe”. It is too late not just because the plan is months overdue, but because much of the capability that it contains will not be in service until the 2030s, when the threat we face is right now.

If Labour Members do not agree that this plan is too little, they do not need to take my word for it. The Chief of the Defence Staff said he needed £28 billion to fund the armed forces over the next four years, but this plan fulfils barely half that requirement. The right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough, who was the Secretary of State for Defence until a few weeks ago, said that the proposed spending

“falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time”,

because

“it rises to just 2.68% of GDP in 2030”.

Will the Secretary of State confirm that, under his revised plan, the GDP figure for defence in 2030 remains unchanged, at 2.68%? That begs the obvious question: if reaching 2.68% by 2030 was a resigning matter for the previous Defence Secretary, why is it good enough for him?

This DIP is not just too little financially; it is too late. If Labour Members do not agree, they should remember that it was promised for last autumn and is now 10 months overdue. Most importantly, the drones that Labour promised in today’s headlines mainly enter service in the 2030s, when the threat we face is today. Autonomous drones to fly with the Apache, uncrewed surface and underwater vessels, and the prototype for the RAF’s autonomous fighter jet will all enter service in the 2030s—far too late in this fast-changing world of tech-driven warfare.

On that subject, it was ironic that the Prime Minister announced the DIP at Malloy Aeronautics in Maidenhead, where I launched the MOD’s first ever defence drone strategy back in February 2024. Back then, we were world leaders in drone warfare, having supplied Ukraine with cutting-edge drone capabilities that were not on a press release. It was real kit used on a real frontline against Europe’s peer military threat, the Russian armed forces. So what happened? Labour came to power and put all that progress on hold, which paralysed procurement while we waited for the strategic defence review and then for the DIP.

But the big question is, why all the dither and delay? In a word, money. Is the harsh truth not that the drones could come into service far sooner, but the Government are unwilling to commit the cash before the 2030s? Is this not the inevitable result of having a Prime Minister who is unwilling to cut welfare, and who is prioritising a bigger benefits bill over properly funding defence? That begs the next big question: where is the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) in all this? Can the Secretary of State tell us whether the putative Prime Minister has been consulted on the DIP? Most importantly, has he given it his blessing? If not, is the DIP even worth the paper it is written on?

It is rumoured that the current Prime Minister may have ambitions to be the next Secretary-General of NATO. If that is true, might it have been advisable to include in the DIP a funded plan to get to 3% on defence? Can the Secretary of State tell us in which financial year Labour will spend 3% on defence?

For all the focus on drones, our people—not just our regular personnel, our reserves and their families, but our cadets and our veterans—remain our most important capability. I was proud to make the decision to buy back the defence estate from Annington, a deal that the previous Labour Government left untouched. Given that I thought we all wanted to deliver homes for heroes, can the Secretary of State confirm—this is a critical question about the accommodation of those who serve our country—that the defence investment plan includes cutting hundreds of millions of pounds from the budget for forces housing, shifting it from this Parliament into the 2030s? Can he confirm that, and can he also confirm that he is cutting cadet funding at the same time and over the same period?

On veterans—I hope he has had a chance to think about this after my previous question—does the Secretary of State agree that a top priority for the new Prime Minister must be to back our former soldiers, and scrap the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill?

To conclude, after months of dither and delay, it has taken the sudden end of his premiership for the Prime Minister to finally publish the DIP in a desperate search for a legacy, but it is a legacy of failure, with an underfunded defence investment plan that is too little, too late. The men and women of our armed forces deserve much better.

[Dan Jarvis]

The shadow Defence Secretary talks about legacy, so let me remind him that the previous Government cut back our service personnel by almost 50,000, the morale of our troops was through the floor, 46 of the biggest 52 projects were delayed or over budget, and there was an equipment plan without the funding to back it up.

I have to say that I am also quite perplexed that the shadow Defence Secretary wants to raise concerns about the announcement we have made on drones. We have just announced the largest ever investment in drones in our country’s history. When he gets the time, because I know he will want to look carefully at the detail, he will see that, over the past two weeks, we have reprioritised activity to bring forward spend so that we can deliver operational capability sooner than would otherwise be the case.

The shadow Defence Secretary mentioned housing, and I understand why he would want to raise that, because housing is hugely important for defence and for the armed forces community. I know what it is like to live in armed forces accommodation, and I said earlier that we absolutely have a moral responsibility to those who serve to ensure we provide them with the best possible living accommodation. That is why we have recommitted today to £9 billion of investment over the next 10 years, which will see investment in the housing estate growing in real terms in each of those years. That is an absolute commitment that we have made today.

The shadow Defence Secretary also mentioned, and again I understand why he chose to do so, the importance of cadet forces. All of us in our constituencies will no doubt engage with cadet forces, which are an absolute force for good in communities around the country. That is why we have made a clear commitment to continue to invest in and modernise our cadet forces and to continue to improve outstanding opportunities for young people.

The shadow Defence Secretary asked specifically about the percentage of GDP that we will be spending on defence. I gently point out to him that, when we came into government two years ago, we inherited a figure of 2.3%. That was the figure we inherited. It is currently at 2.5% and will be at 2.7% by the end of this Parliament, with a clear commitment to spend 3% in the next Parliament and an absolutely critical commitment to spend 3.5% by 2035. He will have heard the points I made about the importance of defence spending and the commitment this Government have made to ensuring that defence spending is the No. 1 priority at the next spending review.