Is the UK spending enough on defence? – The Latest
episodePreviously titled “Is the new defence plan enough to keep us safe? – The Latest” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
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What is the UK's new defence investment plan about?
This is The Guardian.
There is more money going into AI, there is more money going into drones. Military experts would say that's not enough, but then they always do. When the world is arming and aggression is rising, the best way to avoid war is to prepare for it. Defence sources say it's not enough, and we know that the Ministry of Defence actually asked for £28bn extra spending. They've ended up with £15bn. This falls quite far short of what was asked for.
From The Guardian's Today In Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hough. Keir Starmer has announced his long-awaited defence investment plan for the UK. It was due to be published in the autumn, but was pushed back several months. Kieran Stacey, you're our policy editor. It does look, for anyone who's not watching this on YouTube, like you're about to head off to war yourself. You're reporting from a drone-making facility in Maidenhead. Kieran, what was the substance of the speech that we heard today?
Yeah, I should apologise to viewers and listeners, by the way, Lucy. The drone making facility you mentioned is by the side of an airfield. So we will have aeroplanes taking off, landing, flying overhead. But, you know, it all adds to the atmosphere. Well, please don't get on one, Kieran, in the course of recording this podcast. I promise I will stay grounded myself. Yeah. But yet the detail of this, you say it was delayed by several months, delayed by nearly a year, this defence investment plan. And the whole point of it was supposed to be fleshing out how exactly we're going to meet the objectives set out last year by the government in the Strategic Defence Review. So the government wants to do a bunch of things, including contributing to Ukraine's safety in the long term, including helping secure the peace if and when it is achieved in the Gulf.
This was details about how it's going to pay the way to do that. It was overall a £15 billion package. Some of that was paid for by taking money off other departments. Some of it was paid for by reallocating spending within the MOD. £5 billion is going towards drones. And that's why we're here today. That's why aviation is so important. It's right at the heart of this defensive investment plan. Because if there's one thing we've learned from Ukraine, it's that drones will be absolutely at the centre of whatever war we next find ourselves in.
Yeah, that's the message that we've heard from the prime minister and also the new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, isn't it? That looking at Ukraine shows us that war is no longer the tanks, the planes of yesteryear. It's about drone warfare. And as you say, a significant proportion of that 15 billion overall spending going on drones. It brings our defence spending up to 3% of GDP. Is that right?
No, not quite. Actually, it's going to bring our defence spending up to more like 2.6, 2.7% with an ambition to get it to 3% in the next parliament. But this has kind of been the crux of the entire internal government row we've had over the last few months. Could we get it to that 3% in this plan?
How much additional funding is allocated for defence?
And in the end, the government has fallen short of that. So that's actually quite an important distinction. Politicians will tell you, are we going to spend 3% on defence in the next parliament? But they haven't yet said how.
Yeah, and it was, of course, one of the reasons why the former defence secretary, John Healey, resigned in a very scathing letter to the prime minister in which he said that the government at its current level of defence spending was putting the country at risk. Keir Starmer has warned himself that he thinks or the assessments would say that Russia could invade or attack NATO as early as 2030. Do you think what was announced today has sort of materially moved this investment plan on from what John Healey was so critical of?
It's not a huge change from what John Healey was negotiating. What we know is that there is an extra £1.5 billion going into this defence investment plan above and beyond what Healey managed to secure.
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