Having secured an additional £15 billion for the budget, the Ministry of Defence has released the Defence Investment Plan (DIP). Originally planned to be released last Autumn as a complement to the Strategic Defence Review, the DIP has been criticised for falling short of its goal to equip the UK Armed Forces for the wars of the future.
After coming into Government, Labour commissioned the Strategic Defence Review, a document written by academics and experts to recommend how they should bring their Forces to “warfighting readiness”. The Defence Investment Plan, written by ministers and the UK’s military chiefs, was expected to set out how the Ministry of Defence would fund and deliver this.
With previous Labour and Conservative Governments having reduced funding for Defence since the end of the Cold War, it was revealed in January that the Ministry of Defence was facing a £28 billion “black hole” in its budget. In addition, donations of equipment and weapons to Ukraine since 2022 has worn some of the UK’s own stockpiles thin.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, NATO recommended its member states spend 2% of their GDP on defence, but since then the alliance has pledged to increase this to 3% by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035. The UK currently spends 2.3% on defence, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer having committed to reach 2.5% of GDP in 2027, and 3% “in the next Parliament”.
Former Defence Minister John Healey had managed to secure £18 billion for the Defence Investment Plan before it was slashed back to £13.5 billion by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. This saw Healey and Al Carns, Minister for the Armed Forces, resign in protest to the revised DIP in June 2026, with the latter cautioning “it is not built for the threats we face”.
Healey’s successor, Dan Jarvis, was given an extra £1.5 billion to deliver the DIP ahead of July’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. The document was finally released on the last day of June, just over a year after the publication of the Strategic Defence Review.
Included in the DIP is improvements to the submarine maintenance facilities at Faslane, where the UK’s nuclear deterrent is based. The new plans also confirm that the UK will build 12 new hunter-killer submarines to replace the current Astute-class under the AUKUS pact with Australia.
It was also confirmed that the Royal Air Force will buy 12 American-made F-35A fighter jets to help with pilot training. These will also join NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangement with the United States, which allows American nuclear weapons to be based in NATO countries for use in the event of a nuclear attack on NATO. Last year, The Guardian reported that the US Air Force stores nuclear weapons at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, where US aircraft are also based.
The decision to buy the A variant has drawn criticism from experts who believe the UK should prioritise buying more of the F-35B variant instead, which can take off and land from the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers.
Along with money for purchasing F-35s, and supporting maintenance for the Typhoon jets, £8.6 billion has been allocated to the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) sixth-generation fighter in development with Italy and Japan. The RAF and Royal Navy will also design uncrewed fighter jets to boost aircraft numbers while avoiding the higher costs of crewed aircraft.
Instead of building large, complex and expensive warships to replace the Type 45 Destroyers, the Royal Navy will procure smaller command ships with a series of uncrewed warships. Each uncrewed vessel in the “Hybrid Navy” will perform a different task, different to conventional frigates and destroyers which have their own radar, sonar and missile systems.
Other than flashy items like jets, drones and warships, the DIP includes plans to improve infrastructure, military housing, air-defence, weapons stockpiles, and base security.
To help fund these new programmes, the RAF, Royal Navy and British Army will retire their Chinook and Wildcat helicopters early, replacing them with uncrewed drones to save cost. In addition, the remaining stockpile of Storm Shadow cruise missiles will be transferred to Ukraine, having seen several successes on the battlefield since 2022. This will leave the UK without air-launched cruise missiles until the new Stratus and Spear-3 missiles enter service before the end of the decade.
While drones are being used increasingly by militaries across the globe, a transformation of this scale and pace does come with high risks. Uncrewed systems are not yet mature enough in any armed forces to fully replace crewed platforms like destroyers and fighter jets. Additionally, an enormous cultural change will be required for personnel to gain the same confidence in uncrewed systems that currently exists for conventional ships, aircraft and armoured vehicles.
However, the largest criticism of the DIP has been its funding. Explained in the document, the DIP projects that UK defence spending will reach 2.7% of GDP by 2030, not 3% which is recommended by NATO. In addition, a “black hole” of £13 billion remains in defence spending, as the DIP has only been guaranteed £15 billion of the £28 billion black hole identified earlier this year.
Funding the Defence Investment Plan has required the UK to redirect money away from foreign aid, transport, energy security and net zero. £4.7 billion is also noted as “to be funded by Budget 2026”, by which point Keir Starmer will not be in office, drawing criticism that his successor will inherit this funding shortage.
The DIP mentions several programmes that have been delayed until after 2030, as they cannot be funded with the document’s allocated £15 billion. Finding this investment will be another challenge deferred to a future prime minister.
Former minister Al Carns has argued the UK does not only need to increase defence spending, but also develop a plan for “national resilience” to prepare the UK’s wider society for a crisis. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has also accused Starmer of leaving his successor, likely to be Andy Burnham, another “mess” of defence spending. SNP Shadow Defence Minister Dave Doogan criticised the delays in publishing the DIP claiming the UK is now “further behind its allies.”
What cannot be disputed is that now defence procurement has a direction to go in, and has set a roadmap of spending until 2030. However, falling short of the UK’s commitment to NATO, the plan risks disappointing the UK’s allies and emboldening Russia if it is viewed that the UK still does not take its defence seriously.