The prime minister has announced an investment of £16.5bn over four years into the UK’s armed forces, a commitment that marks the biggest financing of defence since the Cold War.
This increase for UK defence – amounting to £24.1bn when combined with the government’s manifesto commitment of 0.5 per cent per year- will create up to 1,000 jobs across the UK as the nation ‘builds back better’ from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The investment will fund a significant expansion of Royal Navy vessels to create the biggest surface fleet of modern warships in Europe, and an additional £1.5bn will be poured into military research, which will include the Future Combat Air System.
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Also announced by the PM was a new agency dedicated to Artificial Intelligence, the creation of a National Cyber Force and a new ‘Space Command’ aiming to protect the UK’s interests in space and control the UK’s first satellite launched from a UK rocket by 2022. The National Cyber Force partnership between the Ministry of Defence and GCHQ will conduct cyber operations, from countering terror plots to supporting military operations.
Paul Everitt, chief executive of ADS Group, commented: “This investment will boost our national security, help the UK address new and rapidly evolving threats by developing innovative world-class equipment, and support our economic recovery. The commitment to key projects will embed high-value design and manufacturing skills in all regions and nations of the UK for decades to come.
“It is important that the procurement regime delivers quickly and in a manner that prioritises UK industrial impact, aiding planning and clarity and helping to build back better.”
Other technologies planned for UK defence development include autonomous vehicles, swarm drones and battlefield awareness systems.
Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, said: “This multi-year settlement is very welcome for the armed forces. It funds a pathway to modernisation and the digital force we need for the 2030s, integrated across the domains of maritime, air, land, cyber and space.”
24.1bn for only 1,000 jobs ??
That’s a cost of 24 MILLION PER JOB?
Don’t gaslight us with the number of jobs created in this war machine, spend the money on better things.
I don’t suppose this will be to everyones taste but this investment is long overdue.
Hopefully there will be other advantages with technical and scientific discoveries that will allow this country to keep ahead in the field of technological advancement and gradually create the opportunity for even more jobs with new companies progressing the advancements.
I wonder how this compares to government funding to tackle global warming.
A quick glance through the https://www.carbonbrief.org/budget-2020-key-climate-and-energy-announcements shows figures in the 10s and 100s of millions, not the billions that are needed.
Just to pick one quote “The existing energy innovation programme has a budget of £505m covering 2015-2021”. This looks pretty small compared to the increase of £4Bn announced.
Perhaps the government should re-think its priorities rather than trying to be a big international player…
Great news for all the homeless and food bank users. “Build Back Better”, “Make Britain Great Again”, Good old Boris, the fog of war is not confusing his priorities.
£16.5 Bn over four years – actually only £7 Bn of new money. Less than he wasted on a tracking App.
Was always suprised the “WannaCry” attack on the NHS in 2017 didn’t result in any real action. Hopefully stuff like that is at the top of the to-do list
The government said 40,000 jobs.
The problem that has existed for decades is that we still cannot make up our minds what we are or want to be. We are no longer a global super power yet seem to think we should have a “global presence”? Cameron was famous for saying that we “punched above our weight”. Look where that got us: getting involved in other people’s wars, going into Iraq illegally which costs £billions and hundreds of thousands of lives … and we’re also involved in proxy wars. I’ve no doubt the US likes the British tax payer to throw money at defence like this!! We should not be THE peace keeper for Europe .. especially when the likes of Germany don’t contribute anywhere near enough to NATO. Whilst investing in two (out of date,) full sized aircraft carriers (that apart from the US and China nobody else is now doing), we don’t have the surface fleet to defend them should we need to. The aircraft are not the “right” version for carrier operations, and the carriers do not have the necessary “bells and whistles” to make them state of the art. The army – as always – loses out, and considers them white elephants that have taken far too much of recent years’ defence budgets. We would be better off investing in a strong, “home defence” force (with perhaps the right vessels for fisheries protection etc?), instead of pretending we still have an empire. Sad but true.
BJ must’ve thought this announcement will increase his favour amongst the plebs,instead of this though we’re still going to rank him as the worst PM in history. We’re still members of NATO,so no need to increase our armed forces spending. Hands up those who are thinking that this will turn out to be another of BJ’s schemes to give his mates a hefty wedge.
1. What does “Don’t gaslight us” mean?
2. £24 Million per job? No – £24 million per job AND a fighter jet. It’s not the civil service.
Spot on, retired engineer. In 1984 doublethink, the Ministry of Defence is nothing of the sort.
The UK would be a far better place if we modelled ourselves on the Scandinavian countries, rather than the USA.
The problem is our out of touch politicians, who all want to be members of a dubious club where we obviously cannot afford the membership rates – financially or morally. They are all schooled at establishments that preach the outdated views of ‘The British Empire’, a fairly dubious concept.
Another bout of grandstanding proclaiming we will have the biggest navy in Europe. To what end? Why does anything in Britain have to be the biggest, cutting edge and innovative. Much of what was reported patently was not
The fish-head admirals seem to be fighting old wars with inappropriate kit (carriers without useful planes etc.) The noise about space defence and cyber missions has a hollow ring about it. I doubt the PM knew what he was bragging about.
We are no longer a major trading country with an empire and trade lanes and numerous floating assets to protect. The non-nuclear maritime profile should perhaps be based on better defence of regional and coastal waters with NATO and non-Nato allies. We seem to have very expensive ships ill-suited to this type of role. As for the carriers converting them to hospital and civil emergency intervention roles might be a much more productive role. If organic air support is required then drone carriers (cheap commercial conversions without gold plating and excessively complex systems) might be amore cost effective option than the two big beasts. Worryingly Chinese propaganda relating to carrier killer missiles had the profile of the two new UK carriers and not the big US ships as part of their output. Boom!
How about £24 million per job, and 100 wind turbines instead? I know what I think is better for national security, and it doesn’t have to be all about kinetic war – the real threats in future are not going to be from the old world, but will target infrastructure and communications – take out a power station – easy enough in many ways – and you cripple a huge area of the country. Distributed power is better security that the latest technology in killing, generates more than 1000 jobs, and costs far less.