The APPG on Modern Conflict welcomes the publication of the Government’s Defence Investment Plan. At a time of acute geopolitical instability, rising threats to European security and rapid technological change in warfare, it is right that the United Kingdom is asking serious questions about how defence capability, industrial capacity and national resilience should be strengthened for the years ahead.

The publication of the Plan should now mark the beginning, not the end, of parliamentary scrutiny. Parliament will need sufficient visibility over implementation milestones, affordability assumptions, delivery risks, industrial implications and the governance of emerging technologies. The commitment to provide annual Defence Investment Plan delivery updates to Parliament is therefore welcome, but those updates must be detailed enough to support meaningful scrutiny of progress, risk and value for money.

The Plan represents a significant statement of intent. The Government has described it as £298 billion of defence investment over the next four years, including an additional £15 billion between 2026–27 and 2029–30, with major commitments on drones and autonomous systems, munitions, nuclear modernisation, space, cyber, undersea infrastructure, the Global Combat Air Programme and digital targeting capabilities. These are consequential choices that will shape not only the future of the Armed Forces, but also industrial policy, workforce planning, technological innovation, regional investment and the UK’s wider approach to national resilience.

While the scale of these commitments is significant, the Plan still leaves important questions about timing, funding and delivery. It increases defence spending to 2.7% of GDP from 2027–28, but the detailed funding pathway to 3% is left to a future Spending Review, and £4.7 billion of the four-year funding package is yet to be confirmed. Parliament should therefore scrutinise not only the Government’s stated ambitions, but also whether the funding profile, assumptions and delivery mechanisms are sufficient to meet them.

The Plan also highlights the opportunity costs associated with increased defence spending. The Government has acknowledged that the additional funding will be supported in part by reallocations from departmental capital budgets, including further savings from transport and energy-related capital spending. As defence spending increases, parliamentary scrutiny should therefore encompass not only defence outputs and capabilities, but also the wider fiscal trade-offs and policy choices that underpin them. National security is a legitimate and urgent priority, but public confidence depends on Parliament being able to examine what is being funded, what is being delayed or reduced, and how those choices serve the long-term public interest.

The APPG also notes the Plan’s strong emphasis on delivering capabilities more rapidly, including through autonomy, artificial intelligence, uncrewed systems and a more integrated “high-low” force. Speed matters, and the war in Ukraine has demonstrated the dangers of slow adaptation and the importance of rapid innovation. But speed must not come at the expense of transparency, competition, effective contract management or value for money. Parliament may therefore wish to examine how procurement reforms balance urgency with accountability, how risks of cost escalation and supplier dependency are being managed, and whether SMEs and new entrants can genuinely access defence opportunities.

Particular attention should also be given to the governance of emerging technologies. The Plan’s investments in drones, AI-enabled systems, digital targeting, cyber and autonomous capabilities could strengthen operational effectiveness, but they also raise serious questions about accountability, human oversight, data governance, civilian harm risk, legal compliance and dependence on private technology providers. These questions cannot be left until systems are already embedded in operational use. Parliamentary scrutiny must keep pace with technological adoption.

The APPG on Modern Conflict therefore believes that Parliament should now move from broad endorsement of defence transformation to sustained examination of how it will be delivered. Relevant committees should be equipped to test the Plan’s assumptions, track progress against published milestones, scrutinise procurement reform, assess industrial and resilience impacts, and examine the governance of emerging technologies. Strengthening parliamentary scrutiny is not an alternative to strengthening defence, but an essential part of ensuring that increased investment delivers effective capability, public confidence and long-term democratic resilience.

Increased defence spending will only command durable public and parliamentary confidence if it is strategically coherent, affordable, transparent where possible, and accountable where necessary. The task now is to ensure that the Defence Investment Plan delivers not only more spending, but better defence: capabilities that are fit for the threats the UK faces, procurement systems that can move quickly without sacrificing integrity, and oversight arrangements that reflect the scale and consequence of the choices now being made.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Conflict

Palace of Westminster
London SW1A 0AA

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