There are two facts you need to hold in your head at the same time. One: NATO, under serious pressure from the Trump administration and a resurgent Russia, has committed allies to spending 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence plus an extra 1.5 per cent on wider security by 2035. Two: the UK Ministry of Defence has once again delayed publication of the Defence Investment Plan, the document that is meant to tell the country how taxpayers' money will be spent on keeping us safe.
A Department Not Fit For Purpose
At a Defence Committee session on 17 March, the Permanent Secretary confirmed the department is moving away from the old annual budget cycle towards something called an Integrated Force Plan. Fine words. But the plain truth is that the MoD cannot publish the costings for its own ten-year programme. When the department cannot plan a decade ahead, it cannot keep us safe.
Equipment programmes are running late. Procurement remains a bureaucratic nightmare that drowns good ideas in paperwork. British shipyards and aerospace factories that should be humming are sitting idle. Our adversaries are not waiting for Whitehall.
The Spending Numbers Don't Add Up
The UK spent £60.2 billion on defence in 2024/25. That is set to rise to around £73.5 billion by 2028/29. The government says defence spending will reach 2.5% of GDP by 2027. But the NATO target is now 3.5%, not 2.5%, and that is before you add the 1.5% wider security component. The gap is enormous. Nobody in government seems willing to tell the public how it will be closed.
And crucially, money is not the same as capability. You can push defence spending up the line and still end up with an army too small to deploy a single division at full strength, a navy struggling to keep ships at sea, and an air force that is years away from fielding its promised combat mass.
Why This Matters In Preston East
Lancashire knows defence. We built the Typhoon. We are building Tempest. BAE Systems employs thousands of highly skilled workers in our county. When the MoD dithers, it isn't abstract. It is jobs, apprenticeships, and the industrial base that has kept Britain a serious military power for a century. Every delay to the Investment Plan is a delay to contracts, orders, and paycheques for British workers.
What Reform UK Would Do
Reform UK would commit to hitting the NATO 3.5% target and publish a proper, costed path to getting there. We would restore procurement discipline so programmes arrive on time and on budget. We would back British industry for British kit wherever possible, keeping the jobs and the capability at home. And we would rebuild the armed forces after years of cuts that have left them dangerously overstretched.
A country that cannot defend itself cannot make its own choices. Labour is not taking this seriously. Reform UK will.