Luke Pollard MP
Ministry of Defence
During Armed Forces Week, it’s important to pay homage to the sailors, soldiers and aviators who sacrifice so much to keep the UK safe at home and strong abroad. But in this more dangerous world, it’s clear the staggering pace of technological development is redefining warfare.
Drones in Ukraine become outdated every few weeks as new versions are developed. Our adversaries are attempting tens of thousands of cyberattacks on Britain’s critical infrastructure every year.
And Russia is trying to jam our satellites and interfere with the networks that are crucial to how our armed forces operate.
We’re meeting this new era of threat with the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, £270 billion over this parliament, and making defence an engine for growth across the country.
We inherited a broken system where 96% of major projects were overbudget or delayed.
Business as usual isn’t an option — we need to fix it
From quantum sensing and autonomous systems to space manufacturing and synthetic training, we’re backing innovative businesses across the country with rapid contracts to develop cutting-edge technology.
And our new UK Defence Innovation fund, with £400 million ringfenced each year, is speeding up innovation by quickly finding and buying innovative kit to get it more rapidly into the hands of our personnel.
Our spend with UK businesses already supports over 272,000 jobs across the country, and by investing in new technologies, we’re helping create new opportunities for highly-skilled and meaningful careers.
Fixing our procurement isn’t just a soundbite — it’s how we ensure that the armed forces who serve us have the very best kit they need to defend us and our allies
And where the MOD invests, industry follows: this funding will encourage further private investment, from autonomous ‘wingmen’ drones supporting Apache helicopters to developing DragonFire laser weapons – at just £10 per shot and accurate enough to hit a £1 coin a kilometre away – our warships will use to protect Britain and our allies.
Getting the best kit for our armed forces — rapidly
We’re also speeding up how long it takes to get new technology onto the battlefield. Rapid work by the MOD and industry took less than two months for a new low-cost anti-drone missile to go from testing to deployment on RAF Typhoon fighter jet defensive missions in the Middle East just weeks ago.
Fixing our procurement isn’t just a soundbite — it’s how we ensure that the armed forces who serve us have the very best kit they need to defend us and our allies. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.
