Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Accepted
Provide Committee with updates on Strategic Defence Review implementation progress by end of 2025.
Conclusion
The Strategic Defence Review (the SDR) has set out the government’s high-level policy and capability ambitions, but the Department will need to complete further work to prioritise what it must do to achieve them. The government launched the SDR in July 2024 and 5 published it on 2 June 2025, five weeks after our evidence session with the Department. The Department said that the SDR would try to balance ambition and resource, chart the direction needed to respond to the current geopolitical situation and ensure that the UK has the armed forces it needs, both now and for the future. The Department stressed that its existing equipment programme was already ambitious–including renewing the nuclear warhead, spending £40 billion on new equipment for the Army, and investing in a sixth-generation fighter–and that the SDR would build upon and develop this. As confirmed in the Spending Review on 11 June, the government has announced that it will increase defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product from April 2027, but the Department is only midway through the process of deciding how to invest the additional funding. Now that the SDR has been published the Department will have to work through the detailed capability choices, and it does not expect to have completed this process until the latter part of 2025–two years since this Committee was last able to scrutinise the Department’s spending plans. recommendation The Department should provide the Committee with: • a written update during Parliament’s September 2025 sitting on its progress in converting the SDR’s ambitions into a deliverable plan; and • an update on its final implementation plan before the Christmas 2025 recess.
Government Response Summary
The government states it will develop and publish a new Defence Investment Plan (DIP) in the autumn to convert the Strategic Defence Review’s ambitions into a deliverable plan. It commits to providing updates on progress to the Committee as requested.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. 62 recommendations. The implementation of the Review’s recommendations will form part of the main business of the department and will be executed through a whole of UK Defence effort. The department will develop a new Defence Investment Plan (DIP) to implement the Review’s vision and recommendations and turn them into a delivery plan that will be published in the autumn. The department will ensure that this Plan is affordable, considers infrastructure alongside capabilities, enables flexibility to seize new technological opportunities, and maximises the benefits of defence spending to grow the UK economy. Work on the DIP is progressing at pace and will include a thorough analysis of the programme required to meet the ambition of the SDR. The department will provide updates on progress as requested by the Committee.