Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 21
21
Government published the Strategic Defence Review in June 2025 charting future defence direction.
Conclusion
The government launched the Strategic Defence Review (the SDR) in July 2024 and said it would publish it in the first half of 2025.41 The Department told us that the SDR would try to balance ambition and resource, but also 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.42 Five weeks after the Department’s oral evidence to us, it published the SDR on 2 June 2025.
Government Response
A response document is linked to this report, dated 16 September 2025. Response attribution to this conclusion has not been verified. Read the response document ↗