Defence investment plan to be 'released in weeks' after long delay
The Yorkshire Post recently quizzed Luke Pollard, the Defence Readiness Minister, about the Dip, who said: “The teams are working flat out to deliver the defence investment plan.”
The long-delayed defence investment plan will be released in “weeks” rather than months, a senior minister said as he denied the Government was “putting off” publication.
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said the document setting out defence investment over the next decade was “close” to being published.
He told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “I think it will be more like weeks than months, but we want to get this right and do it properly.”
The plan, known as the Dip, was originally slated for publication last autumn but has been repeatedly delayed.
Some in Westminster had expected the plan to be published this week, exactly a year on from the Strategic Defence Review that called for a Dip, but Mr McFadden’s comments suggest this will not happen.
Mr McFadden also insisted that the delay in publishing the Dip was not preventing the Government from investing in defence.
He said: “We haven’t been putting it off, we’ve been getting it right, and there’s a difference.
“And the point I want to make to you is that it’s not like there’s nothing happening at the moment.
“We sign contracts for equipment and materiel all the time.
“Every day, workers go to work in Barrow making the next generation of nuclear submarines, and it’s the same with other contracts and equipment that are needed for the defence of the country.”
Ministers have been repeatedly criticised over the delay to the Dip, with Commons Defence Committee chairman Tan Dhesi saying Britain’s military and defence industry “need to know where we stand and where we are going”.
Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge said Britain “cannot afford more delay”.
He said: “The British people deserve a Government that recognises the seriousness of the threats we face and properly backs our armed forces, so that they can keep our country safe.
“Only the Conservatives, under new leadership, have set out the hard choices we are prepared to make, including moving billions from welfare and net zero into defence.”
Former Labour defence secretary Lord Robertson, who led the Government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), accused ministers of being unwilling to make the necessary investment.
Reports suggested that the Dip was delayed at Christmas after Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, told Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves that the Ministry of Defence was facing a £28bn shortfall.
Lord Robertson said recently: “We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe… Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.”
He told the Financial Times there was a gap between the Prime Minister’s rhetoric on defence and the action he had delivered, saying Sir Keir was “not willing to make the necessary investment”.
The Yorkshire Post recently quizzed Luke Pollard, the Defence Readiness Minister, about the Dip, who said: “The teams are working flat out to deliver the defence investment plan, but that work hasn’t stopped us from making announcements.
“We’ve made announcements of 1,200 major contracts since the general election - 86 per cent going to British businesses - there’s not a day that goes by without me signing off a new defence contract that goes to a British firm.”