Key events
Unite boss to face leadership challenge amid concerns over rise of Reform
Sharon Graham, the leader of the UK’s second biggest union, Unite, is to face a challenge as general secretary over claims the union is not doing enough to challenge the rise of Reform UK, Matthew Taylor reports.
What’s in the defence investment plan (Dip)?
The Ministry of Defence has already given some details of what’s in the defence investment plan (Dip), even though the full details won’t be released until later.
In an overnight news release, the MoD released this summary.
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is transforming into a Hybrid Navy, combining autonomous vessels and AI with warships and aircraft, including:
-Type 91: Uncrewed missile platforms to increase the firepower of the Hybrid Fleet.
-Type 92: Uncrewed sense platforms designed to hunt enemy submarines across the North Atlantic, supporting our new frigates.
-Type 93: Extra-large uncrewed underwater vessels which will work alongside crewed hunter-killer submarines to seek and destroy enemy submarines.
-Type 94: Uncrewed sense platforms designed to scan the skies for threats to the hybrid navy or the homeland.
-In the 2030s, we will expand the numbers of the above platforms and bring at least six Common Combat Vessels into service as the brain of a networked Maritime Air Defence system.
-Project PANTHEON: Development of a Hybrid Carrier Air Wing, including trialling jet-powered drones to work alongside our F-35B force.
-Our Royal Marine Commandos will benefit from further investment in their transformation, equipped with new high-speed boats and the latest drone and autonomous technology.
British Army
The British Army is increasing its lethality, including through:
-A major investment into inexpensive expendable autonomous systems and loitering munitions to enhance the lethality of the Army, including a £50 million boost over the next 12 months for the Army’s RAPSTONE programme, funding additional first person view and interceptor drones.
-Uncrewed Ground Vehicles: A new programme to rapidly develop and produce uncrewed vehicles and their associated mission systems for the Army through UK industry.
-Project NYX: Up to 24 autonomous armed drones will be operational by 2030, flying alongside the Army’s recently upgraded Apache helicopters. They will carry out reconnaissance, precision strikes, and electronic warfare.
-Project Corvus: Up to 24 surveillance drones to replace the Watchkeeper system, carrying out intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance.
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is transforming, investing in:
-A new, national Collaborative Combat Air programme: The development of new autonomous fighter jets which will fly alongside crewed jets, to defend the UK’s skies with a demonstrator flying by at least 2030.
-Storm Shroud system: Bring our new uncrewed electronic warfare drone into service this year.
And, in another news release, the MoD has given more details of the new “common combat vessels” it is getting.
The Common Combat Vessel will replace the current fleet of six Type 45 destroyers, with delivery expected from the early 2030s. Unlike its predecessors, the new warship will act as a control hub for uncrewed systems – extending the Navy’s reach, resilience and firepower without a proportional increase in crew or cost.
Due to be outlined in the forthcoming Defence Investment Plan, these new ships will replace earlier plans for a Type 83 destroyer. Rather than concentrating capability in a small number of large, expensive ships, the Royal Navy’s shift to a hybrid navy will mix crewed and uncrewed capabilities and be more suited to the pace and nature of modern warfare.
Defence investment plan criticised by opposition parties as ‘too little, too late’ ahead of launch
Good morning. After Keir Starmer agreed to stand down next month to let Andy Burnham replace him, he said that he would not make major policy announcements in his final days in office. But there was one exemption; Starmer was committed to publishing the defence investment plan (Dip) before the Nato summit in Turkey next week, and he took the view that, since it was more or less ready, this was an existing policy commitment, not a new one.
It is certainly a policy that has already consumed vast amounts of goverment time. The government published its strategic defence review (SDR) more than a year ago. The Dip, the plan setting out how much money ministers would commit to defence spending to meet the threats identified in the SDR, was originally due in the autumn. It is finally coming today – but only after triggering the resignation of John Healey as defence secretary earlier this month because he wanted defence spending to rise to 3% of GDP by 2030 – and was not happy about the Dip only lifting it to 2.68% by the end of the decade. The new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, has squeezed a bit more out of the Treasury, and he will present the Dip in a statement to MPs later.
Before Jarvis speaks, Starmer will give his own speech on the Dip at a location outside London. Here is our preview, by Dan Sabbagh and Kiran Stacey.
Opposition parties are already saying the Dip is not up to scratch. James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, said:
This is too little, too late. Too little because it is barely more money than John Healey and Al Carns resigned over when they said Britain would be “less safe”. And too late because the plan is now almost a year overdue and only being rushed through because Keir Starmer is desperate for a legacy.
And this is from Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader.
This late and underfunded plan is unforgivable. It is a political choice that makes us all less safe, puts jobs at risk and threatens businesses across the country in supply chains.
The government have dangerously short-changed our armed forces when they need urgent investment after years of Conservative negligence. Defence chiefs have been forced to make hard choices, when they should be given what they need.
Andy Burnham needs to go much further and take up Liberal Democrat plans for defence bonds to give our armed forces the investment they need to keep our country safe.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Lucy Powell, the deputy Labour leader, speaks at a New Statesman conference. Other speakers include Nick Thomas-Symonds, the EU relations minister at 10.45am, Lord Hermer, the attorney general at 2pm and Richard Tice, the Reform UK deputy leader, at 4.30pm.
10am: Sir Brian Langstaff, chair of the infected blood inquiry, gives evidence to the public administration committee.
10.30am: Keir Starmer gives a speech on the defence investment plan.
11.30am: David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 12.30pm: Dan Jarvis, the defence secretary, makes a statement to MPs about the Dip.
2.30pm: Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, and Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, give evidence to the Lords communication committee on AI and copyright.
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