Defence Equipment: Manufacturing Industries
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has conducted a feasibility study on increasing domestic production of critical weapon systems.
Answered by Maria Eagle
The Strategic Defence Review will determine the roles and capabilities required by UK Defence to meet the challenges and threats of the twenty-first century. The Prime Minister’s February announcement that spending on defence will increase to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027 reflects ongoing global instability.
This increased spending will sustain the UK’s globally competitive defence industry, supporting highly skilled jobs and apprenticeships across the whole of the UK. The Defence Industrial Strategy will also review consideration of the sovereign capability and capacity required in the UK.
An example of early action against our security and economic priorities is the £1.6 billion deal to supply thousands of advanced air defence missiles to Ukraine. The deal will support 700 existing jobs at Thales in Belfast, will see production of lightweight-multirole missiles at Thales’s factory treble and will also benefit companies in the Thales Supply Chain across the UK.
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