Sir Keir Starmer has announced an extra £15bn for defence over the next four years.
 
Commenting on the announcement, Tom Saunderson, partner specialising in defence at UK and Ireland law firm Browne Jacobson, said: "£15 billion, including five billion pounds for drones, is a significant move from the government and will be scrutinised seriously. The investment is welcome and long overdue. The MoD is right to move in this direction, and industry will breathe a sigh of relief that the government is putting substantial money behind the rhetoric.

“The legal and procurement architecture needed to support this ambition is far less developed than the ambition itself. The push for sovereign British suppliers, reinforced by Andy Burnham's comments this week, raises immediate questions around how those preferences will be structured within existing public procurement frameworks without creating grounds for challenge. Getting that wrong could slow down the very contracts this money is meant to fund.

“There are harder questions too. As attack drones are integrated alongside crewed platforms like Apache helicopters, the liability frameworks and rules of engagement compliance for lethal autonomous systems remain genuinely unresolved. The UK has avoided legislating in this space, and that position is becoming increasingly difficult to hold as procurement scales up.

“The Treasury-MoD stand-off that led to John Healey's resignation is a reminder that the gap between a budget line and a signed contract can be very wide indeed. The detail of the DIP, when it emerges, will tell us whether this is a genuine step-change or another well-intentioned plan that gets ground down in procurement process."