Defending Britain

Defence of the realm must be the first duty of government. 

Today the Conservatives are announcing our plan to back British defence by unlocking £50bn of investment, to create a more effective armed forces and make our country safer.





















The fund would invest in UK defence start-ups and reduce reliance on hostile states in supply chains, while allowing the armed forces to obtain new technologies like drones.

Under the Conservative party's plans, £6bn would be reallocated from the government's research and development budget to the Ministry of Defence.

Meanwhile, the National Wealth Fund, which was launched by the government last year, would become the National Defence and Resilience Bank.

The fund was set up to invest in projects which support economic growth and the push for clean energy but in March its remit was expanded to also consider investments in sectors which support the UK's defence and security.

The Conservatives would re-allocated £11bn from the fund which the current government plans to spend on costly eco-projects and redistribute this money to defence, with the remainder used for national resilience like water and transport.

Kemi Badenoch said: "The next Conservative government will move funding from Ed Miliband's vanity Net Zero projects and use it to back our military to accelerate their war readiness."

"We must ensure our armed forces are equipped and ready to defend our country."

The Conservative leader added: "In the face of growing threats we should be investing more in defence, yet all we see from this Labour government is heel dragging and vague promises."

She has also called for the UK to decouple its arms supplies from China.

"We see what's happening in Ukraine. We need to make sure that we can fight that sort of war, investing that money will be critical," she told broadcasters.

"But the second thing is to try and get Chinese components out of our supply chains as much as possible. We need sovereign capability, we need resilience.

"We can't rely on China to look after our defence. China is supplying both sides of the war in Ukraine, they're making a lot of money out of it. We need to make sure that we continue to invest in British manufacturing."

A recent report by MPs warned the UK was "nowhere near" where it needs to be to defend itself and the country's allies at a time of growing threats.

The Commons Defence Committee said the UK was too reliant on the US and was not spending enough on its own security.

Conservatives have a plan to fix this.

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