Delayed Defence Investment Plan Royal Navy reforms will happen 'when it's ready' as Tories try to force action

A minister has said that the long-delayed defence investment plan will be published “when it’s ready” amid efforts from the Tories to force a deadline.

Labour’s Strategic Defence Review was published in June last year and promised an end to the “hollowing out” of the UK’s armed forces. But the investment plan to follow and set out defence spending priorities over the next decade – originally slated to come in autumn last year – has still not been released.

The Conservative Party has put forward an amendment that would require the plan to be released within a month of the Armed Forces Bill getting royal assent. Though Labour’s Commons majority means it is almost guaranteed not to pass, the move will highlight that a year has passed since the review on June 2 last year.

Asked about defence spending and when the plan would be coming out, pensions minister Torsten Bell told Sky News: “So, if you’re talking about the defence investment plan, the work is ongoing on that. We want to see it come out as soon as possible, but we do have to get the details right, but that isn’t holding up levels of defence spending already increasing.”

He rejected that the delay to publication suggests the Cabinet cannot agree on the plan. “No, it suggests that you’ve got to get the details right,” he added. “I mean, look what the conflict in Ukraine has been teaching us, that there are big changes in the world of warfare, and we need to make sure that our investment plans match up to that, and we need to get the details right. That’s what the prime minister said, it’s an absolute priority for him, and we’ll publish it when it’s ready.”

The government has pledged to increase defence spending to 2.7 per cent of GDP from next year, rising to 3.5 per cent on core defence by 2035 in response to an increasingly volatile geopolitical climate. But reports have suggested there is a funding gap of around £28bn in the existing plans.

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Lord George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and one of the authors of the Strategic Defence Review, used a lecture last month to hit out at the Government’s “corrosive complacency” on defence spending and he accused the Prime Minister of being unwilling to “make the necessary investment”.

Shadow defence minister David Reed said: “Labour has no plan to keep this country safe, with the defence investment plan still missing a whole year after the Strategic Defence Review was published.”

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey meanwhile said the failure to present a plan was “shambolic and dangerous”. He said: “It’s shambolic and dangerous that, as we approach a year since the Strategic Defence Review was published, the Defence Investment Plan is still nowhere to be found. At a time when we face an increasingly aggressive Kremlin and an unreliable ally in the White House, Ministers must stop hiding and publish the DIP immediately. You cannot defend the country with a pile of unpublished reports.”

He said the armed forces need an “immediate cash injection” as he reiterated his party’s call to issue defence bonds, which they say will raise £20bn over two years.