Speech by John Healey to Defence Investment Summit

The Defence Secretary gave a speech at the Defence Investment Summit on 10 September 2025

I must say, I've been to one or two of these, and walking through the corridors, the walkways, the escalators, there is a buzz about this one that I've not known before. 

Thank you all for being here, and thank you, Nick for your introduction. I have to tell you, some of you I know have worked in defence for years, some of you are new to the industry and sector and taking a first look at us, but Sir Nick is deeply respected in defence from his time in the Royal Navy and now from his time in Babcock. So it's an honour to be introduced by Nick here tonight. 

Thanks for giving up your time to be here at the summit, and thank you, in particular to Oliver Wyman for pulling this event together.

We in Britain have some of the finest Armed Forces anywhere in the world. We also have one of the best industrial bases in the world, but we're in a new era of threat. This demands a new era for defence, and it means that we must ask more from both.

Only last night, Putin demonstrated this with a new level of hostility towards Poland, violating Polish airspace, deep enough for Warsaw airport to be closed, deep enough for NATO jets to take defensive military action.

And Russia's actions are reckless, unprecedented, dangerous, and I've assured the defence minister of Poland that we stand in the UK firm in our support for the Polish people. And I have asked the UK armed forces to look at options for how we can strengthen NATO air defence over Poland. 

But defence deterrence doesn't rest on words. Defence deterrence doesn't actually only rest on our military forces. It rests also on the power of industry. And one of the lessons that Ukraine is forcefully reminded about is exactly that. 

When a nation is forced to fight or it's under threat, its forces are only strong as the industry that stands behind it. And that's why, over the past year, as a new government, we've spent so much time building a new and lasting partnership, we hope, with industry, with innovators, and increasingly, with investors as well. 

So today I'd like to set out, if I may, what we've done so far, to give you a glimpse, if you like, of the path that we've set ahead. And mostly that's been set out not just in the Strategic Defence Review that we published in June, but the Defence Industrial Strategy we published this Monday.

A manifesto commitment, now delivered, a major recommendation in the Strategic Defence Review now delivered, but the real hard work comes beyond the report with the implementation. 

So we publish the report, we publish the strategy. We're backing it over this spending review period, that's three years, with £70 million pounds. This strategy or plan sets out how the UK's defence sector will meet the threats that were outlined in the Strategic Defence Review.

The pledges, all the ambitions can only possibly be met because of the record increase in defence spending that as a government, we've also now committed to make. So as Nick mentioned it earlier, this is the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War.

Nobody senior in our military today has experienced what we face ahead. A decade for the first time in their careers of rising defence investment, the certainty, if you like, the industry, has always pressed upon government, whichever party is in office. 

And if you ask any former defence secretary, and you ask them, what is it that makes your life or made your life as Defence Secretary most difficult? Many of them would not say Putin or Chinese drones, they would say the Treasury.

But I have to tell you, thankfully that's not the case for me, because my relationship with Chancellor Rachel Reeves, you heard from her today, the relationship couldn't be stronger.

The vision that we share of defence being an engine for growth in this country could not be closer. But with that promise to invest more comes with the responsibility to invest better. And as many of you in this room know, Mr. Nick has reminded us in his short introductory remarks, government procurement has been burned by waste, by delay, by complexity, for too long. 

The Public Accounts Committee in the House of Commons described the procurement system under the last government as broken, a big challenge at the heart of resetting and rebuilding any industrial strategy for this country. So procurement has been unnecessarily complex. 

Our export performance has never fully been matched by our potential, and we've had a skills deficit that has too often held back the workers and businesses alike. All  these are problems that our Defence Industrial Strategy is resolved to try and fix. 

So a segmented approach now to procurement with time, to contract targets in each statement, the creation of the National Armaments Director, the introduction of a five-year acquisition pipeline, will all mean that we get equipment from the factory to the front line faster. 

It will all mean that businesses and investors get a better understanding of the direction we want to go, and more confidence about the decisions we'll take, and I hope, more conviction to look at the UK as a market in which to invest. 

The opportunities I hope you feel from this discussion today and your knowledge of the sector, I hope you share that view with me, that these are enormous now. That £10 billion frigate deal 10 days ago with Norway, that is the biggest British warship deal ever. It means at least 4000 jobs secured over the next 15 years, a supply chain of over 430 businesses right across the UK, not just on the Clyde. 

We want more of those world class British based firms to be able to go out and win contracts like that.

Yes, big congratulations to BAE Systems, but I think Charles will be the first to say they can't do it without us. We can't do it without them. And so that's why we brought responsibility for defence exports back fully into the MOD with a new Office for Defence Exports that we're setting up now that creates the government to government exports, structure and capacity. It reflects what industry what those who are our allies and partners need and want.

For the first time as well, we're going to go out and consult on an offset policy for Britain. And that means, quite simply, when we make decisions to buy from allies, not from Britain, the UK's economy, businesses in Britain will also be strengthened in return, through UK workshare by new jobs, by novel technology or investments.

And to ensure that defence dividend that I've talked about, the Prime Minister's talked about, that message to the public that we're asking to bear a greater proportion of the investment that we spend in this country cannot simply be a sense of greater security. That defence dividend has got to bring growth. It's got to bring jobs. It's got to bring a sense of benefit across the country as well. 

So that's why, in the Defence Industrial Strategy, part of that will be an investment of £250m pounds, into five Defence Growth Deals in different parts of the country and in Scotland and in Northern Ireland and in Wales.

And finally, creating jobs means nothing unless we got the people, the skilled people, the people with a sense of pride and purpose to fill those vacancies. So £182 billion new money behind the Defence Skills Strategy. This is a core part of the industrial plan that we published on Monday. This is the biggest investment in defence skills plan for decades. 

And my ambition, shared by Rachel Reeves, shared by cross government, is for the UK to become the best place for a defence firm to do business. And I have to say, I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged by the £1.4 billion in foreign direct investment that is coming into defence in our first year in government. 

And for me, the real test is, how do we build on that? So I welcome the confidence today shown in us in the UK by Tekever with their announcement of a 400 million pound investment, a decision to expand their UK operation with a new facility in Swindon. 

This investment is a vote of confidence in this country and in our workforce and industry and in our potential to grow. And I'm honoured that they've asked me next week to open that new factory, which will produce 1000 extra jobs as a result of that investment. It will also bring highly advanced unmanned aerial systems to the UK. 

So this is my view, exactly the type of investment we need, investment that makes British workers better off, which makes our Armed Forces stronger, investment which makes our industry base bigger and more improved and more resilient. 

And so I guess my message this afternoon to you here, whether you're an established prime or you're a venture capitalist looking at defence perhaps in the early days, my message is this. That it's that sustained government investment and our serious reform of procurement, exports and skills that will make Britain and defence a better investment opportunity in the years ahead.

And you heard that message also from Jason. What a treat Jason, to be able to be here for your first speech, and probably, I think, your third day in the job as a government minister. Congratulations. You're going to bring a dose of business pragmatism and vision to government, and we welcome you.

The point I want to stress today just about the Defence Industrial Strategy is this, it is one part of a process of change. We know that, in defence, our vision in the past has been too narrow, our reach too limited. The circle of people and businesses that we engage and are involved with is too small. 

So let me set out how we're going to change that. So one of our priorities is there in the Strategic Defence Review, is there in the industrial strategy and it is to rapidly adopt the novel technologies that will give our Armed Forces the edge, the leading edge on the battlefield. And our newly established agency, UK Defence Innovation, will help give out forces that advantage. 

But because much of the innovation in this country, it's not driven by government, it's driven by you, firms, investors in the private sector, we know we have to forge stronger relationships between government and business and the investors behind those innovators. 

So as part of that drive, I'm announcing today the launch of the Defence Investors Advisory Group.. The group's purpose will be to advise government on investment priorities, provide market insight, bring together some of the best minds from banking, venture capital and Strategic Finance. 

And I'm really pleased that the chair of the last session on this program that you had, Kerry Baldwin, has also agreed to chair this advisory group for us. Kerry, thank you for that, and we look forward to working with you.

One of the first tasks we will set for Kerry with her group is to shape the government's new Defence Finance and Investment Strategy. We aim to publish this early next year. It will be cross government, and it will look to draw on the strength of what we have in Britain, a world leading financial sector to bolster what we need to sharpen our military operations and readiness.

So in conclusion, I guess we'd have to say that defence just needs to be smarter about how we win investment, but we also need to be smarter about how we make the most of the investment that we want, and there's no better avenue for that.

There's no better avenue for seeing the multiplication of impact than through the dual use sector, radar, sonar, mass production, antibiotics, jet engines, GPS drones, all born of military need, all now woven into wider society life. So where defence leads in innovation, society can share in its benefits. 

That's why yesterday, in a small scale, I know, but it's an example of what we want to do, we launched an innovation competition looking for ideas on how to stop non-compressible haemorrhages to save the lives of our soldiers, something with an obvious application beyond the battlefield. 

But the truth is, we haven't always translated those benefits for national security into benefits for the wider society. And so to ensure that we make those breakthroughs are used to power new industries and create new jobs, we're launching the Technology and Growth Alliance.

This alliance will have at its heart, I'm pleased to say, four of our leading UK-based primes, BAE Systems, Leonardo, Thales and Qinetic. Founder members of that new alliance for government were convened by Plowshare, the MOD's commercialization arm, and they'll bring together not just leading firms, but academics and also investors.

Finally, in closing, let me say those of you who have been around for a while know and probably reflect that I'm not the first person that you've heard in this position say this sort of thing. I'm not the first Defence Secretary to promise a new way of doing things, and I know like you do, that old habits die hard, but the world is changing. 

Defence is changing. Our relationship with business will change. We're a government with a clear plan backed by record investment. We are opening new doors. We are bringing people together in new ways, and we are drawing on new talent and expertise. And together, we will provide not only the security we need today, but the prosperity that we need for tomorrow.