The government has published its long-delayed defence investment plan (DIP) that outlines how much money it will spend on the UK's armed forces. An additional £15bn will go on defence – a total of £298bn over the next four years – and will include spending on the nuclear deterrent and new combat aircraft. But the extra money is less than the £28bn reportedly sought by defence chiefs, and both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have criticised the plan as underfunded. Here are the key points included in the 81-page plan, and what they may mean. The government has raised defence spending from £54bn per year when it took office in 2024, to £80bn by 2029 – a real-term increase of 27%, Ministers say that is the largest increase since the Cold War in the 1980s. Since John Healey resigned as defence secretary on 11 June over what he considered insufficient funding in the plan, his successor Dan Jarvis has secured a further £1.5bn.
Published: June 30, 2026 5:43 pm
Source: BBC — Read original