Can I just start by thanking you for showing me round today. What you’re doing, the capability that you’ve got here, the speed of development, and it’s a real reminder for me, and I think for you, we’ve got a brilliant front line in our armed forces. We really do have such brilliant personnel serving every day, and we must always remember that, and the courage and determination that they bring to everything that they...
Can I just start by thanking you for showing me round today. What you’re doing, the capability that you’ve got here, the speed of development, and it’s a real reminder for me, and I think for you, we’ve got a brilliant front line in our armed forces. We really do have such brilliant personnel serving every day, and we must always remember that, and the courage and determination that they bring to everything that they do. But they can’t do their job without you. You sit right there behind them, alongside them in many respects, and therefore they are first class, and you are first class, and need to be first class, because they’re going to be relying on what you’re doing every single day, and I think I really saw that for myself this morning. It’s really great to talk to you as well. Lots of people here from slightly different backgrounds, all working jointly on something that’s so important for our country. So, thank you for showing me around. Thank you for doing what you do, because as has been said, you’ve chosen to do this, and this is something which is about the defence of your country, of our country, of our European and other allies working together. So, this is really important. I often say you can sit in Westminster and read a briefing about what people are doing, or you can go and see it for yourself, and there is no substitute for coming to see it for yourselves. So, I’ve really learnt a lot from you this morning, and thank you very, very much. It reminds me of something that I hold fast to every single day as Prime Minister, and that is that my first duty, the duty above everything else, is to keep our country safe, and to keep our people safe. That is the top, most important duty of any Prime Minister, and it’s the one, as I say, that I hold very, very close every single day, and it is particularly important at the moment, because it is no exaggeration to say that we’re living in more dangerous and volatile times than at any time in my life or in your life. We’re living through that now. The Chief of Defence Staff was out this morning on media, and he said in 35 years of service, that’s his service, he’s never known the world as dangerous as it is at the moment. It’s worth just pausing on that to think how real that is, how close that is, and what responsibility it puts on all of us to make sure that we are ready for this dangerous and volatile world, and we have to be ready for it. Now, the causes of that are many across the world, but we are facing basically a war on two fronts. The ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, and I do want to salute once again both the frontline and the civilians in Ukraine for the incredible courage and resilience they’ve shown in the face of Russian aggression now, as I say, going into a fifth year. And you’ve seen some of the attacks only recently that have been on civilian targets in Kyiv, amongst other things. So that is going on. Alongside that, we’ve got conflict in the Middle East, in Iran in particular, and the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Now, all of that, both Ukraine and Iran, is having an impact back here in the United Kingdom. That is obvious to all of you. It’s obvious to people across the country. You can see it, the economic impact it’s had. The most obvious is energy prices, but it’s not the only impact. When the Ukraine war started, energy prices went up. Now, because of the Iran crisis, energy prices have gone up, and everything else that follows from that. It has an impact on our resources, of course, because we put resource into Ukraine and capability into Ukraine, where we’re doing incredible things with the Ukrainians, including some of what’s going on in the collaboration that you’re responsible for, and, of course, capability. You will have seen that in the last few months, we’ve deployed our armed forces in and around the Gulf states to defend them from attacks from Iran, and that means that our pilots were up in the sky within hours of the beginning of that conflict, taking out incoming that was aimed at civilians in the Gulf states, and, of course, our service personnel who are grounded there. Of course, that conflict is not just confined to the geography of Ukraine and the geography of the Middle East. It goes beyond that because, increasingly, we’re seeing state backed attacks across our country and other countries. Cyber attacks, very, very common now. Something we have to constantly battle. Incursions into our airspace, incursions into our waterways that we have to deal with, and the ever-present threat to our underwater facilities and capabilities, particularly the cables that are so vital to so many aspects of our life, including our economy. These are all ways in which we are drawn into these conflicts in a very, very real way. Now, we, the United Kingdom, have responded very strongly with sanctions, particularly in Iran and Ukraine, which are amongst the strongest in the world, really meaningful sanctions that are having an impact, but they are sanctions that we do with our allies. The action we’ve taken in relation to the shadow fleet that is supporting Putin in his war effort, again, working with others, we’re on that on a daily basis. And what we’ve done as a country by bringing together coalitions. So, we had a coalition of the willing for Ukraine, which is UK-led with France and Germany. That is a coalition of countries to provide the security guarantees that will be needed in Ukraine if and when we get to a ceasefire. So hugely important work with a lot of military planning that’s gone into that. And then in the last few months, we’ve had a coalition, a different coalition put together, again, UK-led, French-led, so you can see the role that we’re playing on the globe in relation to this. That coalition is aimed at giving reassurance for passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz as soon as it’s safe for them to go through, because in our discussions with those that operate the vessels, energy companies, bankers, insurers, et cetera, they want reassurance before they will go through that Strait of Hormuz. And it’s our responsibility to put that capability there. And again, a lot of military planning has gone into that. So we are rising to the moment, but we have to ask ourselves what our priorities are for our country. And that’s why I took the decision that we would increase defence spending to 2.6%. And so we’ve already taken that step. That’s the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, which is why you’re already seeing an uptick in our capability, already seeing an uptick in the work that we’re going to be asking you to do alongside others. But we also need to be strategic about this. And therefore, I commissioned a Strategic Defence Review last year, and I asked them, would you tell me what capability we’ve got, what we need for now, and what we need for the future? Because look at how quickly the technology here is changing. It is obvious to all of you, and it’s obvious to me, that we need to make sure we’re ahead of the game, ahead of the curve here, and that we’re getting the capability that we need now, in five years, in 10 years. So, the strategic review was a massive review to answer those questions. And you won’t be surprised to know that a lot of focus was on technology, on how we equip our armed forces with the best, and how we make more of autonomous capability, some of the stuff that you are working on. Now, in order to put that strategic review into effect, we’ve got a Defence Investment Plan. So that is a plan that says, here’s the money that goes with the capability, we bring the two together, and it is another step up. It is another increase in spending, but it is necessary. It’s the right thing to do to defend our country. Now, we’ve been working on that Defence Investment Plan for some time, very closely with our armed forces, as you would expect, because we need that interaction. What is the capability that you most need, in what time period, with the MOD, and actually across government, because this is an across government priority. And that will now be published before the NATO summit, which is in just a few weeks’ time. A very important summit where countries across the world come together. NATO of course, the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen. And if you needed any reminder about the importance of this, it is our intelligence assessment, and the assessment of other countries in NATO, that there could be an attack by Russia or NATO as soon as 2030. So you can see the urgency and the priority that we’re putting behind this. Now, that Defence Investment Plan will be really important. It will be very much focused on the capability of the future that we need to defend our country. It will mean more work for you and other people like you around the country, because I’m really determined that as we increase the defence investment plan, as we implement the defence investment plan, which will be published in the coming weeks, it’s really important that what goes alongside that is good, well-paid skilled jobs in this country. Because this is a first priority for our country, but it needs to be felt in every community across the country. Every community needs to see the opportunity that is here in this for those good, well-paid jobs, wherever they are, and with different capabilities, with different technologies. The chances of those jobs being made is enormous. And therefore, it will be conditional that this money, this capability, comes on the condition that those jobs across the country go with it. So that is coming in the next few weeks. You will keenly look at that plan because you will see reflected in it some of what you are doing. And you will realise, as everybody will realise, that this is the single most important thing for our country. The most solemn duty of a Prime Minister, but also an opportunity for us to build on what we are, which is one of the leading countries when it comes to defence and security. I am proud that when there are coalitions put together to deal with Ukraine or Iran, it is the UK that is in a leading position. And you should be proud as well because it is the reputation of our armed forces, the reputation of those who sit behind our armed forces, that is you and everybody else working in this sector, that gives us the ability to be in that leading position, shaping what is happening and defending our country. So thank you for letting me be here this morning. Thank you for showing me your capability. Thank you for reminding me with the flag over there of the vital link in defending Ukraine and the way in which we are working there. This is about the single most important thing in our country. And that is defence and security of our country and everybody within our country. And as I say, every single day I remind myself that that is my first priority, the first priority for my government. Thank you very much for listening.
Speech Brief