2 days ago
Defence review dodges Britain's nuclear blind spot
Presented as a roadmap to 'Make Britain Safer', the review promised clarity and accountability, but it fails to confront the most pressing truths: that the UK's nuclear programme is financially unsustainable, strategically unbalanced, increasingly unaccountable and a real and present danger to us all.
These concerns are not hypothetical. In the final months of the last Parliament, I raised them on the floor of the House of Commons, not out of party dogma, but in response to serious and public allegations from Dominic Cummings, former chief adviser to the then prime minister, remember him? He described Britain's nuclear infrastructure as a 'dangerous disaster', responsible for the secret 'cannibalisation' of other national security budgets and shielded from meaningful scrutiny.
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Whatever one thinks of Cummings or the nuclear deterrent, the substance of these allegations is disturbingly familiar. The National Audit Office (NAO) has echoed similar concerns, reporting a projected defence funding gap of up to £29.8 billion, with nuclear and Royal Navy costs rising the most sharply.
These are not partisan claims, they're structural failures.
That day in the Commons, the then-shadow defence secretary, now the Secretary of State, was present to hear them and now in government, he has chosen not to challenge or investigate them, he's just sidestepped them entirely.
Nuclear ringfencing: A cost we refuse to count
The UK Defence Review reaffirms the nuclear deterrent as the UK's 'top defence priority' and explicitly commits to protecting its funding through ringfencing, yet it offers no detailed breakdown of those costs and barely acknowledges the impact this has on the rest of the armed forces.
At one point, the review admits that nuclear spending 'might have forced savings in essential capabilities' – a remarkable understatement. Behind this phrase lies a wider truth: that the UK's defence strategy is being skewed by a deterrent whose costs are rising beyond control, shielded from accountability by MOD political taboo.
There is no analysis in the review of how ringfencing distorts capability development, procurement planning or readiness in the conventional forces. In a document designed to show how Britain will 'balance' risk and resilience, this omission is fatal.
Procurement dysfunction: Recognised, and untouched
The review admits what every oversight body has said for years: defence procurement is broken. Projects are delayed, over budget and misaligned with modern threats. Yet beyond nodding at the problem, the review offers no structural reform.
Cummings alleged that the MOD continued to fund 'legacy disasters' while gutting new capabilities. Those criticisms align with a long history of NAO reports, whether on AJAX, Type 26 delays or wider programme mismanagement. The review responds with little more than the promise of procurement 'measured in months, not years'.
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Unsurprisingly, there's no serious roadmap, no new governance model, no mechanism to hold decision-makers in the MOD accountable and without these, the same dysfunction will continue to waste billions, no matter how polished the strategic language.
Where is the democratic oversight?
Perhaps most worrying is the review's treatment of oversight. Cummings claimed that key decisions about the UK's nuclear strategy were made through 'secret tunnel' processes that excluded even senior ministers. If true, this undermines the core principles of democratic governance of departments.
The review's answer is to propose that a new National Security Council (Nuclear), a closed ministerial subcommittee, should meet twice a year to review progress; that is not oversight, it's entrenchment.
There's a passing reference to potential 'enhanced parliamentary scrutiny under appropriate conditions' with no clarity on what that actually means, or how it would be applied, and no mention of expanding the role of Select Committees or publishing clearer data for Parliament as many
nuclear Nato allies do. For an area of defence with the greatest cost and risk, the lack of democratic scrutiny is glaring and frankly a dereliction of duty.
A missed opportunity
Labour's Strategic Defence Review 2025 had a rare opportunity to correct course by managing it more transparently, more accountably and with greater strategic realism. Even those of us opposed to the nuclear enterprise in its entirety couldn't and shouldn't oppose increased scrutiny.
That opportunity has been missed.
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Instead of confronting the truth, the review restates familiar platitudes and leaves the public and Parliament no wiser about the scale cost, or consequences of the UK's nuclear commitment. The Defence Secretary, who heard these warnings first-hand from the opposition bench, is now in a position to act – he has chosen not to.
So, the central questions remain for the UK Government:
What is being done to stop the nuclear enterprise from distorting the wider defence budget? What safeguards ensure genuine democratic oversight of the UK's most dangerous and expensive defence programme?
Until these are answered, Britain's defence policy will remain unbalanced, unaffordable, alarmingly unaccountable and a real and present danger to us all.
