The UK must focus on strategic enablers when it comes to defence procurement, urged James Cartlidge, the Shadow Defence Secretary, during the Space-Comm Expo in London on 12 March 2025.
He recognised that Britain’s military must move away from an enduring tendency for individual armed services to prioritise “large platforms” in their respective domains.
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This appears to include what the current Labour government, and what the previous Conservative government before them, had considered crucial programmes such as Type 83, GCAP and Boxer.
“We don’t value… that which is repsonding to all of defence: the enablers,” Cartlidge supposed. “All those critical elements that actually deliver fighting capability and integrate.
Cartlidge, who served as the former defence procurement minister under the previous Conservative government, had sought to reform the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) acquisition process since February 2024 with the Integrated Procurement Model (IPM).
The Shadow Secretary’s advice comes at a key moment as the MoD is coming to the end of compiling a Strategic Defence Review, a document that will coordinate the UK’s position in the world, amid a fracturing security climate, for years to come.
Among those enablers, Cartlidge recognised space as a critical area of focus, pointing to the importance of domain in which Russia had deprived Ukraine of Viasat modems during its full-scale invasion of the country.
“Space should be given the same weight as nuclear,” he asserted.
There are other lessons to extract from the conflict in Ukraine. The war weary nation is often in dire need of more artillery – systems and munitions – as well as manpower. For years, air power expert, Professor Justin Bronk, Royal United Services Institute, has put forward a compelling case for the need to focus on conventional war material instead.
“Buy ammunition, buy spares, increase the size of your maintenance contracts for your key fleets,” he said in July 2024. “You don’t have time to get new [platform] orders delivered.”
Labour pick up the baton
Meanwhile, the Labour government has put forward a business case for its path towards procurement reform, tieing Britain’s sovereign defence industry intimately with its crusade for economic growth.
The Defence Secretary John Healey joined the Chancellor in promoting this business case among defence industry leaders at RAF Waddington at the end of February, while proceeding to join Prime Minister Keir Starmer days later to invest in small to medium sized enterprises.
Institutional changes have recently been implemented, including a new four-person structure that will take responsibility for operational, procurement and investment programmes.
Army Technology asked the UK MoD to comment on the status of the IPM. A spokesperson confirmed that “implementation of the key features of the reformed acquisition model are being taken forward.”
They added: “This government has launched the biggest reform programme in defence for 50 years. It will create a stronger UK defence centre to secure better value for money, better outcomes for our Armed Forces, and be better able to implement the Strategic Defence Review.”
