British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has at last presented his government's Defence Investment Plan, a spending programme that aims to ensure Britain’s military future by raising defence investments to £80 billion (€92.8 billion) a year by 2029.
Building and buying stealth fighter jets, submarines and warheads are all on the menu, with £5 billion (€5.8 million) allocated solely for the development of drones, a move Starmer hailed as “the largest ever UK investment in this technology”.
“We will build an army that is ten times more lethal, with attack drones flying alongside our Apache helicopters, a new fleet of surveillance drones collecting intelligence and finding targets and a surge in low-cost one-way attack drones which have proved so effective in Ukraine,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The new spending will emphasise autonomous vehicles, such as a “hybrid” Royal Navy vessels utilising artificial intelligence and smaller autonomous aircraft flying alongside RAF Typhoon combat planes that are “invisible” to radar systems.
Drones will also be tested at the “Uncrewed Systems Centre” — a 50,632 square metre facility touted as Europe’s largest drone testing facility.
