New UK minister touts defense industry as Britain’s growth engine

LONDON — As the U.K. is boosting military spending, the government is allocating additional funds to the local industry along with plans to bring foreign contractors to Britain, according to Luke Pollard, the nation’s recently appointed minister for defense procurement and industry.

“We have an extra 5 billion pounds [$6.77 billion] in our defense budget. It’s the largest uplifting of our budget since the Cold War,” Pollard said in a keynote speech at the 2025 DSEI UK show in London. He was referring to the additional funds allocated for the years 2024 and 2025.

Pollard said defense spending should be considered the backbone of the U.K.’s economic growth, and for this to hold true, the country must intensify its efforts to attract investments by both British and foreign defense companies.

In his new role, Pollard declared he will also strive to make military procurement spending more efficient, but the minister did not name any particular programs which he intends to target with these efforts.

“It’s not that we are just spending more on defense, we have to reform our defense,” Pollard said.

On Sept. 8, the minister presented the government’s Defence Industrial Strategy to the House of Commons, the lower chamber of the British parliament.

“This is a plan supported by £773 million of investment — a plan to make defense an engine for economic growth in every nation and region of our country,” Pollard told lawmakers. “All the pledges made today can only be met because this Labour government have committed the largest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the cold war: 2.6% of GDP by 2027, and 3.5% by 2035, alongside our NATO allies.”

The minister cited the recently signed $13.5 billion deal under which Norway will acquire British-made warships designed for anti-submarine warfare as “the biggest warship deal in our history.”

He also said the U.K. government’s “new office of defense exports brings responsibility for defense exports back into the Ministry of Defence and creates a government-to-government exports structure that reflects what our allies and industry need.”

Pollard was named to his current role on Sept. 6, replacing Maria Eagle. Prior to this, he served as the parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Defence. He was elected the member of parliament for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport in July 2024 on the ticket of the country’s ruling Labour Party.

Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.

伦敦——英国新任国防采购和工业大臣卢克·波拉德表示，随着英国增加军费开支，政府正在向本地产业拨款，并计划将外国承包商引入英国。

“我们的国防预算增加了50亿英镑（约合67.7亿美元）。这是冷战以来国防预算的最大增幅，”波拉德在伦敦举行的2025年英国防务展（DSEI UK）的主题演讲中说道。他指的是为2024年和2025年追加的拨款。

波拉德表示，国防开支应该被视为英国经济增长的支柱，为了实现这一目标，英国必须加大力度吸引英国和外国国防公司的投资。

波拉德在新职位上宣布，他将努力提高军事采购支出的效率，但这位部长没有具体指出他打算在这些努力中重点关注哪些项目。

“不仅仅是增加国防开支，我们还需要改革国防，”波拉德说。

9月8日，这位部长向英国议会下院——下议院——提交了政府的国防工业战略。

波拉德对议员们说：“这是一项获得7.73亿英镑投资支持的计划，旨在使国防成为我国每个国家和地区经济增长的引擎。今天做出的所有承诺之所以能够兑现，是因为本届工党政府承诺自冷战结束以来最大幅度的持续国防开支增长：到2027年达到GDP的2.6%，到2035年达到3.5%，与我们的北约盟国一道。”

这位部长称，挪威最近签署的价值 135 亿美元的协议，根据该协议，挪威将购买英国制造的用于反潜作战的军舰，这是“我们历史上最大的军舰交易”。

他还表示，英国政府“新成立的国防出口办公室将国防出口的责任重新交还给国防部，并建立了一个反映我们盟友和行业需求的政府间出口结构。”

波拉德于9月6日被任命为现任职务，接替玛丽亚·伊格尔。此前，他曾担任国防部政务次官。2024年7月，他代表执政党工党当选为普利茅斯、萨顿和德文波特选区的国会议员。

Jaroslaw Adamowski 是《防务新闻》驻波兰记者。