The Ministry of Defence will set up a new council to “build long-term, trusting partnerships between business and government”.
The plans for a Defence Industrial Joint Council have been announced in a “statement of intent” document published this morning which sets out the approach the Ministry of Defence will follow in developing its new defence industrial strategy.
The DIJC will have a broader membership than the current Defence Suppliers Forum, which it will replace. While continuing to involve the largest defence companies, it will also bring in wider participation from the tech sector, SMEs, universities, further education, and relevant trade unions.
The “statement of intent” document says research shows that successful sectoral industrial strategies need active institutions at national, regional and micro-scale.
It also says that the previous government’s decision to scrap its national Industrial Strategy Council meant that the most recent defence industrial strategy, published in 2021, “lacked a wider framework”. As a result, it says the Defence Suppliers Forum only signed a formal “Aims and Objectives agreement” with government in October 2023, and progress against those aims is “slow”.
The DIJC will aim to “improve decision making and productivity by sharing information between market participants and government; by overcoming coordination issues; by shaping public-private investment strategies; and by involving all relevant stakeholders in the collective endeavour of national defence”, the document states.
It will also play a key role in the development and implementation of the new defence industrial strategy, a Labour manifesto commitment.
The strategy will set out current challenges in the sector, areas of UK strength and growth opportunities, the UK's long-term ambition for the UK’s defence industry, and tangible outcomes it wants the sector to achieve, the document adds.
The "statement of intent" document says the strategy will focus on six priorities: prioritising UK businesses; creating partnerships, certainty and stability; seizing the future; spreading prosperity; and detterance. The document also highlights seven "problems" that will need to be "fixed", which include strategic incoherence, inefficient spending and the lack of a national skills strategy.
The strategy will also lay out how it aligns with the government-wide industrial strategy, which the business department is currently consulting on and which will include defence as one of eight growth sectors the government will focus on.
Announcing the beginning of the process to create the defence industrial strategy, defence secretary John Healey said: “Our defence sector should be an engine for jobs and growth, strengthening our security and economy. That requires a defence industry that is better and more integrated – one that can keep our Armed Forces equipped, innovating at a wartime pace, and ahead of our adversaries.
“We will develop this new defence industrial strategy with industry, with innovators and with workers. We will mobilise the private sector to help face down global threats, direct more public investment to British businesses and create jobs and growth in every nation and region of the UK.
“National security is the foundation for national stability and growth. We are sending a signal to the market and to our adversaries: with a strong UK defence sector we will make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.”
The strategy will align with the Strategic Defence Review, with both due to be published in the first half of 2025. The government has also said it will set out a clear path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence in the spring, another manifesto commitment.