UK invests £8.4bn in Dreadnought nuclear submarines as Burnham ties defence to jobs

The announcement

Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited the BAE Systems yard at Barrow-in-Furness on Thursday to confirm £8.4 billion for the fourth phase of the Dreadnought-class nuclear submarine programme. The four boats are being built under a £5.9 billion contract with BAE Systems, with the remainder of the sum allocated to the supply chain. The spending was already planned and appeared in the Defence Investment Plan published in the final days of Sir Keir Starmer's government. It forms part of a wider £63.6 billion four-year package for the Defence Nuclear Enterprise, which also covers maintaining the existing Vanguard fleet, starting work on a future submarine class, and upgrading naval docks and manufacturing facilities.

Security is not only about what we build, it is about who builds it, and who benefits from it.

What the submarines replace

The Dreadnought-class vessels will take over from the four Vanguard-class submarines that have carried Trident nuclear missiles since 1992. The Vanguards are due to retire in the 2030s, with the Dreadnoughts scheduled to enter service at the same time. The project was first announced in 2006 by then prime minister Tony Blair, and MPs formally approved construction a decade later, in 2016. Thursday's announcement marks the start of what officials call the fourth phase of a programme that has already taken 20 years to reach this point.

Jobs and reindustrialisation

Burnham used the visit to stress the economic dividend of defence spending. The government says the nuclear deterrent currently supports around 47,000 British jobs, a figure forecast to climb to 65,000 by 2030, with 22,000 apprenticeships expected by 2035. The prime minister linked the investment directly to his domestic agenda of reducing the number of young people not in employment, education or training.

The submarines produced in Barrow will protect Britain for decades to come, and the 47,000 jobs and apprenticeships will change lives both in this town and in dozens of places like it. British money, spent on British workers, British firms and British skills, in the places that were written off for 40 years.

Political and fiscal pressures

The announcement arrives amid persistent questions over how the government will honour its pledge to meet the NATO target of spending 3.5% of national income on defence by 2035, plus a further 3% for auxiliary investments. John Healey, who resigned as defence secretary under Starmer precisely because of frustration over the absence of a clear timeline for that target, is now Chancellor and must find the extra money. Conservative shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge welcomed progress on the submarine programme but accused Burnham of "failing to commit" to fully funding defence.

The nuclear burden

Maintaining the deterrent already consumes between 20 and 25 per cent of the UK defence budget, according to the Ministry of Defence's recent Defence Investment Plan. By comparison, the United States spends about 8 per cent of its defence budget on nuclear weapons, and France 13 per cent. The UK also remains uniquely dependent on another power for the long-term viability of its nuclear forces, relying on American missile and reactor technology. Restoring infrastructure and skills neglected since the end of the Cold War will, the New Statesman notes, require a national effort on a scale not seen for decades.