UK Defence Committee Report: Assessing the UK's Defence Posture, Industrial Base, and Contribution to European Security

Key Chapter Title List

1. Introduction and Background
2. Recent European Defense
3. Reforming the UK Defense Industrial Base
4. Defending the Homeland
5. Conclusions and Recommendations
6. NATO Priority
7. Integrated Air and Missile Defense
8. Small Multilateral and Bilateral Engagement
9. Joint Expeditionary Force
10. UK-EU Relations
11. Current State of the Industrial Base
12. Persistent Concerns

Document Overview

This report is the sixth formal report (HC 520) released by the UK House of Commons Defence Committee in November 2025, aiming to comprehensively examine the UK's contributions, capabilities, and challenges within the current European security environment. Based on a special investigation launched in December 2024, the report draws on evidence from 7 hearings, as well as field visits to Estonia, Finland, France, Ukraine, and the United States, and visits to multiple NATO command structures. It seeks to assess the UK's strategic positioning and practical effectiveness as a major European military power in the context of the geopolitical landscape reshaped by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The main structure of the report revolves around three core dimensions. First, it provides an in-depth analysis of the UK's direct contributions to European collective security, focusing on the implementation of its NATO-first policy, its leadership in small multilateral mechanisms such as the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), and the progress and obstacles in post-Brexit security and defense partnership with the EU. The report clearly states that despite the UK's claims of leadership, the size of its armed forces (lacking in quality), its failure to meet NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) capability targets on time, and its failure to fulfill commitments under Article 3 of the Washington Treaty regarding developing individual and collective capacity to resist attack, are severely undermining its credibility and influence. Furthermore, the report expresses serious concern over Europe's heavy reliance on US capabilities in critical areas such as Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD).

Secondly, the report dedicates significant space to analyzing the deep-seated structural crisis within the UK's defense industrial base. Evidence indicates that the industrial base faces multiple challenges in terms of production capacity, skills, innovation speed, procurement processes, and financing channels, and is not prepared for sustained collective defense. Although the government has published the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) and appointed a National Armaments Director, the committee remains cautious about the effectiveness of the current reform agenda due to a history of insufficient implementation of past strategies. The report specifically highlights issues such as excessively long security clearance times, defense inflation risks, financing difficulties for SMEs, and supply chain vulnerabilities. It warns that without a substantial increase in industrial capacity, new defense investments may be consumed by inflation and fail to translate into actual combat power.

Finally, the report strongly criticizes the UK's serious lag in homeland defense and national resilience preparedness. The committee found that progress on the Homeland Defence Plan, intended to fulfill NATO Article 3 obligations, is slow, its content is kept secret from the public, and there is a lack of effective communication with the public and industry. The specific content and timeline of the proposed Defence Readiness Act remain unclear, and coordination between departments such as the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence appears insufficient. Citing Finland's whole-of-society security model for comparison, the report emphasizes that in the current context of direct threats from grey-zone attacks, sabotage, and espionage, building a transparent, whole-of-society defense and resilience system is an urgent imperative.

Overall, this report is an authoritative policy assessment based on detailed evidence. It not only outlines the gap between the UK's capabilities and ambitions in responding to the European security crisis but also sharply points out a series of systemic shortcomings, from industrial mobilization to citizen preparedness. Its conclusions and recommendations provide a crucial basis for understanding the internal debates and future direction of UK defense policy in the post-Ukraine war era.