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The National Wealth Fund in the UK will not have a defense industry as one of its priority sectors, despite the government’s efforts to speed up the inverting efforts.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves On Wednesday, it is that it wants a government vehicle, which will have a budget of around £ 28 billion by the end of the current parliament, consider investments in “double -use technologies” and increase “supply resistance” in support of defense and security in the UK.
But by setting up his strategy for John Flint, the NWF Executive Director, the treasury did not list the defense as one of the hands of key sectors to which it should concentrate directly. Instead, the Ministry of Finance called Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Digital Technologies and Transport.
The decision comes even when the UK seeks to increase military consumption as European countries are undergoing increasing pressure from US President Donald Trump to reinforce his own efforts in defense on the eve of NATO’s summit later this year.
Britain finances an increase in defense costs from 2.3 to 2.5 percent of GDP through a budget reduction for help, but Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer indicated that he wanted to increase consumption to 3 percent of GDP.
In an interview with The Sunday Times this month, Reeves said she thought NWF could do more on “strengthening security and defense”.
She added: “It is obviously important for us to use the money in the private sector as well as public consumption, but if we spend billions of billions on defense every year, I want to see that they create good jobs, paying decent salaries in the UK.”
The treasury announced on Wednesday that it wanted to help direct investment in the industry to which the defense sector relied, advanced technology for production and digital and double use. Dual use technologies are those that can be used in civil and military applications.
Asked about the role of defense, the treasury said in a statement that “NWF can directly invest in defense projects”.
The Ministry of Finance Strategy said: “The NWF should consider the role he can play in providing wider industrial strategies, including in defense, life science and creative industry; and infrastructure strategy, including in the water and waste sectors.”
In their electoral manifestation, the Labor promised to establish a new freestanding fund for wealth for investment in areas such as Green Steel and Gigafactory, with £ 7.3 billion in new funds.
But in October last year Reeves left the planAn announcement that the existing British infrastructure bank will be renamed NWF and received an additional £ 5.8 billion, about £ 1.5 billion less than it was originally proposed.
Speaking on Wednesday, Reeves said: “I am determined to go further and faster to divide our economy. By directing tens of billions of pounds in the UK industrial forces, in every corner of the country we will deliver highly qualified, highly paid jobs of the future.”
