In his first major defence industry speech, Wes Streeting used the Farnborough platform to lay out the sharpest ministerial statement yet on autonomous combat air, procurement reform and the role of defence as an engine of national reindustrialisation.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting delivered his first keynote speech to the defence industry at the AGF Defence Summit at Farnborough International Airshow, setting out a vision for UK air power that places autonomous systems, industrial partnership and procurement reform at the centre of defence policy – and challenging industry to match the pace government says it is now committed to moving at.
Streeting opened by framing the investment case in stark operational terms. The skies above modern battlefields, he said, are increasingly contested, complex and lethal. Air dominance is no longer a given. The lessons of Ukraine – where neither side has achieved air supremacy, resulting in casualties north of one million on a front line that has barely shifted – and the Middle East, where even achieved air supremacy has not prevented widespread disruption from low-cost drone and missile attacks, provide the operational context against which the UK’s £298 billion, four-year defence commitment must be understood. Investment without that context, he suggested, is simply numbers. Investment with it is strategic necessity.
The centrepiece of the speech for industry was StormFighter, the UK’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft programme. Streeting confirmed that the government’s ambition is to have a demonstrator CCA flying within the next year and StormFighter operational by the end of the decade, with the full production line expected to support 2,000 jobs. The programme’s commercial potential was framed explicitly: the global CCA sector is projected to be valued at more than £125 billion to 2050, and Streeting was direct about his expectation that the UK would excel within it. The morning’s unveiling of BAE Systems’ Brontanax – the UK’s first sovereign CCA – was cited as evidence of the industrial depth already in place to realise that ambition.
On procurement reform, Streeting offered the most concrete benchmark yet for what the government means by moving at pace. A new precision weapon system capable of defeating drones at a fraction of the cost of current interceptors was integrated onto Typhoon in just 42 days from start to finish. That timeline, he said, is where the MoD needs to be across the piece. The contrast with conventional procurement cycles – measured in years rather than weeks – was pointed and intentional. Working through the Defence Industrial Joint Council, Streeting said he would direct the department to take a new approach to risk, accepting that not every decision will come off but framing delay and inaction as the greater threat in a fast-moving operational environment.
The broader industrial mission was threaded throughout. Streeting explicitly aligned defence investment with the Prime Minister’s reindustrialisation agenda, describing defence not as a recipient of the proceeds of economic growth but as a central contributor to building it – a driver of prosperity in parts of the country that are, in his words, crying out for backing. The air sector alone employs 70,000 people in the UK. FCAS has more than 4,500 workers developing integrated combat air systems, uncrewed platforms, advanced weapons, sensors and secure data networks across the country. The £708 million contract extension with BAE Systems confirmed on the day of the speech, and the £8.6 billion committed to GCAP in the Defence Investment Plan, were cited as concrete expressions of that commitment – as was the news that Canada has joined GCAP as an observer alongside the UK, Italy and Japan.
Streeting was also emphatic that investment and modernisation must go together. Drawing on his experience as Health Secretary – where he said record investment combined with bold reform delivered the biggest reduction in NHS waiting times in 17 years – he framed the same logic as his approach to defence: modernisation without investment is impractical, but investment without modernisation is irresponsible. The implication for industry was clear. The money is committed, the demand signal is real, but the expectation in return is that the sector moves differently – faster, more flexibly and with greater appetite for managed risk.
For the UK defence supply chain
Streeting’s speech at Farnborough was notable not just for its content but for its tone. A Defence Secretary on day two of the job choosing to lead with a direct, commercially frank address to industry – referencing 42-day procurement turnarounds, a £125 billion global CCA market and a personal commitment to change the way the MoD does business – sends a signal about both priority and pace. For supply chain businesses, the message is consistent with everything heard across the week at Farnborough: the investment is real, the programmes are accelerating and the window for early positioning is now.
These themes are central to the agenda at the DPRTE UK National Defence Procurement and Supply Chain Summit, taking place on 22 October 2026 at the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel, Manchester.
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