Ready money: The Budget must resource Britain’s readiness beyond rhetoric 

By Professor Harry Pitts and Professor Frances Tammer, from the University of Exeter’s Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence & Security 

The Autumn Budget tomorrow, Wednesday 28th October, will provide an immediate test of whether the government is prepared to put money behind its new public message on readiness. The Be Ready campaign appeared only six days earlier as the first public-facing strand of the still-to-be-launched National Conversation on its whole-of-society and homeland-defence approach, but with no dedicated funding attached.  

The government is expected to identify the remaining £4.7 billion in its £15 billion Defence Investment Plan settlement, while reports suggest further investment could be channelled through the National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank to British defence, drone and military-technology companies. Longer-term decisions may still be deferred to the next Spending Review. The immediate question is whether the Budget begins to match the rhetoric with resources on defence, security and resilience. 

This is not simply a question of conventional military capability. NATO’s new 5 per cent commitment comprises at least 3.5 per cent of GDP for core defence and up to a further 1.5 per cent for broader Article 3 investment, including critical infrastructure, networks, civil preparedness, resilience, innovation and the defence industrial base. Recent work by the Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence & Security (CPUDS) suggests that Article 3 requires a financial reckoning. Preparedness duties, especially at a regional level where threats are experienced and addressed, will remain purely theoretical if finance is not committed to implementation.  

Priorities in this respect include cyber capability, undersea cables and other critical infrastructure, naval and surveillance assets, industrial capacity, regional risk mapping, multi-agency exercising, secure information-sharing and strategic communications. Already announced investments in cyber capabilities and the identification of infrastructure vulnerabilities are relevant steps. However, the Budget must clarify how much of what is committed to defence, security and resilience is genuinely new money and whether these measures form part of a coherent programme of national readiness. 

But there is also a wider effort of education and engagement required. In this respect, the Cabinet Office’s updated Be Ready campaign is welcome but underwhelming. It has taken nearly eighteen months since the Strategic Defence Review endorsed a whole-of-society approach to produce a more visible public initiative, although the website updates guidance first launched in 2024. Deborah Haynes reports that no minister had originally been scheduled to unveil it, and that the Defence Secretary disclosed it only when questioned by Sky. A website update does not match the scale of the government’s stated ambition. This remains an early step towards the promised national conversation; the question is whether conversation will now be supported by action. 

The advice itself is sensible. It addresses threats ranging from severe weather and wildfires to cyberattacks and hostile acts, asking households to keep three days’ worth of food, water, medication, cash, lighting, radio and backup power. The purpose is to help people manage while assistance is directed towards those most in need. Other European countries go further: the Netherlands has delivered guidance to every household, while Baltic and Nordic governments reinforce public advice through conscription, larger reserves and opportunities for voluntary training. The real distinction is not simply between forms of communication, but between issuing advice and creating structures through which citizens can participate in national resilience and defence. 

It is also unclear whether the campaign has reached households across the country. Cabinet Office and Defra polling suggests that ultimately 82% of the  public is looking to the Government to lead on preparedness. Further public polling should establish where it has resonated, followed by targeted communication through civil-society and neighbourhood organisations and age-appropriate social media. Preparedness should not mean leaving individuals to fend for themselves, but enabling communities to participate in the country’s protection.  

A new CPUDS paper, Putting Homeland Defence in its Place, argues for a nationally coordinated but regionally delivered programme. Central government should provide the resources, while regional partnerships map dependencies, convene organisations, run exercises and translate national objectives into capability suited to different places. The national conversation must combine education and engagement with action – but this requires investment. A national readiness strategy will only work if central government provides regions with the resources to turn national objectives into local capability. 

Properly funded, readiness can also support a wider project of industrial and national renewal. The Defence Secretary drew attention to Be Ready while opening Rheinmetall’s new Telford facility, which has restored British production of tank and artillery barrels after two decades – what he called “rapid reindustrialisation in action”. The setting illustrates how household preparedness, sovereign industrial capability and place-based renewal can form parts of the same national project. 

The government envisages a three-year programme of public engagement, intended both to build preparedness at home and to signal that Britain can withstand threats from its adversaries. The advice is sensible and the public should heed it. But a three-year conversation will be too slow if it is not accompanied now by investment in the military, industrial, civic and regional capabilities on which genuine preparedness depends. Wednesday’s Budget will show whether Be Ready marks the beginning of a funded programme of national resilience or remains principally a communications campaign.