Read GGF Director Praful Nargund’s Speech on Defence

GGF Director Praful Nargund gave a speech on defence Tuesday 19 May 2026.

Good evening everyone, thank you very much for being here. A special thank you to Evie Aspinall and the British Foreign Policy Group for sponsoring.

I think we can all agree that we are meeting here today at a moment of real turbulence - I’m talking geopolitical, of course.

But in all seriousness, we should not take our eye off the fact that, whatever is happening in Westminster, there is an even greater level of instability in the world at large. 

The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Ukraine faces continuous assault. Our ally across the Atlantic is, I think it’s fair to say, not as reliable as it once was. Cyber attacks hit our hospitals, our businesses and vulnerable people across the country every day.

Britain stands in the middle of it all.

If there were ever a time to put our defence and our security first, it is now.

Because we are under threat. 

Just a few weeks ago, the threat level was raised to severe. 

Most voters are more worried about Britain's defence and security now than they were a decade ago. 

But when you ask the public to rank defence spending against other priorities, it still comes near the bottom. Far behind the NHS, the economy and immigration. 

Britain’s defence settlement is politically fragile.

That is because the problems voters worry most about - a cost of living crisis that has taken away people’s choices; a precarious economy; the sense that they no longer can shape their own future - these things do not naturally point to defence as the answer.

But the reality is, in this new era, economic security and our national security are inseparable. They are two sides of the same coin.

But, the current structure of our defence industry and our defence spending is not optimised for building resilience.

Too often, money flows overseas rather than staying in Britain. 

Too often, small and medium businesses are locked out of defence contracts while primes hold the keys. 

And when that happens, we lose our competitive edge. The innovators that could build the next generation of sovereign capability are left to fall by the wayside. 

So the question is: how can we build a defence settlement that protects our national security and backs British businesses, and builds British capability?

From our research, and the report we released yesterday - I’m sure you’re desperate to read it, you’ve got the handouts on your seats - we know the answer is to bring defence home. 

The pounds we spend on national security have to do double the work.

At the heart of that is British business.

Right now, when major contracts go overseas, too much of the money goes with them. 

So we propose an offsetting scheme, ensuring that when overseas companies are awarded contracts, the returns come back to Britain.

What’s more, we propose scoring primes on their behaviour - a model that already has a precedent in the States -

- and cracking down on late payments, to create a playing field where SMEs can succeed.

Because it is SMEs who build our domestic supply chains.

It is SMEs who develop the capabilities on which genuine sovereign resilience depends.

SMEs are the beating heart of the British economy, from which new ideas can flow outward.

By backing them - that is how you turn a small business in a steady state into a scale-up and into a unicorn. It is how you turn today’s workshop into tomorrow’s world leading manufacturer.

You can see the potential everywhere: in Barrow-in-Furness and the Clyde, where shipbuilding still sustains communities; in Warton and Samlesbury in Lancashire, where aerospace is world-class; in the North East, the South West, the East of England and the West Midlands, where thousands of well-paid defence and security jobs already anchor local economies.

Britain can and should be growing the next generation of world-class defence companies from its own base of entrepreneurs. Because if you have an idea that can make a difference, Britain should be the place where you know, you will be backed.

That is why we propose creating a Defence Bank, to drive investment and underwrite innovation. Breaking down that wall between start-up and commercial scale. 

Bringing defence home means bringing opportunity home. It means giving people choice back in their lives, so they can once again shape their own futures, take risks and build successful businesses from the ground up.

But all of this - rebuilding supply chains, growing our defence base - is for nothing if those businesses can be knocked out overnight by a cyber attack.

Cyber is no longer a peripheral threat; it is the frontline people are already facing.

That is why we must build local cyber resilience across the country.

Because if we do not harden our cyber defences, the very foundations of our economic and national security will remain exposed.

This is how Britain rebuilds its sovereign capability, its industrial base, and, critically, a defence settlement that lasts.

The Secretary of State is right when he says Britain should be “the best place in the world to invest and grow a defence business”.

So it is an absolute pleasure to have a Defence Secretary here with us today who sees that bringing defence home -

whether to our workforce, to our industries and to our communities - 

is not a “nice to have”, but is the way to build lasting security in a more dangerous world.

Please join me in welcoming the Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey.