The Shadow Defence Secretary has blasted “woke rules” inhibiting Britain’s development in defence amid a heightened threat from Russia.

Joining GBN Breakfast with Stephen Dixon and Ellie Costello, James Cartlidge set out the Tories’ £50billion pledge to fund drone procurement for the Armed Forces.

The funds will go “more importantly” to an industrial base to produce the devices, rather than allowing the Government to depend on Chinese production.

Mr Cartlidge told GB News: “I’ve been out meeting drone companies around the UK. First of all, they’re not getting the orders, but in particular they are trying to remove Chinese content.

“They know that if we get to a more difficult military situation, the pressure will be on our supply chain.”

The pledge comes amid the rising threat from Moscow after Vladimir Putin announced his Oreshnik missile system would be stationed in Belarus within the next two weeks.

Russian state media has claimed the nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic weapon could reach London within a mere eight minutes.

On the Conservative pledge, Mr Cartlidge outlined how the private investment was necessary after “being held back by a lot of woke rules”.

The Tory MP was referring to Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria (ESGs) applied to the defence industry, which are often cited as an inhibitor to the sector’s growth.

Yet, a report from think tank Royal United Services Institute refuted such claims and further argued that such rules and investment approaches are not stunting wider growth.

It reads: “ESG disclosure and labelling regimes, as well as many investors’ own ESG investment approaches, generally do not preclude financing and investment in defence and have little impact on the defence industry’s access to capital.

“Some fund managers have implemented defence-specific exclusions in the funds they manage and brand as sustainable. But such exclusions of entire sectors are not mandated by ESG rules.

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“This paper concludes that ESG regulatory requirements and ESG-related concerns have only a limited impact on investment in defence and the defence industry’s access to financial services.”

But the Tories have vowed to axe “nonsense” research grants to boost Britain’s “war readiness”, throwing “vanity” schemes out the window.

Asked where they would source the funding to give the defence sector such a large boost, Mr Cartlidge said: “First of all, we would move £2billion a year of research and development from other Government departments into defence.

“That would enable the MoD to procure these drones at a much greater scale than currently.

“And of course, most crucially, as you’ll know from Ukraine to continuously adapt them. So the Army, the Navy, Air Force can train with them right across the breadth of the Armed Forces.

“At the same time, £11billion that is currently sitting in the National Wealth Fund for net zero and other expensive schemes would be ringfenced for defence.

“And that fund is deliberately there to partner with the private sector, because if we want to transform our industrial base, we’ve got to bring in private enterprise in a big way.

“It’s very ambitious.”

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