Ex MI6 Chief On The Future of UK Defence

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we look at the future of defence for the UK, ahead of a major strategic defence review from the government.

Defence Secretary John Healey has said there is "no doubt" that UK defence spending will rise to 3% of GDP by 2034.

Sir Alex Younger, former head of MI6, joins Laura and Paddy to talk about where the threats are, and what it should be spent on.

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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Laura Kuenssberg and Paddy O’Connell. It was made by Chris Flynn with Rufus Gray. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The weekend series producer is Chris Flynn. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:04.8	Hello, Paddy.
0:05.7	Laura, hello.
0:06.5	Hello, how are you?
0:07.5	Very well. I've been interviewing Bjorn from Abba.
0:11.3	Oh, that's fun. What did Bjorn from Abba have to say?
0:13.9	He wanted to pay tribute to his sound engineer who was on all the early work, who's unfortunately died at the age of 80.
0:21.2	Well, that's sad news.
0:22.2	Well, he said it was sad, but then he said he was full of joy.
0:24.7	He made the job of making Abba joy.
0:26.8	And one of the reasons that they decided to split was when the joy went.
0:30.4	Did he say thank you for the music?
0:31.6	He did say thank you for the music.
0:33.4	But a different topic today, we're talking about a massive, mahusive, giant subject, the subject of defence, not just because it's incredibly important.
0:41.3	Foreign relations have been so much of the political conversation for a long time, haven't they?
0:44.9	But also on Monday, the government's publishing.
0:47.1	It's long-awaited, as these things always are, defence review.
0:51.0	And today I've been with John Healy, the Defence Secretary, in a missile factory.
0:55.2	Wow. Did you have to wear goggles? I had to wear a white coat. I didn't have to wear
0:59.1	goggles. But did you know, they make missiles by hand. Did you know that? I certainly did not.
1:04.2	I was stunned by that. I mean, obviously not all the bits and widgets are made by hand, but they
1:07.8	put them together by hand, which was very, very, really struck me, I suppose, like most people, had never really stopped to think about it before,
	...

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