Sir Keir Starmer will pledge to buy more attack submarines and put the military on a war footing as part of a major defence review – but without making any new spending promises.

The lack of extra cash meant the prime minister was coming under fire for empty rhetoric even before the blueprint for the future of the armed forces is released on Monday.

Defence Secretary John Healey was forced to clarify that while he has “no doubt” the government will lift the defence budget to 3% of national income by 2034, he does not actually have a solid commitment from the Treasury, and this remains only an “ambition”.

Sky News understands that the recommendations in the Strategic Defence Review, which is expected to spell out the importance of rebuilding national defence and resilience, require investment to rise by at least that amount.

Defence insiders say in reality, given the scale of what they see as the threat posed by hostile states such as Russia, funding should come even faster and be higher.

Donald Trump wants Washington’s NATO allies to spend 5% of GDP on their armed forces, while Mark Rutte, the head of the alliance, is pushing for 3.5% by 2032.

“The real story is that Healey didn’t get the money,” one source said.

A second source said there is a danger of the UK losing its leadership role in NATO if it fails to support any potential new 3.5% GDP spending target.

Unusually, the government released responses from Sir Keir and the defence secretary to the review hours before the country would be given a chance to scrutinise its content.

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The document, which is understood to be around 130 to 150 pages, differs from previous reviews as it has been led by external experts rather than being carried out internally.

In a statement, the government said it would commit to “a landmark shift in our deterrence and defence, moving to warfighting readiness to deter threats and strengthen security in the Euro Atlantic area”.

The prime minister will also announce the UK’s plans to buy “up to” 12 new nuclear-powered attack submarines in a partnership with Australia and the US known as AUKUS.

However, the only thing new about this is a bit more clarity on the size of the fleet.

The previous government had already committed to starting to replace the Royal Navy’s Astute-class submarines by the late 2030s with AUKUS boats.

“Sort of what we already know… repackaged into an announcement,” a defence industry source said.

And the incumbent fleet is not even fully operational yet – almost 30 years after the first order was made.

Britain’s nuclear deterrent – carried by a different type of submarine – will also be an important focus of the review.

The prime minister, for the first time, put a price tag on the cost to develop nuclear warheads for the Trident missiles that will be carried by a new fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, which are also being built.

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He said the UK is spending £15bn over this parliament on the effort.

This investment, coupled with the expansion in submarine building, will support 30,000 highly-skilled jobs across the country, according to a Ministry of Defence statement.

“From the supply lines to the front lines, this government is foursquare behind the men and women upholding our nation’s freedom and security,” the prime minister is expected to say.

“National security is the foundation of my Plan for Change, and this plan will ensure Britain is secure at home and strong abroad.

“This Strategic Defence Review will ensure the UK rises to the challenge and our Armed Forces have the equipment they need that keeps us safe at home while driving greater opportunity for our engineers, shipbuilders and technicians of the future.”

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, criticised ministers for failing to give a firm date to lift defence spending to 3% of national income.

“All of Labour’s Strategic Defence Review promises will be taken with a pinch of salt unless they can show there will actually be enough money to pay for them,” he said.

It was a sentiment echoed by the Liberal Democrats.

“Unless Labour commits to holding cross-party talks on how to reach 3% much more rapidly than the mid-2030s, this announcement risks becoming a damp squib,” said Helen Maguire, the party’s spokesperson on defence.

Organised criminal gangs are increasingly using rented houses and flats to operate illegal cannabis farms – and police say it is putting the lives of innocent neighbours at risk.

The gangs often use crude methods to bypass electricity meters to avoid paying for the high levels of energy the farms require, creating an increased fire risk.

Rival gangs also carry out raids on each other’s farms – a practice known as ‘taxing’ – carrying out “significant violence” to anyone who gets in their way, police say.

Greater Manchester Police detected 402 cannabis farms between May 2024 and April 2025, and Sky News was given access to an operation by its officers at a semi-detached house in a quiet suburban street in Wythenshawe.

Inside, officers found one room full of cannabis plants and another ‘drying room’ with the drug packaged up and ready to be distributed. The street value was estimated in the tens of thousands of pounds.

Outside, officers found evidence that the electricity meter had been bypassed. ‘Abstracting’ is the offence of dishonestly using, wasting or diverting electricity. One person inside the property was arrested.

“The electricity gets bypassed in order to avoid big electric bills,” Inspector Bree Lanyon said.

“Because a substantial amount of electric is required to run the lights, the ventilation, the heat, everything else that’s required in the cannabis farm, the abstract is done in a haphazard way and it can cause fires within the properties.”

She continued: “We’ve seen a lot of fires recently in premises that have been set up as cannabis farms, because of the way the electricity is set up. It’s not safe and the neighbouring residence could be at risk if that property is burning down.”

The risks posed by cannabis farms were highlighted by the death of seven-year-old Archie York in 2024. He was killed when chemicals being used in a cannabis factory caused an explosion in the family’s block of flats. The drug dealer responsible was jailed for 14 years.

Police say gangs employ low-level operatives, known as gardeners, to manage and protect farms, who will often plead guilty to drug offences and accept the punishment to keep police off the trail of those controlling the operation.

The use of rented properties – sometimes through rogue landlords – also makes detection more difficult.

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“The vast majority are organised crime gangs,” said Detective Inspector Paul Crompton, from GMP’s serious and organised crime group. “It infuriates me when we take action against these farms and people say ‘It’s only cannabis’.

“What we see with cannabis farms is that rival organised crime groups will actively target those and break in and take the products by force. You’ve got a risk of potentially people being kidnapped or killed without us knowing anything about them.

“Make no bones about it, there’s massive amounts of money to make and they would rather just go and take that cannabis and sell it for themselves. They’ll do significant, violence against anybody that gets in the way, whether that’s the gardener, the police or residents who might get in the way.”

Police say landlords need to be aware of the risks and even the chief executive of the British Landlords Association has fallen victim.

One of Sajjar Ahmad’s properties was badly damaged by those using it for an illegal cannabis farm. “I can only explain it as horrific,” he said.

“Our members, when they’ve experienced the problem with the cannabis farm, they are shocked. They didn’t know it could happen. They are not aware of the telltale signs.

“They have the same regrets as what I experienced – you need to carry out regular inspections and, if somebody is offering you a larger rent, then you should question that.”

Britain has “lost control” of its borders over the last five years, the defence secretary told Sky News after the highest number of migrants this year crossed the Channel.

John Healey told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips the previous Conservative government left the UK’s asylum system “in chaos” and the country with “record levels of immigration”, which his government is having to deal with.

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On Saturday, 1,194 migrants arrived in the UK on 18 small boats, government figures showed – the highest number of arrivals in a day so far this year (the previous record was 825 on a day in May).

It brings the provisional total for 2025 so far to 14,811 – the highest ever recorded for the first five months in a year and the highest total for the first six months of the year, which was previously 13,489 on 30 June last year.

2025’s total so far is 42% higher than the same point last year (10,448), and 95% up from the same point in 2023 (7,610).

The highest daily total since data began in 2018 remains at 1,305 on 3 September 2022.

On Saturday, French police watched on while people, including children, boarded small boats in the shallows of a beach in Gravelines, between Calais and Dunkirk.

Authorities were then pictured escorting the boats as they sailed off towards the UK.

Mr Healey said: “Pretty shocking, those scenes yesterday.

“Truth is, Britain’s lost control of its borders over the last five years, and the last government last year left an asylum system in chaos and record levels of immigration.”

He said it is a “really big problem” that French police are unable to intervene to intercept boats in shallow waters.

“We saw the smugglers launching elsewhere and coming around like a taxi to pick them up,” Mr Healey added.

He said the UK is pressing for the French to put new rules into operation so they can intervene.

“They’re not doing it, but for the first time for years, for the first time, we’ve got the level of cooperation needed,” Mr Healey said.

“We’ve got the agreement that they will change the way they work, and our concentration now is to push them to get that into operation so they can intercept these smugglers and stop these people in the boats, not just on the shore.”

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On Saturday, Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused Labour of having “completely lost control of our borders”.

The Home Office released figures on Thursday that revealed France is intercepting fewer Channel migrants than ever before, despite signing a £480m deal with the UK to stop the crossings.

This year, French police have prevented just over 38% (8,347) of asylum seekers from reaching the UK in small boats, with 13,167 having made the journey successfully.

They stopped an estimated 45% last year and 47% in 2023.