Wes Streeting said overseas suppliers winning UK defence contracts will have to invest in the country an amount equivalent to the value of their contracts.
The policy represents a new requirement for foreign firms bidding on defence work. Streeting did not provide details on how the investment requirement would be enforced or measured.
The announcement came as Chancellor John Healey delivered his first budget. The Institute for Fiscal Studies and Resolution Foundation offered negative assessments of the overall budget, citing concerns about economic conditions and deferred fiscal choices. However, they were less critical of specific decisions Healey announced.
Public response differed from think tank assessments. A YouGov poll found 45 percent of Britons regarded the budget as fair, compared with 20 percent who saw it as unfair. This marks an improvement from Rachel Reeves' second budget last year, when 48 percent called it unfair versus 21 percent calling it fair. According to the data, only George Osborne's first budget in 2010 and Rishi Sunak's Covid budgets in 2020 and March 2021 received higher fairness ratings of 50 to 55 percent.