Pretty much the UK is fiddling the books to make our defence spending appear much larger than it is, anything that can in any way tangentially be related to defence has been called defence spending.

Also the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier project has been extremely expensive, these are by far the largest ships the RN has ever had, and as our shipbuilding industry has gone to shit since the eighties, a lot of money has been spent on the infrastructure required to build these things.

Im a Marine engineer, literally as I type this we are dredging a channel in Rosyth, round the clock 24 hours a day to allow her to actually get out the harbour on her sea trails in a month or so, the lock gate has had to be extended.

There will be extensive work going on at Portsmouth so she can get in there on a low tide, and more so she can get alongside.

Huge numbers of apprentices were taken on for the project, its a huge thing and done a lot for the industry out side the navy, but this is all defence spending that doesn't directly translate into fighting power, but a much needed investment in our maritime infrastructure.