Should the government spend an extra £15bn on defence from 2026 to 2030?

The chamber backed the government's £15bn defence uplift comfortably, 63 to 37, a solid if not overwhelming mandate on a question that usually splits opinion along generational lines about where the state's money should go.

That generational fault line is exactly what shows up here. The 25-34 bracket was the only group to reject the spending, splitting almost evenly (9 yes/10 no), while approval climbed with every age band above it, peaking at 80% among the small cohort of over-65s and 75% among 55-64s — the classic pattern of older voters prioritising hard security over domestic spending trade-offs.

Gender told a gentler version of the same story: women backed the increase more strongly than men (68% to 61%), cutting against the old stereotype of defence as a male preoccupation, though the gap is modest next to the age divide. Together the numbers suggest this was less a culture-war vote than a life-stage one — those furthest from the labour market and closest to memories of Cold War-era defence budgets most willing to pay for it now.

For a policy announced in Parliament with little public fanfare, the verdict here reads as quiet acceptance rather than enthusiasm — a majority persuaded, but younger working-age Britain still needing convincing.