The UK lacks a plan to defend itself from military attack, a committee of MPs has warned.

In a highly critical report, the defence committee says the UK is over-reliant on US resources and that preparations to defend itself and overseas territories in the event of attack are “nowhere near” where they need to be.

The committee’s chair, Labour MP Tan Dhesi, said: “Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, unrelenting disinformation campaigns, and repeated incursions into European airspace mean that we cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand.”

It comes as the Ministry of Defence (MoD) identified parts of the country where six or more new munitions factories could be built.

In June, Defence Secretary John Healey announced plans to move the UK to “war-fighting readiness,” including £1.5bn to support the construction of new munitions factories, which will be built by private contractors.

The government wants the UK to have an “always on” munitions production capacity that can be scaled up quickly.

In a speech on Wednesday, Healey will confirm plans to restart the production of energetics – explosives, pyrotechnics and propellants – in the UK.

For the past two decades, the MoD has sourced these materials from abroad.

Healey will say at least 1,000 new jobs will be created as the UK scales up munitions production.

The government wants at least six new factories to be operational by the next election in 2029, and hopes work will begin on the first of these next year.

The MoD is scoping out 13 sites where it believes the new factories could be built and has named the areas of the UK where they are located.

There are three potential sites in Scotland – in Dumfriesshire, Ayrshire and at Grangemouth, in Stirlingshire.

In England, a total of eight sites have been earmarked – in Teesside, Cumbria, Shropshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Worcestershire and Hampshire – and there are two in Wales – in Monmouthshire and Milford Haven, in Pembrokeshire.

Healey will also announce the opening of two new drone factories this week in Plymouth and Swindon.

“We are making defence an engine for growth, unambiguously backing British jobs and British skills as we make the UK better ready to fight and better able to deter future conflicts,” the defence secretary will say.

“This is the path that delivers national and economic security.”

The government announced earlier this year that UK defence spending would rise to 3% of GDP by 2034 at the latest.

But the defence committee has warned that the UK and its European Nato allies remain too reliant on the US and are not spending enough on their own defences.

“We are therefore calling on the government to assess where the UK can replace US capabilities in the event of them being withdrawn,” Dhesi said.

“Accelerating the speed of industrial change is essential, and readiness must be at the top of this government’s agenda.”

He said the committee had “repeatedly heard concerns about the UK’s ability to defend itself from attack”.

It is calling on the government to urgently strengthen the UK’s conventional and nuclear capabilities and improve joint working with Nato allies.

It is particularly critical of what it calls the “glacial pace” of promised improvements to civil defence and resilience, saying the UK may be failing to meet its Nato Article 3 obligations to “maintain and develop individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”.

Dhesi says the government also needs to deliver on its promise to better communicate with the public about “the level of threat we face and what to expect in the event of conflict”.

“Wars aren’t won just by generals, but by the whole of the population getting behind the Armed Forces and playing our part,” he added.