The expected next UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, will have to find an additional £4.7 billion to close a defence funding gap, either through deeper spending cuts or higher taxes. This comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a long-delayed defence plan aimed at making Britain’s depleted armed forces war-ready amid rising security threats and warnings that Russia could attack a NATO member as soon as 2030.
Defence Plan Criticized
The plan’s commitment to spend an additional £15 billion came under scrutiny within hours of its release after accompanying documents showed that a third of the funding still needed to be found in a budget later this year. Luke Pollard, minister of defence procurement, stated that it’s not unusual for governments to make announcements and then complete the details at the next budget.
The plan was also criticized by opposition politicians and former military chiefs for failing to set out when defence spending would reach 3% of GDP, on the way to meeting Britain’s NATO commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP by 2035. Starmer defended the costings, saying much of the additional funding would come from reallocating spending from other government departments.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
