Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to quickly lift defence spending to 2.5% of GDP or face new military cuts this year – even as he considers deploying troops to Ukraine, Sky News understands.

Defence sources said such an increase – which would amount to about an extra £5bn annually – is still far short of what is required to rebuild and transform the armed forces, stressing that an ultimate hike to at least 3% of national income would be necessary.

But the sources said a rapid rise in investment to the government’s promised target of 2.5% of GDP, from 2.3% at present, should prevent new swingeing reductions in capabilities – just as Donald Trump orders European militaries to be stronger.

“The truth is there needs to be more money now or else prepare for further cuts,” said one military insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A second defence source said: “We know the government is in a difficult financial position. But getting to 2.5% sooner rather than later would be enormously beneficial for their relationship with the new US administration, and the UK’s leadership role within NATO.”

The prime minister has pledged to set a path to investing 2.5% of GDP on defence but he has yet to say when this commitment will be announced, let alone by what date the target will be met.

Defence sources said they believe the Treasury wants to push the timeline out to the very end of this parliament – a delay that would leave the armed forces to “wither on the vine”.

“It is just not serious,” said a third defence source, sounding exasperated.

The UK position on defence spending came into sharp focus last week as European allies reeled from a barrage of criticism by the new Trump administration for their over-reliance on the US to defend Europe and support Ukraine.

Britain – a nuclear power – presents itself as the strongest European military within the NATO alliance and boasts of a special relationship with the US.

Yet, Sir Keir has stuck with his 2.5% target even as Mr Trump calls on allies to boost defence expenditure to 5% and take on a much greater responsibility for security in Europe.

Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, says the goal for all 32 allies should be “north of 3%”.

The reality of Europe’s weakness on defence has been brutally exposed by Mr Trump’s approach to ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, with the president sidelining the UK, the Europeans and Kyiv.

US envoys are due to meet Russian officials in Saudi Arabia on Monday as France’s president hastily convenes a meeting of European leaders, including Sir Keir, in Paris.

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But, given the hollowed-out state of the UK armed forces, an announcement by the prime minister that he was considering sending British soldiers to Ukraine to help secure the peace as part of any ceasefire deal raised eyebrows within defence circles.

One insider questioned how Mr Starmer could propose such a challenging deployment without explaining how he was going to fill the army’s gaping gaps in weapons and manpower.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said any international security force of British and other foreign troops would need to be about 110,000-strong.

The UK would struggle to sustain a deployment of several thousand soldiers for any enduring length of time and would have to give up other commitments, such as a battlegroup of around 900 military personnel based in Estonia on a NATO mission to deter Russian aggression.

With defence matters in focus, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the armed forces, and his fellow chiefs met with Sir Keir on Friday to talk to him about military capabilities.

It is highly unusual for such a meeting to take place and signals a desire by the prime minister to understand the thinking of his top brass.

The meeting came as an external team of experts, led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and former secretary general of NATO, was putting the finishing touches to a sweeping review of defence that the government has said will be published this spring.

The reviewers were tasked with setting out how to transform the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force to meet future threats, but their ability to deliver has been constrained from the start by Downing Street saying this must be achieved within a defence spending target of 2.5% of GDP.

A government spokesperson said any suggestion the prime minister was considering raising defence spending beyond 2.5% “is purely speculation”.

The spokesperson said: “The Strategic Defence Review is wide-ranging, ensuring we look hard at the threats we face and the capabilities we need to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. As we have consistently said, the review will be published in the spring.

“To ensure the UK is prepared to deal with the changing threat, our budget increased defence spending by £2.9bn for next year and we are committed to setting a path to 2.5% of GDP on defence.”

Tories trail Reform UK on a range of key indicators according to an exclusive new YouGov poll for Sky News that reveals Nigel Farage’s party now has the potential to reach as much of the electorate as the party run by Kemi Badenoch. 

Detailed comparisons of voter opinion towards the Tories and Reform UK reveal that profound damage to the Tory brand is still evident, while the figures suggest that the new challenger party which has topped recent voting intention polls has the capacity to perform at least as well.

This brand testing is helpful so early in a parliament when distinctive policy programmes have not been set out by other parties.

Sky News and YouGov tested the Tories and Reform on a string of key positive and negative measurements.

Only 10% of voters currently see the Tories as strong, while 61% see them as weak.

Reform UK does much better on this measure, with 31% of voters calling Reform UK strong, and 27% weak. This means three times as many voters see Reform as strong as the Tories.

There is a similar gap over whether both parties have a sense of direction. Only 18% of voters say they think the Conservatives have a clear sense of purpose, 59% say that’s unclear.

However, the figures are different with Reform UK, and more positive, 49% say it has a clear sense of purpose, only 24% say they are unclear on what the party stands for.

That means voters are more than twice as likely to see Reform UK as having a clear direction when compared to the Tories.

The gap is smaller when it comes to trust, though Reform UK still does better than the Tories.

Only 11% say the Tories are trustworthy, 65% say they’re untrustworthy. Again the Reform figures are higher, although by less than others – 19% say they are trustworthy, 52% untrustworthy

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Back 10 years ago, when Nigel Farage led UKIP, some thought he or the party brand was potentially too toxic to lead or for him to become prime minister.

They believed there might be a ceiling on his support that was lower than the pool of potential Tory voters.

But how has that picture changed now he’s leading the new party Reform UK?

One way to measure this is to compare the proportion of the electorate who say they would never vote Tory – those who definitely rule it out – with the proportion that would never vote Reform UK.

Some 56% say they definitely would not vote Reform UK – leaving a potential pool of voters of 44%. But an almost identical figure say they would never vote Tory – 55% – meaning their potential pool of voters is 45%, within the margin of error.

This means there is no discernable lower ceiling on Reform UK than the Tories.

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Voters on the right look more likely to switch from Tory to Reform than the other way around.

Among people who voted Reform UK in the election, some 46% can rule out voting Tory.

However among Conservative voters in last year’s general election, that drops to 36%.

Some 24% of Tory voters last year “will” or “might” vote for Reform UK now, while 8% of Reform voters “will” or “might” vote Tory.

Frontline police officers and staff are getting improved training on how to respond to non-contact sexual offences through a course designed with the help of the mother of murdered student Libby Squire.

The online learning module has already been completed by more than 2,000 officers and is being rolled out across England and Wales in response to a recommendation made by the Angiolini Inquiry, which looked into how the serving police officer and voyeur Wayne Couzens slipped through the net to go on and kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard in 2021.

“It’s so important that we encourage police officers to take non-contact offences seriously,” explained Lisa Squire, speaking to Sky News. “I’m really pleased to see it come together.”

A non-contact sexual offence is any sort of sexual gesture that is unwanted and not a contact. It includes upskirting, voyeurism and exposing yourself to others.

Ms Squire thinks Pawel Relowicz exposed himself to Libby months before he raped and killed her. During his trial, the jury heard Relowicz had a string of past non-contact sexual offences, including masturbating in public.

Data from 2022 shows the overwhelming majority of sexual exposure crimes and offenders do not come in contact with the police.

There is some evidence that greater levels of interaction with victims during sexual exposure may be a risk factor for offenders who move to contact sexual offending.

“Before our daughter was abducted, raped and murdered I was aware of non-contact sexual offences but they were just things strange men did. Now when we look back on the offender (Relowicz) he had a prolific history of these offences. Some had been reported, some hadn’t. There is an escalation pattern,” Ms Squire said.

Ms Squire said prior to her daughter’s and Ms Everard’s death, attitudes to non-contact sexual offences were, “You’re just making a fuss”.

“We just accepted these things happened. But we didn’t talk about the escalation. It’s incredibly traumatic to a woman to be a victim,” she added.

An inquiry after Ms Everard’s death which looked into how a known voyeur like Couzens could slip through the net and commit more serious crimes criticised police attitudes.

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Its chair, Dame Angiolini, called for a step change in the way police respond to indecent exposure cases.

“Victims deserve to have their cases investigated properly each and every time. Attitudes towards the experience of those victimised by alleged incidents of exposure are not commensurate with the harm caused,” she said.

Jamie Daniels, detective chief superintendent at the College of Policing, said this was a real opportunity for change.

“We know that non-contact sex offences disproportionately affect women and girls and they’re also extremely underreported so that’s why we see these things as integral to how we improve trust,” he said.

He added: “If we get that message right in terms of how we respond, we build trust, we have better outcomes for victims and we start to see the improvements the public rightly deserve.”