UK defence spending to rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 – as Starmer hits out at ‘tyrant’ Putin
Defence spending in the UK will increase to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 while the foreign aid budget will be cut, Sir Keir Starmer has said ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump.
Spending would be raised from the current 2.3%, with £13.4bn more on defence each year after 2027, the prime announced in an unexpected statement in parliament.
Sir Keir said he wants defence spending to increase to 3% of GDP in the next parliament, but that would rely on Labour winning the next general election, set for 2029.
Politics latest: PM fast-tracks defence spending boost by cutting foreign aid
The number is much lower than the US president has demanded NATO members spend on defence, with Mr Trump saying they should all be spending 5% – an amount last seen during the Cold War.
Sir Keir also announced the government would cut back on foreign aid to fund the increase, reducing current spending from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%.
Moments before the announcement, the Foreign Office said it was pausing some aid to Rwanda due to its role in the conflict in neighbouring Congo.
British Army soldiers from the 12th Armoured Brigade Combat Team during NATO exercises in May last year. Pic: Reuters
Foreign secretary David Lammy just two weeks ago criticised Mr Trump’s decision to freeze USAID, saying development remains a “very important soft power tool” and is worried without it, he “would be very worried China and others step into that gap”.
Sir Keir said the reduction in foreign aid is “not a renouncement I’m happy to make”, as charities said the cuts would mean more people in the poorest parts of the world would die.
He reiterated the government’s commitment to NATO, which he described as the “bedrock of our security”, and criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “tyrants only respond to strength”.
Addressing his upcoming visit to the White House to meet Mr Trump, the prime minister said he wants the UK’s relationship with the US to go from “strength to strength”.
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You won’t see more tanks – the money is likely to go on cyber warfare
Our defence budget should hit £67.6bn by 2025/26 then another £13.4bn onto that – that takes you to just over £80bn.
My guess is it won’t be spent on the heavy metal, it won’t be lots more tanks, not lots more aircraft or ships.
A lot of it will go, I think, into personnel which are the key elements and the thing we’ve seen degraded and degraded.
So, a lot of the money, I think, will go into transformational warfare, into cyber, into computing, into quantum computing, into being able to create what’s called a kill chain and a kill net, whereby you can see a threat, deal with it immediately, understand what it is immediately, and bring in exactly the right weapon to do something about it.
Even the United States, which is the most sophisticated in the world, you know, is constantly chasing that sort of, Philosopher’s Stone, of the kill.
The Russians aren’t very good at it at all. The Chinese, we don’t know how good they are.
We’re not really certain. But we’ve got to get much, much better at doing that.
So, I suspect a lot of this money will go on things that you won’t see immediately.
But I’m pretty sure also that this sort of money is fundamental to the sort of transformations which I suspect the defence review is going to talk about.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed the defence spending increase and said she had written to him over the weekend to suggest how he could redirect money from the overseas development budget.
“This is absolutely right,” she told the Commons.
“And I look forward to him taking up my other suggestion of looking at what we can do on welfare.”
She urged him to not increase taxes further or to borrow more to fund the rise, but to ensure the economy grows to support it.
Former Conservative defence secretary Ben Wallace said an extra 0.2% was “a staggering desertion of leadership”.
“Tone deaf to dangers of the world and demands of the United States,” he wrote on X.
“Such a weak commitment to our security and nation puts us all at risk.”
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‘Is US a threat to UK interests?’ Sky asks Badenoch
Labour MP Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee, said cutting the foreign aid budget is “deeply shortsighted and doesn’t make anyone safer”.
“The deep irony is that development money can prevent wars and is used to patch up the consequences of them, cutting this support is counterproductive and I urge the government to rethink,” she wrote on X.
Charities condemned the cut, with ActionAid saying cutting the aid budget to fund the military “only adds insult to injury” and “flies in the face of UN charters”, adding it was a “political choice with devastating consequences”.
Christine Allen, CEO of CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), said the cut means “in some of the most vulnerable places on earth, more people will die and many more will lose their livelihoods”.
She said the cut, coming just after the US froze its aid programme, “is another lifeline being pulled away from those in desperate need”.
Labour promised in their manifesto to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from the current 2.3%, however, ministers had previously refused to set out a timeline.
They had insisted a “path” to get to 2.5% would be set out after a defence spending review is published this spring.
The dates for Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK have been announced, with the US president due to be welcomed by the King from 17 to 19 September.
Buckingham Palace also confirmed that President Trump and first lady Melania will be hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle.
It was expected that the three-day state visit would take place in September after Mr Trump let slip earlier in April that he believed that was when his second “fest” was being planned for.
Windsor was also anticipated to be the location after the US president told reporters in the Oval Office that the letter from the King said Windsor would be the setting. Refurbishment works at Buckingham Palace also meant that Windsor was used last week for French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit.
This will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK, an unprecedented gesture towards an American leader, having previously been invited to Buckingham Palace in 2019.
Donald Trump and Melania Trump posing with Charles and Camilla in 2019. Pic: Reuters
He has also been to Windsor Castle before, in 2018, but despite the considerable military pageantry of the day, and some confusion around inspecting the guard, it was simply for tea with Queen Elizabeth II.
Further details of what will happen during the three-day visit in September will be announced in due course.
On Friday, Sky News revealed it is now unlikely that the US president will address parliament, usually an honour given to visiting heads of state as part of their visit. Some MPs had raised significant concerns about him being given the privilege.
But the House of Commons will not be sitting at the time of Mr Trump’s visit as it will rise for party conference season on the 16 September, meaning the president will not be able to speak in parliament as President Macron did during his state visit this week. However, the House of Lords will be sitting.
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Labour MP: ‘Trump isn’t welcome here’
In February this year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer presented the US president with the letter from the King inviting him to visit during a meeting at the White House.
After reading it, Mr Trump said it was a “great, great honour”, adding “and that says at Windsor – that’s really something”.
In February, Sir Keir Starmer revealed a letter from the King inviting Donald Trump to the UK. Pic: Reuters
In the letter, the King suggested they might meet at Balmoral or Dumfries House in Scotland first before the much grander state visit. However, it is understood that, although all options were explored, complexities in both the King and Mr Trump’s diaries meant it wasn’t possible.
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This week, it emerged that Police Scotland are planning for a summer visit from the US president, which is likely to see him visit one or both of his golf clubs in Aberdeenshire and Ayrshire, and require substantial policing resources and probably units to be called in from elsewhere in the UK.
Precedent for second-term US presidents, who have already made a state visit, is usually tea or lunch with the monarch at Windsor Castle, as was the case for George W Bush and Barack Obama.
A small plane has crashed at Southend Airport in Essex.
Essex Police said it was at the scene of a “serious incident”.
Images posted online showed huge flames and a large cloud of black smoke, with one witness saying they saw a “fireball”.
A police statement said: “We were alerted shortly before 4pm to reports of a collision involving one 12-metre plane.
“We are working with all emergency services at the scene now and that work will be ongoing for several hours.
“We would please ask the public to avoid this area where possible while this work continues.”
A huge fireball near the airport. Pic: Ben G
It has been reported that the plane involved in the incident is a Beech B200 Super King Air.
According to flight-tracking service Flightradar, it took off at 3.48pm and was bound for Lelystad, a city in the Netherlands.
One man, who was at Southend Airport with his family around the time of the incident, said the aircraft “crashed headfirst into the ground”.
John Johnson said: “About three or four seconds after taking off, it started to bank heavily to its left, and then within a few seconds of that happening, it more or less inverted and crashed.
“There was a big fireball. Obviously, everybody was in shock in terms of witnessing it. All the kids saw it and the families saw it.”
Mr Johnson added that he phoned 999 to report the crash.
Southend Airport said the incident involved “a general aviation aircraft”.
Four flights scheduled to take off from Southend this afternoon were cancelled, according to its website.
Flightradar data shows two planes that had been due to land at Southend were diverted to nearby airports London Gatwick and London Stansted.
Plumes of black smoke. Pic: UKNIP
Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said four crews, along with off-road vehicles, have attended the scene.
Four ambulances and four hazardous area response team vehicles are also at the airport, as well as an air ambulance, the East of England Ambulance Service said.
Its statement described the incident as “still developing”.
Fire engines at the airport
David Burton-Sampson, the MP for Southend West and Leigh, posted on social media: “I am aware of an incident at Southend Airport. Please keep away and allow the emergency services to do their work.
“My thoughts are with everyone involved.”
Local councillor Matt Dent said on X: “At present all I know is that a small plane has crashed at the airport. My thoughts are with all those involved, and with the emergency services currently responding to the incident.”
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UK
Heidi Alexander says ‘fairness’ will be government’s ‘guiding principle’ when it comes to taxes at next budget
Another hint that tax rises are coming in this autumn’s budget has been given by a senior minister.
Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government’s failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs.
Trevor Phillips asked specifically if tax rises were discussed among the cabinet last week – including on an away day on Friday.
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Tax increases were not discussed “directly”, Ms Alexander said, but ministers were “cognisant” of the challenges facing them.
Asked what this means, Ms Alexander added: “I think your viewers would be surprised if we didn’t recognise that at the budget, the chancellor will need to look at the OBR forecast that is given to her and will make decisions in line with the fiscal rules that she has set out.
“We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.”
Ms Alexander said she wouldn’t comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: “So, the chancellor will set her budget. I’m not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.
“When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle.”
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Afterwards, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Phillips: “That sounds to me like a barely disguised reference to tax rises coming in the autumn.”
He then went on to repeat the Conservative attack lines that Labour are “crashing the economy”.
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Chris Philp also criticsed the government’s migration deal with France
Mr Philp then attacked the prime minister as “weak” for being unable to get his welfare reforms through the Commons.
Discussions about potential tax rises have come to the fore after the government had to gut its welfare reforms.
Sir Keir had wanted to change Personal Independence Payments (PIP), but a large Labour rebellion forced him to axe the changes.
With the savings from these proposed changes – around £5bn – already worked into the government’s sums, they will now need to find the money somewhere else.
The general belief is that this will take the form of tax rises, rather than spending cuts, with more money needed for military spending commitments, as well as other areas of priority for the government, such as the NHS.
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