A cabinet minister has admitted that the defence spending boost announced by Keir Starmer is less than half as big as he claimed.
The prime minister said the defence budget would increase from 2.3% to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) from 2027, paid for by slashing aid spending.
Speaking in Downing Street, Starmer said that was “an increase of £13.4bn year on year compared to where we are today”.
Experts said that figure was “misleadingly large” because it did not take account of what the government would already have been spending on defence over the next two years.
On BBC Breakfast this morning, presenter Sally Nugent grilled defence secretary John Healey on the confusion.
She said: “Let’s just explain this in really simple terms, shall we? So this £13.4 billion, the number would be correct if the government then did not increase the defence budget year on year in line with inflation. Am I right?”
Healey said: “Yes, that’s a cash number. If you did it in real terms, taking in inflation, it would be something over £6bn. Either way, this is a big boost for defence. It’s an increase in defence spending.
“It will allow us to strengthen our armed forces, it will allow us to use defence as an engine for driving economic growth in this country so we can put a long-term industrial plan in place to boost British jobs, to boost British businesses and technology.”
Posting on X, shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said: “Yesterday the PM said defence spending was rising by £13.4bn. Today his defence secretary says £6bn. Which is it?
“Kemi Badenoch was only given a redacted version of the PM’s statement before he spoke, missing all the figures. Transparency matters & we urgently need clarity.”
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, accused the government of “playing silly games with numbers” and a “misuse of statistics”.
He said: “Against appropriate counterfactual of spending remaining at constant % of GDP, news is of an increase of £5-6bn. Why govts of all ilks insist on over egging like this is beyond me. This is a major announcement as it is. Does not need exaggeration.”