Labour refuses to guarantee defence spending boost to 2.5pc of GDP in next five years
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has repeatedly refused to promise to boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent in the next five years.
The Government is expected to set out its timeline to reach the defence spending target next spring, once the sector-wide Strategic Defence Review is completed.
Labour pledged to “set out the path” to spending 2.5 per cent of the nation’s GDP on defence in its manifesto but did not say when it would hit the figure.
There is growing debate about when Britain should reach this threshold for expenditure on defence, further fuelled by the election of Donald Trump in the US last week, someone who has repeatedly called for Nato allies to increase spending.
When asked to set a date by which the 2.5 per cent pledge would be met, Darren Jones repeatedly refused to name one.
Asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg whether the Government would reach 2.5 per cent by 2029, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said: “I’m not going to give you a date today, because it relies on the outcome of the Strategic Defence Review, which will decide what the spending priorities are.”
He added: “The promise in the manifesto is a promise that will be met. You’ll recognise there was no date set in the manifesto for the reasons I’ve set out.”
Pressed again on whether 2.5 per cent would be achieved by the end of the Parliament, Mr Jones said: “As I said, I’m not going to give you a date today because we have to allow the Strategic Defence Review to conclude which will inform our decisions about how much money we need to spend and what we need to spend it on, given changing geopolitical affairs, but also the state of the defence services as we’ve inherited from the last Government.”
He added that to give a date by which they would hit the spending goal would be a “half-informed answer”, adding: “I’m not willing to do that. You have to take these decisions in the most appropriate way. That’s what you would expect of a responsible government.”
Rishi Sunak had promised that his government would allocate 2.5 per cent of GDP to defence by 2030, a pledge that Sir Keir Starmer failed to match during the election campaign.
Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, repeated the Tory manifesto promise on Sunday and added: “We were clear that that was essential”.
She told the BBC: “We are living in very insecure times geo-politically and we do need to step up.”
The shadow Cabinet minister joined the wealth of calls for defence expenditure to be raised, adding public pressure on the Government to set out its spending timeline.
‘We need longer-term clarity’
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the head of the Armed Forces, said that stockpiles of ammunition needed to be replenished and investments needed to be made in technology for the military.
He told Kuenssberg: “When you think you’re in an era which is a little bit more peaceful, you might take risk on your stockpiles, and that might be a sensible thing to do. As it gets more dangerous, you clearly need deeper stockpiles.
“That’s something that we need to do and we’re investing in.”
He added: “I don’t think it will be a surprise to the Chancellor, the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary that the chief of defence staff would always want more money for defence.”
Asked whether he thought 2.5 per cent was enough for the needs of the British military, Sir Tony said that he wanted to see “longer-term stability and longer-term clarity” for its budget.
Mr Jones also suggested that spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence could come with a “trade-off” in other areas of Government.
He told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: “Today, we’re spending 2.3 per cent [of GDP on defence].
“The question is how you spend that but defending the country is a non-negotiable. That is not a trade-off; the trade-off is then with other areas of public spending.
“Now, are we defending the country today? Absolutely we are. Do we want to make sure we’re hitting our Nato obligations? Absolutely we do.
“But the strategic defence review will start to answer some of the questions, which is beyond that – what more does the UK want to offer as part of our global alliances? And that’s where you start.”