Starmer Squeezes MoD Budget for Defence Investment Plan in Underwhelming Swan Song

Starmer is unveiling a reworked Defence Investment Plan today in his swan song as PM. The PM is up at 10.30 a.m. – watch live on these pixels… £15 billion in extra funding over the next four years, up from an initial commitment of £13.5 billion. New Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis did not get any more substantial money from the Treasury. £1 billion of savings comes from delaying cadet expansion and upgrades to military housing. There is a one-off £2 billion increase in day-to-day funding this year, to cover operations and training… There is still no date set for reaching 3% of GDP on defence, up from 2.4% currently. The government is now telling people to wait until the Spending Review… Military chiefs say £18 billion is the lowest they could play with.

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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Guido Fawkes.