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LONDON — The United Kingdom will increase defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP from 2027 by cutting the international development budget, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Tuesday.
Starmer was speaking ahead of his visit to Washington, D.C. to meet United States President Donald Trump later this week.
The government pledged to reach 2.5 percent spending on defense when it entered office last July, but had not set a timeline. Starmer said the spending increase would now be brought forward and maintained for the rest of the parliament, which runs to 2029.
The prime minister also said he hoped defense spending could increase to 3 percent in the next parliament, subject to fiscal conditions.
The move will be funded by cutting international aid spending from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent of gross national income from 2027.
“This government will begin the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War,” Starmer told MPs, adding that “a generational challenge requires a generational response.”
The extra funds mean the U.K. would be spending £13.4 billion more on defense from 2027.
The prime minister also raised the importance of Britain’s intelligence services as an “increasingly vital part of protecting both us and our allies,” with defense spending rising to 2.6 percent when they are included.
Earlier this month Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, told Sky News that the U.K.’s “contribution to the intelligence services should be, I think, considered part of that contribution to collective Western security.”
Asked by POLITICO whether intelligence spending would be counted as part of the U.K.’s defense commitment, Downing Street said there were no plans to redefine defense spending.
Starmer will highlight this extra spending — as a sign of the U.K.’s commitment to defense — when he meets Trump to discuss the war in Ukraine later this week.
The U.S. president has stressed European nations must spend more on defense, and said the U.S. will not be involved in peacekeeping operations after a deal between Moscow and Kyiv is agreed.
“This investment means that the U.K. will strengthen its position as a leader in NATO, and in the collective defense of our continent,” Starmer said.
The PM insisted Britain’s approach to defense saw NATO as the “bedrock” of security. He rejected a “false choice” which pitted U.S. relations against EU relations.
Starmer instead promoted “winning peace through strength.”
“One of the great lessons of our history is that instability in Europe will always wash up on our shores, and that tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin only respond to strength. Russia is a menace in our waters, in our airspace and on our streets,” he said.
The government’s Strategic Defense Review, looking at the threats Britain faces, is due to report this spring, and was meant to set out how the government would reach 2.5 percent.
Starmer also pledged to publish a single national security strategy and present it in parliament before the NATO summit in June.
‘Hard choices’
The prime minister described cuts to development spending as part of the “hard choices” confronting his government.
“That is not an announcement I am happy to make,” Starmer said, adding that the U.K. will continue to play a humanitarian role in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza. He confirmed the ambition to increase aid spending again when circumstances allowed.
He added: “We will do everything we can to return to a world where that is not the case, and rebuild a capability on development.” But “at times like this, the defense and security of the British people must always come first,” Starmer said.
It comes after Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned earlier this month that Trump’s cuts to foreign aid could be a “big strategic mistake” that allowed China to further its global influence.
The international development community reacted with shock to the further cut.
Romilly Greenhill, chief executive of Bond, the U.K. network for organizations working in international development and humanitarian assistance, said: “This is a short-sighted and appalling move by both the PM and Treasury. Slashing the already diminished U.K. aid budget to fund an uplift in defence is a reckless decision that will have devastating consequences for millions of marginalized people worldwide.”
Development spending was cut from 0.7 percent to 0.5 percent in 2020 by the previous Tory government in response to the Covid-19 pandemic as a “temporary measure.” They also abolished the Department for International Development, which was created under the New Labour government.
Mason Boycott-Owen contributed reporting.
