Starmer Warns Andy Burnham On Defence Spending Plans

Keir Starmer has warned Andy Burnham not to rip up his defence spending plans when he becomes prime minister.

The outgoing prime minister was speaking as he unveiled the government’s long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) just three weeks before he leaves No.10 for good.

He announced that an extra £15 billion will be spent on defence by 2030.

That is £1.5bn more than the amount John Healey was promised, prompting him to resign as defence secretary earlier this month.

But it is still well short of the £28bn that defence chiefs say is needed to meet the needs of Britain’s armed forces.

Burnham is expected to replace Starmer as Labour leader on July 17, and formally become prime minister three days later.

There has been speculation that he will want to look again at the DIP – but Starmer said that would be a bad idea.

He said: “I don’t think anybody would argue that the Strategic Defence Review was needed because any prime minister will want to know what are the capabilities I have at my disposal now and what are the capabilities I’m going to need in the future.

“The Defence Investment Plan builds on that by setting out what those capabilities will be and how they’re going to be costed.

“That is something that any Labour prime minister would want to stand behind. It’s a platform that any Labour prime minister would want to stand on, because the first duty of any prime minister is the defence and security of the country.

“I think everybody knows that and accepts that.”

Earlier today, one of the co-authors of the Strategic Defence Review warned that the government had not come up with enough cash for the armed forces to keep the country safe.

General Sir Richard Barrons said: “In order to defend the UK sufficiently well, sufficiently quickly, more has to be done sooner and that requires more money than is currently on the table.”

He added: “We’re not keeping up with our allies, we’re certainly not keeping up with our enemies, and we know that the US is not going to come and save European security in the face of a Russian threat.

“So until we come to terms with the fact that we have to find more money for defence, and yes it will be at the expense of other things we like more, we are simply not going to be ready to defend this country properly.”

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