Starmer to Outline £14.5 Billion Defence Spending Increase on 30 June

Sir Keir Starmer is scheduled to reveal the details of the Defence Investment Plan on June 30. The plan sets out a £14.5 billion increase in defence spending and includes a £5 billion fund for drones and automation. Former Defence Secretary John Healey and former Armed Forces Minister Al Carns resigned earlier in June.

Both had stated that £28 billion was necessary for the plan. Lord Richard Dannatt said the £5 billion fund falls short of the £28 billion that service chiefs have requested. He noted that the higher figure would move spending toward 3 per cent of GDP, a target Sir Keir Starmer discussed at the Munich Security Conference in February.

Dannatt said publication of the plan a year earlier with a larger increase would have kept John Healey in post. He added that dither and delay had led to the Defence Secretary's resignation and placed the Prime Minister under pressure that would lead him to leave No 10.

Dannatt called for investment across the Navy, Army, Air Force, cyber and other forms of warfare rather than what he described as the cheap option now proposed.

He said the issues facing the government on defence were entirely of its own making.