Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announces that defence spending will increase to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027. To accomodate for this, Starmer says the foreign aid budget will be cut from 0.5% of gross national income to 0.3% by 2027; a change he says he is "not happy to make".
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00:00I can announce this Government will begin the biggest sustained increase in defence
00:04spending since the end of the Cold War. We will deliver our commitment to spend 2.5%
00:13of GDP on defence, but we will bring it forward so that we reach that level in 2027. And we
00:24will maintain that for the rest of this Parliament. Let me spell that out Mr Speaker, that means
00:30spending £13.4 billion more on defence every year from 2027. We will also set a clear ambition
00:39for defence spending to rise to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament. But Mr Speaker, in
00:48the short term, it can only be funded through hard choices. And in this case, that means
00:57we will cut our spending on development assistance, moving from 0.5% of GNI today to 0.3% in 2027,
01:08fully funding our increased investment in defence. I want to be clear to the House,
01:16that is not an announcement I am happy to make. I am proud of our pioneering record
01:22on overseas development and we will continue to play a key humanitarian role, but nonetheless
01:28it remains a cut and I will not pretend otherwise. We will do everything we can to return to
01:35a world where that is not the case and rebuild a capability on development. But at times
01:43like this, the defence and security of the British people must always come first. That
01:48is the number one priority of this Government.