Britain will 'without a doubt' spend 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2034, Healey says
30 May 2025, 22:35 | Updated: 31 May 2025, 02:44
Labour Defence Secretary John Healey said spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence was no longer an "ambition" but a certainty.
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The government's 10-year defence plan, which is due to be announced on Monday, is understood to be "unaffordable" without the increased spending.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had previously outlined the 3 per cent target as an "ambition."
On Wednesday, defence sources said the target remained an ambition.
However, Defence Secretary John Healey has now told The Times: “In the next parliament this country will spend 3 per cent of our GDP on defence.”
He said he had “no doubt” Britain would be spending 3 per cent “in the next parliament”.
Healey said the increase "allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”
It is unclear if the commitment has been agreed across Whitehall.
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One source within the military said the defence spending review, which was due to be published during VE Day week earlier in May, had been delayed because of disagreements between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence.
The source said there had been “discontent that the Ministry of Defence is using it to push for more defence spending."
The spending increase would commit the government to spending £10 billion more than it currently does on defence each year, despite ongoing rows within government over proposed cuts to public services.
A source said the spending review will contain around 48,000 words and will be about 130 pages long. It will not include plans to cut armed forces numbers.
The review will be scalable, so if defence spending is increased, projects can be sped up.
Troops from the American, French, and German militaries were embedded inside the defence review team to ensure a collaborative approach between Britain and its closest allies.
The source said the programme was “really slow” in order to make it affordable over a long time, adding: “The transformation is there but the peril is it’s expensive."
"We may need to contemplate going faster sooner, and maybe bigger, and that will cost more money.”
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War — 2.5 per cent by 2027 and 3 per cent in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5 billion this financial year.“
"The review will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in Nato, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK — making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”
Keir Starmer announced in February that the UK would spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence by April 2027 and outlined an ambition to increase defence spending to 3 per cent by 2034.
However, military chiefs have warned that the armed forces are currently unequipped for the possibility of a future war with Russia.
The US has described the government's current defence spending of 2.3 per cent of GDP as an "irritant."
US President Donald Trump's administration has urged the UK to consider spending 3 per cent during Labour's current parliament.
NATO member states are expected to agree to a defence spending target during a summit in June. The target may be as high as 3.5 per cent of GDP.
The threat of a war with Russia and concerns about possible US disengagement from NATO led to a record increase in military spending among members of the alliance in 2024. 18 of the 32 NATO members spent at least 2 per cent of GDP on defence in 2024.
Global military expenditure saw its steepest rise last year since the end of the Cold War. Military spending in Europe (including Russia) was the main contributor to the global increase, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
