UK aid budget to be slashed for rise in defence spending - Starmer
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Tuesday 25 Feb 2025
(Sharecast News) - Britain's international aid budget is being slashed to fund an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from 2027, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday.
In a statement to the House of Commons ahead of his visit to Washington this week to meet US President Donald Trump, Starmer said the government would start the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war but warned that this would involve "difficult choices".
The aid budget will be cut to 0.3% of GDP from 0.5%, Starmer said, meaning defence will get an extra £13.4bn every year from 2027. Trump has been demanding that Nato allies to spend more on weapons, insisting they should aim for 0.5% of the economy.
"I want to be clear to the house that is not an announcement I am happy to make. I am proud of our record on overseas development, and we will continue to play a key humanitarian role in Sudan, in Ukraine and in Gaza, tackling climate change, supporting multi-national efforts on global health and challenges like vaccination," Starmer told MPs.
"Nonetheless, it remains a cut, and I will not pretend otherwise. 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 defence and security of the British people must always come first."
He added that the government would also set out a "clear ambition" for defence spending to rise to 3% of GDP in the next parliament "subject to economic and fiscal conditions".
"We must change our national security posture, because a generational challenge requires a generational response. That will demand some extremely difficult and painful choices."
Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com
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