{"id":4571,"date":"2026-06-30T16:21:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T16:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/4571\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T16:21:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T16:21:24","slug":"how-much-more-is-being-spent-on-defence-and-will-the-uk-hit-natos-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/nato\/4571\/","title":{"rendered":"How much more is being spent on defence and will the UK hit Nato’s targets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government has published the much-delayed Defence Investment Plan (DIP) and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the additional spending represents a “huge historic shift for our nation”.<\/p>\n

BBC Verify has been looking at how much extra the government is committing to spend on defence in the coming years – and whether it puts the UK on track to hit its promised commitments.<\/p>\n

How much does the UK currently spend on defence?<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Defence’s overall budget for 2026-27 is \u00a368.3bn, according to the Defence Investment Plan.<\/p>\n

However there is a measure known as Nato-qualifying defence spending which is wider than the MoD’s budget, because it includes state spending on things like military pensions.<\/p>\n

According to this measure the UK’s spending was estimated by the military alliance to be \u00a370bn in 2025, equivalent to 2.4% of the UK’s GDP in that year.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

[BBC]<\/p>\n

What has the government committed to spend?<\/p>\n

In February 2025 Sir Keir committed to raising Nato-qualifying defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.<\/p>\n

The prime minister also announced that the activities of the UK’s security and intelligence agencies would – by 2027 – be classified as Nato-qualifying defence spending. As a result spending would hit 2.6% of GDP by 2027.<\/p>\n

The prime minister also stated a “clear ambition” to increase spending to 3% of GDP “in the next parliament”.<\/p>\n

At a Nato summit in the Hague in June 2025 the UK and other members committed to spend 5% of GDP on defence and security with 3.5% going to Nato-qualifying “core defence” by 2035.<\/p>\n

The alliance’s members agreed that the rest of the 5% (1.5% of GDP) could be made up of spending to “protect critical infrastructure, defend networks, ensure civil preparedness and resilience, innovate, and strengthen the defence industrial base.”<\/p>\n

Sir Keir said on Tuesday that the measures in the DIP “takes us to 4.2% under that commitment”.<\/p>\n

How much extra does the Defence Investment Plan commit to?<\/p>\n

When he resigned on 11 June, former Defence Secretary John Healey said that the DIP he had been presented with only committed to take Nato-qualifying defence spending to 2.68% by 2030.<\/p>\n

He said this was insufficient “to defend the country at this time of rising threats” and that the government should be committing 3% of GDP to defence by 2030 – bringing this target forward to the end of this parliament rather than during the next one.<\/p>\n

The actual DIP says that “based on latest projections” UK defence spending will rise to 2.7% of GDP by 2027-28.<\/p>\n

It does not provide a year-by-year estimate for later years but states that the money spent on defence “by the end of the decade will be 2.7% of GDP”.<\/p>\n

That suggests that the proportion of GDP spent on defence is not planned to change between 2027 and 2030<\/p>\n

That 2.7% figure suggests an increase on the original DIP of around 0.02% of GDP, which the government has found since Healey resigned.<\/p>\n

In today’s money that’s equivalent to around \u00a3600m extra in 2030.<\/p>\n

Will this be enough to hit the government’s targets?<\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted that as a result of this Defence Investment Plan the UK is on a “trajectory” to achieve the ambition of spending 3% of GDP in the next parliament.<\/p>\n

And the DIP states that the separate commitment to Nato of 3.5% of GDP by 2035 “will be met”.<\/p>\n

However, it is hard to see how reaching 2.7% of GDP by 2030 would put the UK on a trajectory to meet that target.<\/p>\n

Future spending reviews could potentially change that picture if they commit more money for the MoD’s budget and other defence activity in future years.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

[BBC]<\/p>\n

What about the other figures being used?<\/p>\n

The prime minister has frequently claimed the government is spending \u00a3270bn on defence over this parliament which he says is “the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the 1980s”.<\/p>\n

This number represents the total cash spending figure for the MoD budget set out in the 2025 Spending Review, covering the four years to 2028-29.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir said today that the DIP increases this by “a further \u00a315bn”.<\/p>\n

So this \u00a315bn figure is an increase in defence spending over four years relative to previous plans.<\/p>\n

Reports suggest that the original DIP would have increased spending by \u00a313.5bn over four years.<\/p>\n

That suggests that, over four years, the government has found an additional \u00a31.5bn for defence since Healey resigned from Sir Keir’s cabinet.<\/p>\n

It has also been widely reported there was a \u00a328bn “shortfall” in the UK’s defence budget.<\/p>\n

The figure was originally reported by the Times in January<\/p>\n

The paper said the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, had warned Sir Keir at a meeting late last year that the MoD faced a \u00a328bn shortfall over the next four years.<\/p>\n

The MoD has said that \u00a328bn number did not come from them and it has not been officially confirmed.<\/p>\n

It might represent an internal MoD estimate of the gap between its available budget funding over the next four years and the cost of existing commitments.<\/p>\n

\"BBC<\/p>\n

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