Starmer and Badenoch clash over defence spending

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has challenged Sir Keir Starmer over the hike in defence spending, after the PM said the rise amounted to £13.4bn.

The PM announced the UK will reallocate aid funds to boost military spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, following President Trump's demand that all European allies increase their defence contributions.

The decision comes as Sir Keir is set to fly to the US for talks with Trump in the White House, to discuss the war in Ukraine, later.

Badenoch questioned Sir Keir over the exact amount, which Defence Secretary John Healey said could be calculated as £6bn when inflation was taken into account, and whether the Chagos deal would be funded from it.

At Prime Minister's Questions, Badenoch asked whether any of the new funding would be going towards the multi-billion pound Chagos deal twice.

The UK plans to hand over the territory to Mauritius, but under the terms of the deal, the UK will continue to lease one of the islands, Diego Garcia, which contains a UK-US military airbase, for a period of 99 years.

The PM responded saying the increase in defence spending that was announced on Tuesday was for "our capability on defence and security in Europe", adding: "The Chagos deal is extremely important for our security and for US security."

Badenoch focused her questions to the prime minister on which figure for the defence rise - his initial £13.4bn or £6bn, which Healey said was the increase "in real terms" - was correct.

Sir Keir responded: "If you take the numbers for this financial year and then the numbers for the financial year 2027-28, that's a £13.4bn increase.

"That's the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War which will put us in a position to ensure the security and defence of our country and of Europe."

Badenoch pressed him again, saying: "The IFS said today that the government is playing silly games with numbers. How does he find this difference in numbers?"

Repeating himself, the PM then said they had already been "going through the same question over and over again" at previous PMQs and said "if you ask again I'll give the same answer again", to loud cheers from his backbenchers.

Objecting, Badenoch pointed out that "being patronising is not the same as answering the question".

When Badenoch suggested Sir Keir had listened to her advice on using international aid money for defence, he said: "I'm going to have to let the leader of the opposition down gently... She didn't feature in my thinking at all.

"I was so busy over the weekend I didn't even see her proposal.

"She has appointed herself I think saviour of the western civilisation in a desperate search for relevance."

Earlier, a former defence chief of staff said he believed the decision to hike UK defence spending has been "accelerated" by President Donald Trump's actions on Ukraine.

General Sir David Richards said the decision to raise defence spending over the next two years was a sound strategic move, but one that "almost certainly would not" be happening if not for Trump.

"It was going to happen, it's now been accelerated by Donald Trump's actions, and all of us, I think, would say not before time," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Lord Richards stressed the British Army was currently "very hollowed out indeed" and suggested the "army isn't big enough" currently for British troops to be part of a rotation of European peacekeeping forces.

Questions have been raised about the Labour government's U-turn on its manifesto pledge to raise international development funding to 0.7% of gross national income, with unease among some Labour MPs about the move.

Speaking at PMQs, Labour backbencher Diane Abbott suggested the decision could increase the risk of conflict abroad, telling the PM that "there is also a view that taking money from aid and development to spend on armaments and tanks makes people less safe, not more safe, because the desperation and poverty that so often leads to warfare is what aid and development money is supposed to counter."

The PM defended the decision in the chamber, and earlier Healey had said "hard power is now more important than soft power".

Asked whether the increase announced on Tuesday is linked to Sir Keir's visit to the White House, Healey told the Today programme: "President Trump, over the last two weeks, has been very direct in his challenge.

"He's reinforced the imperative and the importance of Britain making this commitment and helping other European countries to step up in a similar way."

The US has been warning European leaders it wants to see a significant increase in their defence contributions to Nato for at least a decade.

Trump's rapprochement with Russia's Vladimir Putin, and the US siding with Russia on a UN resolution on Ukraine, has sent shockwaves through European allies.

Asked whether he believed the UK increasing its defence contribution would bring Trump on side, Healey said that the PM could now tell Trump: "You are challenging Europe and the UK to step up on European security, on Ukraine, on defence spending, on reinforcing our industrial base.

"We are, and we will step up further."

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