The push to spend on defence is not about the Middle East

One of the curiosities of Rachel Reeves’s spending review is that the defence budget is planned to rise in 2027 and then to stay at that level. In two years’ time, defence spending is expected to rise from 2.3 to 2.5 per cent of national income, but to rise no further after that. This is despite Keir Starmer committing just days ago to the “ambition” of raising it to 3 per cent “in the next parliament when economic and fiscal conditions allow”.

- JOHN RENTOUL CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR

The prime minister spoke in sombre tones, at the launch of the strategic defence review last week, about the need to prepare for war and for the country to move to a state of “war-fighting readiness”. Yet all his chancellor did on Wednesday to increase defence spending further was to redefine “defence spending” to include the intelligence budget, which takes the plateau to 2.6 per cent.

Given that the increase from 2.6 to 3 per cent is a substantial one, we might have expected Reeves to set out a rising trend towards it. But no. All the prime minister’s talk of a changed world in which we must be prepared to fight wars again is backed up by an increase in spending that will take us back to the level in 2010, which will be paid for by cutting the aid budget, and then... nothing more.

So far, Starmer has resisted pressure from Mark Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister who is secretary general of Nato, and from John Healey, his own defence secretary, to put a date on his “ambition” of 3 per cent.