Next chancellor will have to find £5bn to fund black hole in defence funding, government figures reveal – as it happened

Prime Minister Keir Starmer today announced a fifteen billion pound defense investment plan—the largest military spending increase since the Cold War. Yet government figures revealed today expose a five billion pound funding gap that the incoming chancellor will have to bridge. Speaking at Malloy Aeronautics, which designs heavy-lift drones, Starmer acknowledged that defense spending cannot be an endless commitment. The Ministry of Defence will need to 'spend better,' he said, even as it receives a major increase. This marks a fundamental reprioritization: aid budgets are being redirected toward military capability as international security threats mount. In Starmer's view, there's no separating national security from economic security.

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