Defence Secretary John Healey admits the bringing forward of increased defence spending was influenced by Donald Trump after the US president “reinforced the challenge” for nations to “step up”. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Well this was a manifesto commitment we made to the British people in the election last summer
00:04that we would increase defence spending to 2.5% of what we produce as a country.
00:08That's a level we've not seen for 15 years. It's certainly true Donald Trump has
00:14reinforced the challenge not just to the UK but to other European nations to step up
00:19so he's reinforced the importance and the imperative and I'm glad that the US have
00:24welcomed the announcement yesterday and when I spoke to the defence secretary in the US yesterday
00:30he said this is a strong step from an enduring partner. It's a good basis for Keir Starmer as
00:36he goes to Washington tomorrow. We're delivering the promise we made to the British people. We're
00:41doing it three years before anyone thought we would and we won't stop there. It's the start
00:46and Keir Starmer made clear that in the next parliament because of the threats we face we
00:52will raise defence spending further to 3%. When Keir Starmer talked about in cash terms an extra
00:5913 billion pounds being spent on defence in 2027 compared to today that's exactly the extra cash
01:06that we'll spend and in the end you can cut these figures in different ways. You can do it in cash
01:11terms, you can do it in real terms taking account of inflation, proportion of the GDP what the
01:17country produces. In the end the most important thing as the Institute for Fiscal Studies recognised
01:23is that this was an historic announcement and it's the biggest increase in defence spending
01:28in this country since the end of the Cold War.