MoD: News of Royal Navy, Army and RAF GDP spending boost expected in Spring 2025 as Tories challenge Labour

John Healey told the House of Commons today (November 18) that measures to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP would be announced in early 2025 following the Strategic Defence Review (SDR). Conservative MPs questioned what they see as a lack of clarity over what was a Labour manifesto pledge, believing it will face challenges from the Treasury.

The news comes shortly after Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General of the Royal United Services Institute, said in a defence select committee meeting that “hard choices” will still need to be made by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) even if there is a trajectory to get to 2.5 per cent of GDP spending on defence by the end of the decade. He added that the MoD can’t currently fulfil all of what it’s being asked to do.

Speaking about the SDR, Mr Healey said it's the first of its kind in the UK. “It is externally led and drawing widely on experts within government and the military, as well as those from industry, academics and allies,” he added. “The reviewers will report in the Spring.”

Gregory Stafford, Conservative MP for Farnham and Bordon, said the SDR is necessary given the “increasing threats we see in the world”, but remained sceptical about the process in which it’s being carried out. He said: “That (the SDR) should not be an excuse not to commit to increasing defence spending. Given the secretary of state refused to give a timetable at last week’s urgent question, will he say now, yes or no, whether or not the government is going to get to 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence spending by the end of this parliament?”

The Labour MP for Conisbrough and Rawmarsh replied: “Everyone agrees that defence spending must rise. It’s increasing with this government by nearly £3bn next year, and there is a cast-iron commitment that we will set a path to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence again. The last time this country spent 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence was in 2010 with a Labour government.”

Graham Stuart, Conservative MP for Beverley and Holderness, said the MoD and other government departments were under financial pressure. He added: “Not only do we not have a timetable to 2.5 per cent of GDP, which the whole house would like to hear, but can the secretary of state confirm that there will be no additional funding for the in-year pressures which this department, alongside many others, is suffering from?”

Mr Healey the chancellor set out in her budget the steps the government was taking to deal with the £22bn “blackhole” Labour inherited from the Conservatives. He added: “As far as the 2.5 per cent of GDP goes, the chief secretary was clear that we will set out that path in the Spring. The prime minister said back in the Nato summit in Washington in July that it was a question of the Strategic Defence Review first, and then the commitment and path to 2.5 per cent.”