Minister declines to set out timeline for increased defence spending

by London-TV in Business

Hamish Falconer, Minister for European Relations, has declined to give a timeline for how the government is going to increase defence spending and when that will reach Nato’s target of 3.5% of GDP.

Asked about how spending will be increased, he told GB News: “We are going to spend more on defence. You can tell how serious Andy Burnham is about it by the fact that he appointed John Healey as Chancellor. There’s no one in this country who I think has been clearer on that point, of course.

“John Healey is going to have to set out our plans in the usual way through the Budget and spending reviews process that I mentioned earlier. But I take real confidence, and the whole country should take real confidence that the Prime Minister is really serious about that, and that is reflected in his appointment of Chancellor.”

Asked if the UK would reaffirm its commitments to Ukraine, he said: “We absolutely will be. It is incredibly important to this prime minister, as it was to the last and to be fair, even to prime ministers before that, the UK will stand with Ukraine.

“One of the announcements today will be about further clever British technology being transferred to Ukraine. It’s called Stone Cloak, which is going to enable them to continue fighting their very important war of defence against a Russian invasion.”

Falconer also suggested that the prime minister will soon be making announcements about tackling youth unemployment: “So the prime minister spoke about this over the weekend. I think it is so important that there are more young people getting into work with the support that they need.

“I know that if people don’t get into work when they’re young, it gets much harder as you get older, to get a proper job and to get self-established in working life. So he talked both about how do we make sure that people get the support that they need. Now, under Keir Starmer, we introduced a really important guarantee: 18 months without work, and we’ll make sure that you get training or some kind of work to get you started.

“But I know that the prime minister cares deeply about this, and is really focused on the Milburn review into these questions, and he’ll be saying more in the weeks ahead, I’m sure.”