Labour has not committed to a timeframe for increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP

On Sky News this morning presenter Kay Burley claimed the government has said it would reach the target of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence by the end of the current parliament. 

This isn’t correct. While Labour has said it is committed to the target of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, it hasn’t set out a specific timeframe for achieving this.

Ms Burley’s comments came during an interview with Conservative shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge MP, who said Labour hadn’t set out a timescale. To this, she replied that Labour had said they’d reach it “by 2030”, before saying “by the course of this parliament is what they’ve said, they’ve not said 2030, they’ve said by the course of this parliament, and actually this parliament ends in 2029.” 

Ms Burley subsequently clarified later in the programme: “they haven’t publicly said that, but privately that is what they have been saying. So maybe I’ve disclosed more than I should, but yes that is what Labour is hoping to achieve although they haven’t said it in a public forum.”

Earlier this week, the government launched its Strategic Defence Review, which it said “will set out a roadmap to achieving 2.5% of GDP on defence”.

We’ve written more about Labour’s defence spending plans in our recent explainer.