When he resigned on 11 June, former Defence Secretary John Healey said that the DIP he had been presented with only committed to take Nato-qualifying defence spending to 2.68% by 2030.
He said this was insufficient “to defend the country at this time of rising threats” and the government should be committing 3% of GDP to defence by 2030 rather than in the next parliament.
The actual DIP says that “based on latest projections” UK defence spending will rise to 2.7% of GDP by 2027-28.
It does not provide a year-by-year estimate for later years but states that the money spent on defence “by the end of the decade will be 2.7% of GDP”.
That suggests that the proportion of GDP spent on defence is not planned to change between 2027 and 2030
That 2.7% figure suggests an increase on the original DIP of around 0.02% of GDP, which the government has found since Healey resigned – that’s equivalent in today’s money to £600m extra in 2030.
Healey posted on X after the DIP was published on Tuesday that a “target date” was needed to achieve the 3% target and a “clear plan” for how the UK gets to Nato’s 3.5% of GDP by 2035.