Burnham considers delaying defence spending review to next autumn as Badenoch pledges £10bn 'Britannia shield'
Andy Burnham is considering pushing the defence spending review to October 2027, The Times reports, delaying the roadmap for raising UK defence spending to 3% of GDP — as Kemi Badenoch pledges a £10bn 'Britannia shield' missile defence system.
Andy Burnham is considering delaying the decision on how and when Britain will raise defence spending to 3% of GDP until the autumn of next year, The Times reported on Tuesday, pushing back a key milestone on the path to meeting NATO’s target of 3.5% by 2035.
The spending review — which was expected in spring 2027 and would set out the timetable for reaching 3% alongside plans for all government spending up to 2030 — is now pencilled in for October 2027, according to a Whitehall source quoted by the paper, who called it the “working assumption”. Holding the review alongside the budget would let ministers raise taxes or cut spending to fund the increase; The Times puts the cost of hitting 3% at an extra £10bn a year. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates the interim goal would cost £17.3bn, and Chancellor John Healey must also fill a £4.7bn gap in the existing Defence Investment Plan.
The Treasury pushed back hard. “The date of the Spending Review has not been set. This is pure rumour and speculation,” a finance ministry spokesperson told Reuters, while a government source said it was wrong to characterise the move as a delay since ministers had never set a date.
The report hands ammunition to the Conservatives. Kemi Badenoch will use her party conference speech today to pledge £10bn for a “Britannia shield” — a British version of Israel’s Iron Dome, an integrated network of radar and interceptor missiles to defend critical national infrastructure from drone and missile threats. Badenoch said the pledge showed the Tories were serious about keeping Britain safe, while Labour would “not commit the money Britain needs for defence”.
Burnham has pledged to meet the 2035 NATO target but has yet to set out the steps to get there, and ministers have repeatedly delayed defence funding decisions over the past two years. Healey — who resigned as defence secretary under Keir Starmer after failing to secure funding for 3% by 2030 — delivers his first budget on October 28.
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