Keir Starmer has risked a major row with his successor after it emerged Andy Burnham did not know the full details of a £4.7bn hole in funding for the UK’s plan for war, The i Paper can reveal.
The Prime Minister said the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) represented his government’s “best judgement” of what the country needs to equip the armed forces for potential armed conflict with Russia by 2030.
But Burnham, who is expected to enter Downing Street in three weeks, will inherit the task of finding £4.7bn in savings or cuts to pay for the government’s new defence plan, after Chancellor Rachel Reeves left almost a third of the £15bn package unfunded until the Budget this autumn.
Shorts
The blueprint for war will cost an extra £15bn and will be paid for in part by a 1 per cent cut to all Whitehall departments’ capital budgets – including a controversial shelving of major road and energy projects that had been pledged by Starmer’s government, which sparked anger from local Labour MPs and mayors.
