Andy Burnham has said he will ensure the Defence Investment Plan is fully funded, in his first direct public response to the £4.7 billion funding gap left in the plan for him to resolve in his first Budget.
The commitment came during a question and answer session on the r/ukpolitics Reddit forum, where the Labour MP for Makerfield, expected to enter Downing Street later this month, was asked for his thoughts on the plan.
“The world is changing fast and the challenges are multiplying,” Burnham replied. “The Defence Investment Plan represents a step change in Britain’s response to this new reality and I will ensure that it is fully funded.”
The plan, published on 30 June, is backed by a £15 billion increase in the Ministry of Defence’s spending power over four years, but the accompanying Treasury statement revealed that only around two-thirds of that sum has been secured. The government’s own funding explainer states the package is funded primarily by reallocating budgets across departments, with £10.3 billion identified now, drawn from a 1 per cent contribution from every department’s capital budget along with larger contributions from the transport roads budget and the energy department.
Analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies identifies a further £4.7 billion listed as to be funded at Budget 2026, a fiscal event that will fall to Burnham and his Chancellor.
Sources close to Burnham have said the funding hole came as a surprise to his team, and a defence minister has suggested he learned of it only on the day of publication, although he is understood to have known the bulk of the plan’s contents through access talks with the civil service and had reportedly pushed for the document’s release to be delayed so he could address the challenge himself. Burnham has previously said he will retain the current fiscal rules, which would rule out borrowing to close the gap, leaving only further departmental reductions or tax rises as available options.
Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis has rejected suggestions the deferral amounts to a hand grenade for the incoming Prime Minister, telling broadcasters he had received the assurance that “as prime minister Andy Burnham will make sure that we have got the investment” coming into defence, while conceding that conversations with Burnham would be necessary and arguing that finalising such commitments at a major fiscal event is not unreasonable. The Conservatives have attacked the arrangement, with a party spokesman calling it “a delayed-action poison pill,” and former defence secretary Sir Liam Fox describing the situation facing Burnham in similar terms.
And add another 13 billion to fully fund what’s needed.
No Drama Andy, the press keep trying to paint Andy Burnham as some supper lefty. The guy is a former blairite cabinet minister. He is probably one of the most centrist MP’s I have ever met and might be the only man in Britain finally willing to end the nonsense of Westminster politics and Britains obsession with looking after London above all else.
Good news is labour is going to win in 2029 now, The Kremlin stooge propped up by suspicious crypto money from a “British Guy in Bangkok” will be either in jail or too old to run in 2034 and best of all we don’t need to have another defence review for a decade.
No one will ever be as daft as kier Starmer to set up a defence review run by three amateurs with no one in the room counting costs while coming up with hair brained schemes like deck launching long range missiles off an aircraft carrier.
One just wonders how much damage could have been saved if the Government told the MoD what it could afford and they built the plan around that rather than some fantasy like a normal defence review.
For everyone who is going to tell me how it should be the other way around and a governments first duty is to defend the country and we are under threat of war I will point to exhibit one, The DIP, which despite a massive uplift in funding contains next to nothing for UK mainland Defence. No GBAD ABM capability, No extra fighters, No extra AWACS and keeps all our expeditionary force components.
This is probably the right move as maintaining ENATO is vital but if your only putting in £700 million to UK air defence out of £300 billion and that’s all going on a radar and control room you can’t tell me we are under immanent threat and I need to gut the NHS and through disabled people out on the street to pay for a big military less the talking heads tell me we will all be speaking Russian soon or worse the Americans will be displeased with me.
Worth pointing out with the extra funding the UK will be spending £79 billion a year on defence in 2029 vs France that will be spending £66 billion despite having near identical GDP’s and needs and responsibilities to each other.
I’d debate this with you but I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re delusional and probably not entirely sane. Certainly the way you constantly contradict yourself supports this thesis.