UK Finance Minister to Delay 2030 Defense Spending Target

According to Jin10, UK Finance Minister John Healey is set to temporarily shelve the goal of raising defense spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 when he presents his first budget in October, while difficult decisions on how to fund the military will also be delayed. The Financial Times reported that Healey had previously insisted Britain should lift defense spending to 3% of GDP before 2030 as a milestone toward NATO's 3.5% target by 2035, but that position is now uncertain. Government insiders said his budget will focus on filling a nearly 5 billion pound funding gap in defense equipment left by former Prime Minister Starmer. Bee Boileau, a researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that if the government raises defense spending to 3% of GDP by 2030, it would need to spend an additional 10 billion pounds a year at current prices, and that increasing it further to 3.5% would require an extra 25 billion pounds. Under current plans, UK defense spending will reach 2.7% of GDP by 2030.