How much more is being spent on defence and will the UK hit Nato's targets?
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ByBen Chu, Policy and analysis correspondent, Anthony Reuben and Tom Edgington, BBC VerifyPublished16 minutes agoThe government has published the much-delayed Defence Investment Plan (DIP) and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the additional spending represents a "huge historic shift for our nation".
BBC Verify has been looking at how much extra the government is committing to spend on defence in the coming years - and whether it puts the UK on track to hit its promised commitments. The Ministry of Defence's overall budget for 2026-27 is £68.3bn, according to the Defence Investment Plan. However there is a measure known as Nato-qualifying defence spending which is wider than the MoD's budget, because it includes state spending on things like military pensions.
According to this measure the UK's spending was estimated by the military alliance to be £70bn in 2025, equivalent to 2.4% of the UK's GDP in that year. What has the government committed to spend?In February 2025 Sir Keir committed to raising Nato-qualifying defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. The prime minister also announced that the activities of the UK's security and intelligence agencies would - by 2027 - be classified as Nato-qualifying defence spending.
As a result spending would hit 2.6% of GDP by 2027. The prime minister also stated a "clear ambition" to increase spending to 3% of GDP "in the next parliament". At a Nato summit in the Hague in June 2025 the UK and other members committed to spend 5% of GDP on defence and security with 3.5% going to Nato-qualifying "core defence" by 2035.
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