Andy Burnham is facing a £4.7bn bill to deliver the government’s defence investment plan before he has even taken office – a hole Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says the outgoing prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has left behind deliberately.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Badenoch accused Starmer of “spending it all on welfare” and claimed his much-delayed Defence Investment Plan (DIP) had “completely unravelled” because he had not found the money. “It’s £5bn short,” she said. “We all know he is leaving this mess to his successor, so can he confirm that the MP for Makerfield [Burnham] has agreed to fund the shortfall?”
“Starmer leaves Burnham with £4.7bn defence funding gap as Badenoch attacks missing money”
Starmer hit back, accusing Badenoch of “faux outrage” and reminding MPs that the Conservatives had cut defence spending when in government. He said the plan, which commits £15bn to boost defences by 2030, was only possible because of the £22bn headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves built into her Budget last November. The gap, he argued, was “about £1bn a year over four years” – a fraction of the extra space.
But the Treasury has identified only £10.3bn in savings so far, leaving the remaining £4.7bn to be found in the autumn Budget – a Budget that Burnham, widely expected to become prime minister on 20 July, will have to deliver. Defence Minister Luke Pollard told the BBC there had been “regular talks between Downing Street and Andy’s team about the defence investment plan”, but government sources revealed Burnham was not told about the £4.7bn gap when briefed in recent days.
Economists say the shortfall will eat into the headroom the next government needs. Ruth Curtice, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, said: “The DIP will reduce headroom by around £2bn. On top of the impacts of the Iran war the new prime minister likely already starts with more than a third of their headroom eroded.”
Burnham’s team has said he considers the plan settled and will not seek to renegotiate it. But officials are already scrambling to find savings elsewhere, including £2bn of cuts to the energy department’s capital budget.
Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace called the DIP a “leaving present” for Starmer. “But if you start unpicking the facts and the hard figures, almost nothing has changed,” he said. Starmer, who steps down after next week’s Nato summit in Ankara, acknowledged the criticism: “There will always be those who say, whatever the sum is frankly, it is not enough.”
For Burnham, the question is whether he can square a £4.7bn funding hole with an economy still reeling from war, a spiralling benefits bill and a high tax burden – a trade‑off his predecessor failed to resolve.