15 hours ago
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Starmer warned of £28bn defence funding shortfall
Keir Starmer has been warned by the UK’s top military chief that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could face a £28bn funding shortfall in the next four years, PA Media reports. PA says:
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton reportedly told the prime minister that an MoD assessment made last year showed a £28bn shortfall between now and 2030.
The chancellor and defence secretary were also at the meeting in the run up to Christmas, as first reported by the Times and the Sun newspapers.
The news is thought to have prompted Starmer to order an overhaul of the defence investment plan (Dip), which has been delayed after first being expected in the autumn.
The Dip will set out how the strategic defence review is to be delivered.
A government source said the UK is “on track” to fulfil the commitments outlined in the review.
Knighton took over as chief of the defence staff in September and is responsible for the delivery of the strategic defence review published in June, as the UK has pledged to boost defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027.
The review also set out a goal to raise spending to 3% in the next parliament “when fiscal and economic conditions allow”.
An MoD spokesperson said: “The UK defence budget is rising to record levels as this government delivers the biggest boost to defence spending since the Cold War, totalling £270bn this parliament alone.
“Demands on defence are rising, with growing Russian aggression, increasing operational requirements and preparations for a Ukraine deployment.
“We are working flat out on the defence investment plan, which will fix the outdated, overcommitted, and underfunded defence programme we inherited.”
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Labour chair claims pub business rates rethink not a U-turn, but ‘sign of confident government’ that is listening
Good morning. Yesterday it emerged the government is going to significantly revise some of its budget plans with a financial support package to help the pub industry. Pubs say that, without extra help, they will be hammered by extra business rates costs contained in her budget. In her speech to MPs in November, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, implied she was cutting business rate costs for this sector. She told the Commons:
For business rates, I will introduce permanently lower tax rates for over 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties – the lowest tax rates since 1991 … paid for through higher rates on properties worth £500,000 or more, like the warehouses used by online giants.
But the gains for pubs from the reduction in headlines rates were more than wiped out by the reduction in Covid-era reliefs, and the impact of a three-yearly revaluation, coming into effect in April 2026, which has led to big increases in the rateable value of many pubs. As Kiran Stacey, Peter Walker and Rob Davies report, Reeves is responding to weeks of protest from the pub sector by revising her business rate plans.
The details have not been announced, but government sources have confirmed that a significant rescue package is coming soon.
Almost all media outlets have described this as a U-turn, and that is consistent with the usual meaning of the word. While Reeves is not implementing a 180-degree reversal of what she announced on business rates in November, this seems to be more than a minor tweak, and it sounds like a significant change from the policy she announced in her keynote annual announcement only six weeks ago.
But ministers don’t like this word, partly because it is pejorative, and partly because the government has now established a reputation for U-turning regularly on big, headline policy issues, like cutting winter fuel payments, cutting disability benefits, and subjecting farms to inheritance tax. Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, has been doing an interview round this morning and she has been claiming this isn’t a U-turn. She told Sky News:
I don’t buy this is a U-turn. This is actually about listening. I think it’s a sign of a government that is actually in touch with people, that is listening to people, and that is responding.
I think listening to constituents isn’t being bullied or lobbied – that’s what we’re here to do.
We’re here to represent the people that we live amongst and, if a policy isn’t right, I think it’s a sign of a confident government that says, ‘do you know what? we’ll step in, we’ll sort it out, we’ll make sure it works’.
This is a perfectly reasonable argument, although it might have made more sense for Turley to argue that, because responding to public concerns is a good thing, U-turns can be positive, and this is a good example, not that this isn’t one. All governments perform U-turns, and normally the pain from the short-term political embarrassment is offset by the gain from the long-term removal of a political problem.
But Keir Starmer is vulnerable to the charge that he is U-turning so often he looks weak.
There is not much on the agenda today. The Commons is not sitting. But peers are debating the assisted dying bill again (more on that soon), and Downing Street has a lobby briefing at 11.30am.
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