Minister calls on Burnham to show path to 3.5% target on UK defence spending

Challenger 3, the British army’s next-generation battle tank, at Tankfest in Bovington, Dorset, last month Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Challenger 3, the British army’s next-generation battle tank, at Tankfest in Bovington, Dorset, last month Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images Minister calls on Burnham to show path to 3.5% target on UK defence spending Dan Jarvis, who wants to stay on as defence secretary, says he is confident PM-in-waiting values national security The new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis , has called on Andy Burnham to increase defence spending dramatically from 2030 and “evidence the trajectory” towards a Nato target that would mean £25bn a year more for the military by the middle of the next decade. The former paratrooper said he was confident that the prime minister-in-waiting valued national security, as he openly lobbied him for cash that would probably have to come from cuts elsewhere. “What I absolutely will want to see is that in the next spending review we commit the resources to evidence the trajectory to 3.5% [of GDP],” Jarvis said, speaking before the annual Nato summit gets under way on Tuesday in Ankara, Turkey. Jarvis, who is keen to remain in post, has been in contact with Burnham and his team already to discuss defence priorities and the £298bn, four-year defence investment plan (Dip) that was finally published last week after months of ministerial wrangling. “I’ve known Andy for a very long time and I have not a shred of doubt that as prime minister he will make sure that we’ve got the resources that we need at a point of challenge,” Jarvis said. View image in fullscreen Dan Jarvis became defence secetary last month. Photograph: Leon Neal/PA He said: “The world is absolutely more dangerous and more complicated than at any point during my lifetime,” as Russian warships and shadow fleet vessels accused of launching drones over RAF Lakenheath sail around the UK. Britain is gearing up for its most significant sustained deployment in years, safeguarding the strait of Hormuz in a joint operation with France, should the US and Iran agree on a sustainable peace, amid reports that Downing Street has kept Burnham out of the detailed planning. Jarvis will travel to Ankara with Starmer and the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper. He said he would personally reassure his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, that the UK would meet the 3.5% spending pledge agreed last year amid pressure from Donald Trump. “I will give him [Hegseth] the commitment that we will honour the pledges, the commitments that we’ve made to the United States and to our Nato allies,” Jarvis said of the biggest increase in military spending since the second world war. Jarvis’s predecessor, John Healey, quit last month after Starmer would only commit to increasing defence spending to 2.68% of GDP by 2030, leaving a steep curve to hitting the 3.5% target in 2035. The incoming defence secretary won a modest £1.5bn more over th