Sir Keir Starmer has announced he will boost defence spending to 2.5 per cent by 2027.

Addressing the House of Commons just days before a crunch meeting with Donald Trump, Sir Keir said the increase would be funded in part by a cut to the foreign aid budget.

Sir Keir said this will mean spending £13.4 billion more every year from 2027, something which he acknowledged required “extremely difficult and painful choices”. 

Here is the Prime Minister’s speech in full.

“Three years since Russia launched its violence on Ukraine, I would like to address the international situation, of the implication for Britain’s national security.

“In my first week as Prime Minister, I travelled to the Nato summit in Washington with a simple message that Nato and our allies could trust this Government would fulfil Britain and indeed the Labour Party’s historic role to put our collective security first.

“I spoke of my great pride to lead the party that was a founding member of Nato, the inheritor of the legacy of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin, who not only stood behind Winston Churchill in wartime, but won the peace by establishing the great post-war order here and abroad.

“It’s a proud legacy, but in a world like ours, it’s also a heavy one, because the historical load we must carry to fulfil our duty, is not as light as it once was.

“We must bend our backs across this House, because these times demand a united Britain, and we must deploy all of our resources to achieve security.

“As a young man, I vividly remember the Berlin Wall coming down. It felt as if we were casting off the shackles of history, a continent united by freedom and democracy.

“If you had told me then, that in my lifetime, we would see Russian tanks rolling into European cities again, I would not have believed you.

“Yet here we are in a world where everything has changed, because three years ago, that is exactly what happened.

“Britain can be proud of our response. British families opened their doors to fleeing Ukrainians, the yellow and light blue fluttering on town halls and churches the length and breadth of this country.

“And the party opposite in government, was robust in our response. I supported that in opposition. I applaud them for it now.

“And we have built on that, bringing our support for Ukraine to a record level this year.

“We should not pretend that any of this has been easy. Working people have already felt the cost of Russian actions through rising prices and bills.

‘We must stand by Ukraine’

“Nonetheless, one of the great lessons of our history is that instability in Europe will always wash up on our shores, and that tyrants like Putin only respond to strength.

“Russia is a menace in our waters, in our airspace and on our streets. They have launched cyber attacks on our NHS only seven years ago, a chemical weapons attack on the streets of Salisbury.

“We must stand by Ukraine, because if we do not achieve a lasting peace, then the economic instability, a threat to our security; they will only grow.

“And so as the nature of that conflict changes, as it has in recent weeks, it brings our response into sharper focus, a new era that we must meet as we have so often in the past, together and with strength.