UK needs ‘credible path’ on defence spending, says Nato chief

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has said he is confident the UK government understands the need for a credible path to raise defence spending, telling the BBC he is “absolutely confident” in Britain’s commitment to a Nato-wide target of 3.5% of GDP by 2035.

A target with a timeline

The alliance’s 3.5% goal, agreed by Nato members last year, sets a demanding benchmark for European militaries still adjusting to a security environment shaped by the war in Ukraine and tensions across the continent. Rutte, the former Dutch prime minister, made clear that hitting the figure in a single leap in 2034 was not realistic and that governments would need to take steady yearly steps in the meantime.

Speaking after meetings in London with Defence Secretary Wes Streeting and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, Rutte said the “credible path” towards the target would not be set out until next year’s spending review. British ministers, he said, had accepted that yearly increments were necessary and that the 2035 deadline could not be met overnight.

Since entering Downing Street, Prime Minister Andy Burnham has reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to the 3.5% target, building on the pledge made by his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer. But Burnham has faced sustained pressure from opposition parties to spell out exactly how the country will get from current spending rates to the interim goal of 3% by 2030, which Chancellor John Healey had previously held up as a sign of credibility.

Separating defence from welfare

Rutte also used his interview to draw a sharp line between defence spending and welfare policy. He said the two issues should be treated separately, arguing that economic growth was the real engine that would allow a government to fund both military commitments and domestic priorities such as healthcare and pensions.

The Conservatives have argued for weeks that any increase in defence spending should be funded through cuts to benefits, and they have criticised Burnham for saying last week that national security “can’t come at the expense of social security”. Rutte declined to take sides on the detailed politics of the British budget, but he was unambiguous that growth, not benefit cuts alone, was the key to paying for higher defence spending.

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“You have to do it all, and if you want to do it successfully, you need economic growth,” he said. He added that he had been prime minister himself for 14 years and knew that governments had to take tough decisions, and that the process was “not always easy”.

Why it matters

The 3.5% target is one of the most concrete measures of whether European allies are serious about shouldering more of the burden for their own defence. Britain’s commitment matters not just for the UK’s own army, ships and air force but because it sets a tone for the rest of Nato: if a major European power with a large economy cannot chart a believable path, the credibility of the whole alliance target is weakened.

For British voters, the question is what higher defence spending means for the rest of the budget. The debate over whether to pay for it through growth, through welfare changes, or through tax increases is central to the political fight over the spending review and the autumn Budget. Rutte’s intervention gives the government some diplomatic cover, but it does not resolve the domestic arguments about where the money will come from.

What happens next

The spending review next year will be the moment when the government is expected to set out at least some of the path towards 3% by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035. Until then, ministers will face continued questioning from Parliament and from Nato partners about whether the steps are big enough and fast enough.

The Conservatives are likely to keep pressing the government on the issue at every opportunity, and the autumn Budget will be an early test of whether the chancellor is willing to put any new defence funding on the table before the full pathway is published.