‘It’s not enough!’ Lisa Nandy handed GB News grilling on defence spending after pledge to cut culture budget

Pressed by Emily on whether Sir Keir Starmer has left Britain “defenceless” amid the absence of the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan, Ms Nandy disagreed.

She told GB News: “No, I don’t accept that. We’ve overseen the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, and when we first came into Government, within weeks, we’d commissioned a strategic defence review, which recommended that we reach 2.6 per cent of spend on defence as part of GDP, and we’ve done that.

“But obviously the situation has changed in the world, the threat level that we face has become more severe. We’ve got a war in Iran and we’ve got to change accordingly and meet this moment.”

Recalling Mr Healey’s criticism of Sir Keir’s defence plan and his subsequent resignation, Emily argued the level of defence spending by the Government is “clearly not enough”.

Mr Nandy responded: “No, but the Prime Minister and the Cabinet has accepted that we need to find additional resources for defence, and I am genuinely trying to answer your question because I think it really matters.

“But those negotiations are ongoing, and in fairness to the new Defence Secretary, this is a man who served in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan on the front line.”

Defending Mr Jarvis, the Labour MP assured: “I’ve known him a long time, and I don’t believe for a moment he would have taken that job if he didn’t have assurances that he was going to be able to do what is needed to get our troops, the investment that they need to keep our country safe.

“We’re working collectively across the Cabinet to make sure that we reprioritise spending from across Government in order to do that.”

Emily challenged Ms Nandy’s response, pressing her on “which Government departments are giving up money for defence”.

Ms Nandy told GB News: “We’ve already prioritised spending away from most departments in order to fund increases in defence as well as in healthcare as well. I think they were the two biggest winners from the spending review.

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“We made significant cuts to the foreign aid budget, which a lot of people expressed reservations about, and there were resignations from cabinet about that.

“The Prime Minister has asked us all to look at our own budgets and to see what we can do in order to meet this moment. That’s a responsibility that we all take very seriously.”

Pressed directly on whether she will commit to sacrifice her own culture budget to bolster defence spending, the minister revealed: “Yes, I’ve asked my officials to look at what we can do to reprioritise some of our funding to make sure that we meet this moment.

“It’s a collective responsibility. It’s not just for the defence secretary to keep our country safe or even the Prime Minister.”

However, she admitted making cuts to the culture budget is “not straightforward” as it is a “small spending department”.

She explained: “We have £4billion a year, but it’s £2billion once you take into account money that goes straight out the door to some of the things like the National Lottery, for example, or through the BBC licence fee, so it’s a small spending department in Whitehall terms, but that doesn’t mean that everybody shouldn’t make a contribution.”

Ms Nandy concluded: “Al Carns, when he resigned this week, pointed out that not only do we need to significantly uplift defence spending, and we need to transform what we spend money on to make sure that we’re fit for the future, not the wars of the past.

“We also, in addition to that, have to protect what he called our national resilience, which includes things like economic security, tackling myths and disinformation, strong communities.

“And there are areas of spend in my department that contribute directly to that. So that is why this is not as straightforward as it might perhaps appear, but we are determined to collectively meet this moment.”

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