Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday he would increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP to reach 87 billion pounds ($108 billion) a year by 2030.
The cost of the commitment would be an additional 4.5 billion pounds by 2028/29, taking defence spending from approximately 73.8 billion pounds to 78.2 billion pounds.
This would be funded by a previously-announced plan to reduce the size of the civil service, saving 2.9 billion pounds, and 1.6 billion pounds allocated to defence research and development from an existing increase in overall R&D funding.
In line with budgetary conventions, the government did not set out how it would fund the changes after 2028/29 as that would take it beyond the horizon of official fiscal forecasts.
UK; Government hikes defense budget