Keir Starmer is unlikely to set out a plan this week for when the UK will increase its defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, a cabinet minister has indicated.
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said the target was ambitious, despite Labour previously claiming it would set out a path to meeting the spending goal after the strategic defence review in the spring.
The prime minister will meet Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday amid strained relations between Washington and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The US president added to the tensions on Friday when he said that Starmer and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, “haven’t done anything” to end the war in Ukraine, after his claims that Zelenskyy was a dictator.
Peter Mandelson, the UK’s ambassador to Washington, has reportedly been urging Starmer to set a firm timeline for when the UK will increase its defence spending from 2.3% of GDP.
Phillipson blamed the last Conservative government for leaving the public finances in a “devastating state” and her government in a difficult situation as to when they could set out such timelines.
When asked whether Starmer would tell Trump that Britain would spend “much more” on defence amid US demands for Europe to shoulder more of the burden for its own security, Phillipson told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show: “We will be spending much more on defence, and our allies need to step up alongside that.
“But let’s be clear, 2.5% is ambitious. We will get there, but it is ambitious, and this is also in the context of the public finances, which, let’s be honest were left in a devastating state by the Conservatives – a £22bn black hole, no credible plan for this nonsense that they claim around how they were going to reach 2.5%.
“What we will set out as a government will be a credible plan to deliver with a pathway towards it, but also that where we’re spending money, we’re spending it well.”
Starmer’s meeting with Trump will come three days after the US president meets Macron, who will be the first European leader to travel to Washington since his inauguration.
Phillipson played down the significance of Starmer not being the first European leader to meet Trump. “I don’t think that really matters,” she told Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips show.
“I think what we know is that President Trump really values the relationship with this country. We value the relationship … and this week, out of the US, the prime minister will be setting out how we will back a negotiated settlement that we want to secure, make sure that we play our full part in that, but of course, build on those ties that exist between our nations and what more we can do together.”
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The shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, said the Conservatives “do stand by the prime minister” before of his meeting with Trump, noting that “it’s in all of our interests to stand up to Putin”.
But he went further than Labour ministers, agreeing with Trump about the need for greater defence spending and “the need for us to step up in Europe”.
He suggested the government could reallocate funds from a reduced civil service to boost defence spending.
Starmer promised Zelenskyy he would make the case for safeguarding Ukraine’s sovereignty in his talks with Trump.
In a call with the Ukrainian president on Saturday, he said he would be “progressing important discussions” about Kyiv’s security while in Washington.
