Starmer to count rural broadband as ‘defence spending'
Broadband and Heathrow's third runway are to be counted as defence spending under Sir Keir Starmer 's plans to redraw the definition of national security.
The Government's national security review, due to be published before a Nato summit next week, will expand the definition to include economic stability, food prices, supply chains, crime and the internet.
It could allow the UK to hit Nato's new defence spending target of five per cent of GDP without committing any further public money.
Mark Rutte, Nato's secretary general, has proposed member states spend 3.5 per cent on core defence activities and a further 1.5 per cent on related infrastructure.
Ministers are considering meeting the latter target by spending money on roads, strengthening bridges and increasing runway capacity, The Telegraph understands.
Cyber, energy and telecommunications security projects will also be offset against the goal.
While Nato countries will still be required to hit 3.5 per cent of core defence spending each year – far higher than Sir Keir's current pledge of three per cent by the next parliament – the additional 1.5 per cent will come from other budgets.
The plans, first reported by Bloomberg, will include various infrastructure projects that have already been announced as 'national security' spending, including a third runway at Heathrow Airport that is estimated to cost at least £42bn.
Other projects to be allocated to the 'defence' budget for Nato's accounting purposes could include Project Gigabit, a £5bn plan to upgrade rural broadband services, a £1bn pot to upgrade weak bridges and build the Lower Thames Crossing tunnel.
In a move that is likely to draw scepticism from some in the defence sector, the national security review will also include reference to 'street crime', which the Home Office currently tackles with a £17.4bn budget for local policing.
Future strategies for the manufacturing, science and technology sectors will also be based on national security considerations, while counting the 'supply chain' of British energy as a defence issue will allow ministers to include the £300m allocated to offshore wind development.
Unlike the strategic defence review published by the Ministry of Defence last month, the national security review has been conducted inside Downing Street by Jonathan Powell, Sir Keir's national security adviser.
Under plans announced earlier this year, Britain has allocated roughly 2.3 per cent of GDP on defence but promised to hit 2.6 per cent by 2027.
Sir Keir has pledged to further increase this figure to 3 per cent by the next parliament, which could start as early as 2029.
That would see Britain spend more on defence than most Nato allies, but fall short of Donald Trump's demand that European members of the alliance increase their spending to five per cent.
Mr Rutte has proposed the new system of separate defence and infrastructure budgets as a way of member states meeting that target without drastically reducing spending on other domestic priorities.
It is likely the UK government will comfortably meet the 1.5 per cent demands for spending on so-called 'enablement and resilience'.
But there are doubts over whether it will be able to hit the 3.5 per cent of GDP targets by the envisaged date of 2032.
Sources say that Britain would prefer for the final deadline to be extended to 2035 to allow for more time to increase defence spending.
It comes after The Telegraph revealed that ministers are planning to back a new ' defence, security and resilience bank ', which would take some military procurement spending off of Whitehall balance sheets and place it on the books of a new multilateral institution.
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