The Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, says the Chancellor, John Healey, will set out a path in Wednesday's Budget to meet NATO spending commitments, including 3.5% of GDP on core defence by 2035. Reuters reports that he said this on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Monday 26 October.
Reuters quotes him as saying: "We will set out a plan as to what we think is the right way to do that." He also spoke of "the path to meet our NATO commitments, but we will meet our NATO commitments."
This goes further than the Guardian had reported. The paper said Healey was not expected to set a date for defence spending to reach 3% of GDP, and that the decision was likely to be deferred to a spending review next year.
The Reuters report gives no cost for the path, no source of funding and no detail of how the spending would be treated under the fiscal rules. It is also not yet clear how the 2035 end-point relates to the 3% figure.