Healey tells departments to make 1% cuts to fund defence

Chancellor John Healey has told every government department to find 1% cuts in their capital budgets to fill a £4.7bn hole in the funding of the Defence Investment Plan.

The reductions come on top of the 1% cuts departments were asked to make earlier this year in order to pay for the initial £10.3bn of the plan's overall £15bn price tag.

The plan boosted defence spending; however the chancellor continues to come under pressure to explain how he will meet a further target of spending 3% of national income on defence by 2030.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the chancellor of only offering "a plan to have a plan" adding: "I bet [Vladimir] Putin's really scared now."