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The UK government is in discussions about joining a global investment bank aimed at raising more money for defence spending. <\/b><\/p>\n
Chancellor John Healey is considering a bid to join the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB), not long after his predecessor Rachel Reeves rejected the idea.<\/p>\n
Canada has been leading efforts to establish the bank, which supporters say would enable governments to borrow at lower costs to increase military spending.<\/p>\n
Treasury officials stressed that no decision has been made. A government spokesperson said it was “fully committed to working alongside our international partners to scale defence industrial capacity.”<\/p>\n
Before he cancelled commitments due to the death of his father, Prime Minister Andy Burnham had been due to meet Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney in the UK on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte is also travelling to the UK for his first meeting with the prime minister.<\/p>\n
He is giving a speech in Oxfordshire, where he is expected to say the UK is “serious about security” and praise the country’s efforts supporting Ukraine. <\/p>\n
He will also say that Nato will “not be intimidated by Russia’s campaign of hostile actions. <\/p>\n
“Russia wants to stop us helping Ukraine \u2013 but their actions will only lead us to do more for Ukraine.”<\/p>\n
It comes after Nato forces shot down a drone over Lithuania in the latest security scare on the alliance’s eastern flank, where tensions remain high amid Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n
And on Tuesday Denmark also accused a Russian warship of firing two emergency flares at one of its helicopters while it was tracking the vessel in the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n
The DSRB is a multilateral bank aimed at providing cheaper loans to fund defence projects and has backing from Albania, Bulgaria, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Membership of the bank for the UK and other G7 countries would come with an upfront investment cost of around \u00a3870m spread over three years.<\/p>\n
Paying for the UK’s growing defence commitments is one of Healey’s biggest headaches as he prepares for the Budget in October and next year’s spending review. <\/p>\n
The government has so far avoided committing to raising defence spending to 3% of national income by 2030, only repeating the longer term goal of 3.5% by 2035.<\/p>\n
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