The Defence Secretary has finally confessed that the Government’s announced defence spending hike is less than half the amount Keir Starmer claimed in the Commons yesterday. In Parliament, Sir Keir boasted that the decision to cut the foreign aid budget in order to raise defence spending will mean an extra £13.4 billion for the military.

However the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) argued this was highly misleading, as it falsely pretends defence spending would have remained at its current level between now and 2027. In fact the real amount is around £6 billion extra for defence, in real terms – less than half the PM’s touted figure. This morning BBC Breakfast’s Sally Nugent took the Defence Secretary to task over the dubious claim, and got a confession.

Argued about the IFS’ claim that the figure is “totally inconsistent”, John Healey argued: “The definition of defence numbers can be done in a number of different ways. You can take it as a percentage of GDP, you can take it as cash terms.

“What Keir Starmer was talking about yesterday was an increase in hard cash that will be spent on defence in two year’s time compared to what’s being spent today.”

Host Sally Nugent pointed out: “Let’s just explain this in really simple terms, shall we? £13.4 billion the number would be correct if the government then did not increase the defence budget year-on-year in line with inflation – am I right?”

Mr Healey confessed: “Yes, that’s a cash number. If we were doing it in real terms taking in inflation it would be something over £6 billion.

“Either way this is a big boost to defence spending, it will allow us to strengthen our armed forces, it will allow us to use defence as an engine for driving economic growth in this country so we can put a long term industrial plan in place to boost British jobs, businesses and technology at the same time as boosting British security.”

Yesterday the IFS’s Ben Zaranko accused Sir Keir of trying to “reach for the largest possible number”.

He explained: “He’s reaching for a bigger number to make his announcement, perhaps one aimed at the US president, sound more dramatic, but I think that he’s come unstuck by using numbers which don’t quite cohere across the board.”

Responding to Mr Healey’s interview, his Tory opposite James Cartlidge demanded answers.

He said: “Yesterday the PM said defence spending was rising by £13.4bn. Today his Defence Secretary says £6bn. Which is it?”

“Kemi Badenoch was only given a redacted version of the PM’s statement before he spoke, missing all the figures. Transparency matters & we urgently need clarity.”

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The Government is also remaining tight lipped about whether the new 2.5% figure will be artificially reached by including planned payments to Mauritius to lease the Chagos Island military base.

The Government has come under huge fire for its plan to give the Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius and lease the US-UK military base back over the next 100 years for a huge sum.

While the Government has yet to reveal the total amount it has offered to Mauritius, it is claimed to be anywhere between £9-£18billion in upfront costs.

Amid concerns the Government might count this sum towards its total defence spending, a Downing Street source refused to “get into Chagos” when questioned by the Express.

Shadow armed forces minister Mark Francois has demanded reassurance that none of the defence spending uplift “is linked to payments for a Chagos deal, which, if it’s heavily front-loaded, could eat up a significant chunk of that, at least in the early years”.