Sir Keir Starmer's plans to make Britain a "battle-ready" nation have been overshadowed by a funding row as senior Labour figures have warned tax rises will be needed to pay for it.
A new defence review has warned Britain faces a "new era of threat" and must rebuild its military to prepare for war.
The Prime Minister said that the UK will move to "war-fighting readiness" ahead of the review, which he said would create a "battle-ready, armour clad" nation.
Under the plans, the British Army will grow for the first time in a generation to at least 76,000 full-time soldiers in the next Parliament, surpassing the recommended target of 73,000.
Sir Keir Starmer said he wants to make Britain 'battle-ready'
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While Starmer said he was "100 per cent confident" that recommendations in the long-awaited strategic defence review (SDR) would be delivered, senior Labour figures and economists have issued a warning that taxes would have to rise to pay for it.
The proposals assume Britain will spend three per cent of GDP on defence by 2034, reports The Times.
Head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank Paul Johnson told Times Radio: "[There would need to be] some really quite chunky tax increases."
Meanwhile, former Labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "Taxes will have to rise. I don’t see any alternative to that and at the same time, there will have to be some quite difficult retrenchment, particularly on parts of the social security budget."
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Former foreign secretary Jack Straw
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Defence Secretary John Healey said he was “100 per cent confident” that the money would be found to meet the pledge, but refused to guarantee it.
He said: "We will never make commitments to increase funding unless we can show how we’re paying for them."
Asked by Times Radio if taxes would have to rise to pay for the pledge, he said: "We’ll set out how we’ll pay for future increases in the future."
Meanwhile, former Labour Defence Secretary and author of the review Lord Robertson of Port Ellen warned that "people will have to pay" to keep Britain safe.
Defence Secretary John Healey making a statement to MPs in the House of Commons, London, on the strategic defence review
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Conservative former foreign secretary Sir James Cleverly accused the Government of being "timid" in its response to the strategic defence review (SDR).
In the Commons, Cleverly said "fundamentally, it seems to be heading in the right direction" and added: "But why so timid? Why so slow?
"If we are facing an era-defining moment, then why not move with the pace that that era demands?"
Defence Secretary John Healey replied that he would "reject that characterisation completely".
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