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Labour’s shadow attorney general tells Sky News her party wants to “move towards” the government’s 2.5% spending pledge as and when they come to power.

But she says Labor won’t commit to the government’s 2030 target “unless there’s a plan that makes sense”.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030.

The government said the commitment amounted to an additional £75bn in funding over the next six years.

“When circumstances allow … we want to move towards 2.5%,” Emily Thornberry says.

But she says: “You wouldn’t expect me to come on and say that we could spend £75bn by 2030 without having a plan as to where we were going to get the money from.”

She says the government’s document on defense spending doesn’t contain a “single word about how they were going to pay for it”, adding “it’s just gimmick”.

Her comments row back on claims made by Labour’s shadow environment secretary, who told Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge yesterday that Labor is aiming to match the current government’s figure by the end of the decade (see post at 7.11pm).

“Labor would want to match that,” Steve Reed said.

“I think what we see is escalating threats to the security of our country, and the primary objective of any government surely is the defense of the realm.”

But, he adds: “We need to look and see how Rishi Sunak is proposing to fund this so we can take a view on it.

“So the right thing to do would be, take a step back, have a look at those numbers when they come out and assess the feasibility of what he’s saying.”