Keir Starmer announced an additional £15 billion of defence spending power on 30 June.
The Treasury published the financing alongside it.
Its table identified measures worth £10.3 billion. Against the remaining £4.7 billion, it said:
"To be funded at Budget 2026."
Of that sum, £1.8 billion falls in 2026/27, followed by £1.1 billion, £1 billion and £900 million over the following three years.
Andy Burnham had been briefed on the Defence Investment Plan before publication.
Multiple outlets reported the same central account on 30 June: Burnham had been briefed on the plan but had not been told about the £4.7 billion funding requirement before it emerged publicly.
The Guardian reported that people close to Burnham said he had not been told about the gap when he was briefed. Sky News reported that Burnham had been briefed on the plan but was surprised when the funding shortfall emerged.
Neither report identified the people providing that information.
The government did not publish evidence contradicting the central claim.
Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis was repeatedly asked by Sky whether Burnham had known about the funding position before publication. He did not answer directly. Instead, he said there had been conversations with Burnham as part of the transition and defended the decisions made in the plan.
The following morning, defence minister Luke Pollard gave a more specific account of the timing.
Speaking to broadcasters, Pollard said he had first seen the detailed Treasury breakdown when it was published on 30 June. Press Association reported him as saying he believed Downing Street had told Burnham that day as well.
On BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Pollard was more cautious about Burnham. He said he had not been involved in those discussions and could not confirm precisely what had been communicated to Burnham's team.
Pollard's comments support parts of the chronology but do not independently establish what Burnham had been told before publication. He saw the detailed breakdown for the first time on publication day; he was not party to whatever Downing Street told Burnham's team, and when pressed, said so directly.
It does establish that a defence minister had not himself seen the final Treasury funding breakdown before it appeared publicly.
Burnham was not Labour leader or Prime Minister at the time. Starmer remained in office and was entitled to make spending decisions.
But Starmer had already announced that he was leaving, and Burnham was widely expected to succeed him. The unresolved £4.7 billion would be settled at a Budget taking place under the next government.
The £4.7 billion should not be deducted from the £15 billion to claim that only £10.3 billion of defence spending was actually committed.
The Treasury has committed to the full £15 billion increase in Ministry of Defence spending power between 2026/27 and 2029/30. The £10.3 billion figure refers to the financing measures the government had identified when the plan was published.
The government's own explainer makes both points.
It says:
"The government has confirmed an additional £15 billion for the Defence Investment Plan."
It then says £10.3 billion had been "identified now" and that a further £4.7 billion would be confirmed at Budget 2026.
The spending commitment was settled.
Part of the financing was not.
That also corrects a tempting but misleading comparison with John Healey.
Healey resigned as Defence Secretary on 11 June after a prolonged dispute about the money required for the Defence Investment Plan. Contemporary reporting said the Ministry of Defence had sought about £18 billion to close the remaining gap in its programme and that Starmer and the Treasury had eventually offered about £13.5 billion.
His successor, Dan Jarvis, secured another £1.5 billion, taking the published package to £15 billion. Jarvis told Parliament that the plan contained £1.5 billion more than when he became Defence Secretary.
It would therefore be wrong to subtract the unresolved £4.7 billion from the £15 billion and conclude that Healey had been offered more than Jarvis ultimately secured. One figure measures additional defence spending power; the other concerns how that spending is financed.
Starmer defended leaving part of the financing to the Budget.
At Prime Minister's Questions on 1 July, he pointed to £22 billion of fiscal headroom at the previous Budget and argued that governments can make spending decisions between fiscal events before spelling out every financing measure. He cited the Conservative government's 2018 NHS funding announcement as precedent.
Pollard made the same basic argument, saying it was "not unusual" to announce spending before completing the financing at a later Budget.
There is precedent for that.
It does not resolve what happened during the transition briefing.
The Treasury knew by publication day that £4.7 billion had not yet been attached to specific financing measures. Its table set out the figure explicitly.
Burnham had been briefed on the Defence Investment Plan before publication.
The Guardian reported that the £4.7 billion requirement was not part of that briefing. Sky News reported that Burnham was surprised when it emerged.
And one of Starmer's own defence ministers said he did not see the Treasury breakdown himself until the day it was published.