LONDON, February 25. /TASS/. The UK will reduce the amount of aid it provides to other countries from the 0.5% of GDP it spends today to 0.3% starting in 2027, justifying the move by a need to boost domestic defense funding, said Prime Minister Keir Starmer, speaking in the House of Commons of the British Parliament.

"I want to be clear to the House, that is not an announcement I am happy to make," he said.

He admitted the government has to make "extremely difficult and painful choices."

In 2021, Great Britain reduced its spending on international aid from 0.7% of GDP, the number set by the UN in 1970, to 0.5% of GDP. It said at that time that this would be temporary, but it never increased spending to the previous level.