Rishi Sunak and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held a joint press conference. Speaking today in Berlin, the prime minister confirmed the reduction in civil service headcount to pre-pandemic levels would partly fund the defence spending uplift. Report by Gluszczykm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 The plan that I announced yesterday is fully funded and it's funded rightly with a reduction
00:06 in civil service headcount back to 2019 levels. Since then we've seen a very significant rise
00:12 that isn't sustainable or needed. The Chancellor has conducted a detailed exercise, he announced
00:18 this at the end of last year, that exercise is completed and that's what gives us the confidence
00:23 that we can release the savings needed to fund our defence plan combined with an uplift in R&D
00:29 spending which we had already budgeted for is already included in our plans. But you are, we
00:33 are making a choice to prioritise defence with both of those decisions and I believe that's the
00:39 right thing to do because whether we like it or not the world is I think more dangerous than it's
00:44 been at any moment since the Cold War and it falls on leaders whether that's Olaf, whether that's me
00:50 to do what's necessary to keep our countries and our continent safe and to stand up for our values.
00:55 That's what Britain has always done and that's what we are doing today, that's why I announced
01:00 what I did yesterday. It is the biggest strengthening of our national defence in a generation, it is
01:05 fully funded and it is based on the fact that we have a strong economy and an economic plan
01:10 that is working and you can see that when I came into this office and inflation was at 11%,
01:15 it's now 3% and falling, energy bills coming down, interest rates to follow, growth returning
01:21 and it's because our economic plan is working that I'm able to make these announcements.