She said: "There is a hard reality, which is that money needed to be found and it needed to be found really quickly, because when it became clear towards the end of the weekend that actually the defence spending had to go up on a timescale, and therefore there would need to be switch spending that would need to be announced on Tuesday, this became the only option.".
In her resignation letter to the prime minister, Ms Dodds acknowledged there was "no easy path" to fund the boost to defence but claimed there had been a "tactical decision" for the Overseas Development Aid (ODA) budget to "absorb the entire burden".
Baroness Harman conceded that "there'll be a lot of sadness amongst Labour MPs", and that she personally would have liked to have seen Ms Dodds "try to refocus what is left of the development agenda" and "keep alive the arguments for the pathway back to 0.7% [GDP spending on foreign aid]".
Sir Keir announced the decision to cut the aid budget on Tuesday, saying it would fund and increase defence spending from 2.3% of GDP to 2.5% in 2027.
Ms Dodds resigned on Friday over the prime minister's announcement to slash the overseas aid budget to fund an increase in defence spending.
