Former defence secretary John Healey has lashed out at Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in a withering resignation speech, accusing the prime minister of allowing the Treasury to determine Britain’s defence policy based on cost-saving measures.
Addressing the Commons for the first time since his shock resignation last Thursday, Mr Healey said the government had failed to outline a path to reaching 3 per cent of GDP on defence and warned that “our adversaries do not follow timetables set by the Treasury”.
He said the UK’s defence spending plan falls “well short of what is required”, and called on the government to make “bolder priorities” and “harder choices” to ensure Britain is protected in an increasingly dangerous world.
Mr Healey’s comments came hours after one of Sir Keir Starmer’s most senior military chiefs warned Britain’s armed forces would have to “dial back” overseas deployments and training exercises if Sir Keir did not offer more funding for defence.
Sir Rich Knighton echoed Mr Healey’s concerns to peers on the international relations and defence committee on Tuesday, warning: “The thing that I’m most concerned about is the level of day-to-day activity funding, the resource departmental expenditure limit, because that funds operational activity and drives exercises and training.
“Those are the things that make sure the men and women of our armed forces are as ready as they can be with the equipment that they have got today, and without changes to the settlement, as John Healey set out, then those areas will come under pressure.”
Mr Healey’s successor as defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, is currently reviewing the defence investment plan, which was due to be published last week but has been delayed once again following Mr Healey’s resignation.
Mr Jarvis is looking at how the money will be spent, but the prime minister made it clear that there will be no extra cash allocated to defence spending.
Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit in Evian, France, Sir Keir said: “The position on investment in defence is firstly that we increased, last year, defence spending from 2.3 per cent to 2.6 per cent. That’s the biggest increase since the 1980s.
“And that means £270bn will be spent this parliament on defence. On top of that defence investment plan, which obviously gives us the capability for the future, we’ll put even more money in, in relation to that. I’ve been really clear that that’s required difficult decisions.”
But when asked if there was any more money, he made it clear there would not be. He said: “I have taken the decision to reallocate money from other departments. Obviously, the new defence secretary [Dan Jarvis] is reading in, and we’re talking to him about how and what we will spend that money in terms of capability.”
Mr Healey and Al Carns, the former armed forces minister, resigned because the extra £10bn available amounted to a tiny proportion of what was needed, meaning the UK was far from the trajectory needed to reach 3.5 per cent in the next parliament.
Mr Healey, meanwhile, told MPs that he believed his resignation would come to be seen as “necessary in securing the future of our armed forces and our alliances”, adding that Britain must not “fall behind” as Nato allies increased spending.
And he urged ministers to look beyond reallocating funding from other departments to pay for defence.
He said: “I appreciate how hard this is for cabinet colleagues and I am very grateful to those who support what is required, but not all needs to be done by cutbacks elsewhere.
“There are credible ways of meeting the mid-term funding challenges, working multinationally and, as other nations in Europe are doing, that could allow us to protect the ability to deliver our Labour missions across government.”
Mr Healey’s resignation speech was followed by an address from Mr Carns, sitting on the same bench as his former boss at the Ministry of Defence.
The former Royal Marines officer repeated his own criticisms of the government’s approach to defence, saying its plans were neither adequately funded nor prepared for the wars Britain is likely to fight.
He said: “The reality is we are spending too much time preparing for last year’s war, not tomorrow’s.”
Mr Carns also pointed to the government’s “failure to address the treatment of our veterans in Northern Ireland”, warning: “The IRA failed to achieve its political ends through the use of terrorist tactics; we must be exceptionally careful that we do not help them achieve those ends through other means.”