It is only six weeks or so since the then defence secretary, a widely-respected figure by the name of John Healey, told the not-so-widely-respected prime minister at the time, Sir Keir Starmer, that “you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats”. As we can now sense, Mr Healey’s move was the last stage in the process of defenestration initiated by Wes Streeting’s earlier decision to quit the government, and the fatal intervention of Andy Burnham at the Makerfield by-election.
Well, times change, and in somewhat strange ways so far as the defence of the realm is concerned. At the time he left the Starmer administration, Mr Healey’s demand was clear and precise. As he told the Commons: “Britain must set the headmark of spending 3 per cent on defence in 2030 and a clear path to 3.5 per cent in 2035 – the commitment all Nato nations have made to each other and to their people. I believe that this would command wide cross-party support.”
On the latest evidence, Mr Healey, despite his promotion to such a powerful position, hasn’t even been able to command the support of key colleagues. To be fair to him, Mr Burnham has always sounded lukewarm about increased defence spending, and his latest remarks are no more sympathetic. During an interview with Laura Kuenssberg at the new Number 10 North, Mr Burnham would only go so far as repeating the commitment given by his predecessor to Nato partners – and not the interim figure that pushed Mr Healey beyond breaking point.
Even more dispiritingly for those concerned about the nation’s defences, and in marked contrast to when Mr Healey was in change of the armed forces, Mr Streeting is proving to be equally easier-going. Now installed, probably to his own surprise, in the ministry of defence (he may have hoped for something even grander), Mr Streeting seems fairly content with current spending plans. In his own television interview, with Trevor Phillips, he was his usual fluent, combative self, but wasn’t going to go into battle for more money. His reluctance was well camouflaged. He declared that “the first challenge facing us both is to ensure that the defence investment plan is fully funded”. He also pointed out that: “If I didn’t have confidence that this prime minister and this chancellor would be investing in our defence sufficiently to protect our country… then no, I wouldn’t have taken the job.”
However, none of that adds up to a single extra pound for defence, and the “3 per cent by 2030” target proposed by Mr Healey went conspicuously unmentioned.
So it falls to the poacher-turned-gamekeeper Mr Healey himself to achieve what he himself so dearly desires, or, rather, once desired. Now Mr Healey is chancellor of the exchequer he has said very little about anything, let alone his old brief, since gladly accepting the job offer from the new prime minister who he did so much to manoeuvre into No 10. Indeed, the nearest the chancellor has got to discussing spending plans was in a public discussion of the relative merits of pork scratchings and various other bar snacks with the prime minister during a photo op in a pub. He has been notably, and disappointingly, silent on the issue he left the government on.
In truth, Mr Healey didn’t need to become chancellor to understand the scale of the strategic, industrial and above all financial challenges facing the armed forces. In his old job he knew them better than most, and witnessed at first hand the full horrors of the waste in British defence procurement. There is already a funding shortfall of almost £5bn a year on existing commitments; and another £8bn a year would be needed to meet Mr Healey’s old headmark of 3 per cent of national income by 2030. This is a great sum of money, and not so far off what is envisaged for Mr Burnham’s putative “national care service”. It would require a serious re-prioritisation of public spending away from social security and on a scale unlikely to win support among Labour backbenchers, or, so it seems, the prime minister and the current defence secretary. But that is what Mr Healey rightly and sincerely called for.
The outlook is poor. It may well be the case that by the time of the Budget in November it will be apparent to all that this new government, ie Mr Healey included, will not after all be willing to “commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats”. In which case, Mr Healey, what was the point of your resignation?
