John Healey
MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Spock, I think some would say, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend is right. Despite global conflicts, trade tensions and rising threats in the world, which are pushing up inflation, bearing down on growth and pushing up borrowing costs, the UK economy is demonstrating huge resilience.”
“The Prime Minister and I have been clear that we must cut the costs of welfare. On levels of taxation, we had a period of Conservative Government, with low growth and high debt. They crashed the economy with the mini-Budget, and we had levels of taxation that were putting pressure on business, adding to the cost of living.”
“The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength. On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon.”
“Since day one in the job, the Prime Minister and I have been in lockstep in our determination to meet Britain’s fiscal rules. This is the bedrock on which we build good growth and help give a bit of breathing space to families and businesses.”
“May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)? I am proud to have been a member of a Government with the first female Chancellor in 700 years.”
“My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love.”
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“At last week’s NATO summit, I met Defence Ministers, including Ukrainian Defence Minister Umerov, about surging support into Ukraine, with the UK also announcing last week that hundreds more advanced short range air-to-air missiles—ASRAAM—would be delivered to Ukraine, starting in the next few weeks. Last Monday, I joined the Prime Minister in hosting President Zelensky in No. 10, where we discussed the ongoing detailed planning for the coalition of the willing, and I am proud to say that, three and a half years into Putin’s illegal invasion, this House and this country remain united for Ukraine.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Last night’s attack is a reminder of just how fierce the Russian onslaught on Ukraine is, but it is also a reminder that Putin has failed in his strategic ambitions. Three and a half years into this campaign, he has passed the gruesome milestone of 1 million Russian casualties on the battlefield, and he is failing to take the territory that he thought would fall to him. I am proud that the UK has stepped up with leadership on Ukraine—with the coalition of the willing alongside the French and by chairing the Ukraine defence contact group alongside the Germans—and that we will spend more than £4.5 billion this year on UK military aid to Ukraine, which is the highest ever level.”
“That was a bit of a “bucket” question. On drones, we are increasing tenfold the number of British drones that we will supply to Ukraine this year. We are also stepping up the lessons we are learning from working with Ukraine on the development of its technology—battlefield-hardened and combat-ready—so that we can supply our own forces with increasing numbers of drones as part of the strategic defence review’s vision for the way that we transform our forces in the years ahead.”
“The veterans who served under Op Banner served to protect civilian lives and secure the peace in Northern Ireland. I share the right hon. Gentleman’s deep concern that many may now be caught up in investigations or litigation, and I am determined that we protect them further. I am working closely with the Northern Ireland Secretary, as are our officials, to ensure that we discharge our duty to the veterans as part of the necessary plans to repeal and replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.”
“Any incoming Government would have to repeal the legacy Act. It is unlawful legislation—it has been rejected by domestic courts, and rejected by communities across Northern Ireland, and it is simply wrong for anyone to suggest otherwise. We owe it to those affected by the troubles, whom the right hon. Gentleman speaks about, including our armed forces communities and veterans, to be honest about the unworkability of that legacy Act and to get this legislation right. That is exactly what the Northern Ireland Secretary and I are working together to ensure we can do, taking full account of all the interested parties, in particular those veterans and armed forces communities that the right hon. Gentleman speaks about.”
“We welcome the petition, and we certainly welcome the parliamentary debate—it is quite proper that Parliament debates these issues. The right hon. Gentleman’s legacy Act offered false and undeliverable promises to the veterans of Northern Ireland. The last Government were warned that it would be unlawful and incompatible with the Windsor framework. Even the chief commissioner of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery said that the Act has obvious problems, and that elements of it were dead in the water from the beginning. We are now fixing that flawed and failed legislation, and we will do so in a way that honours our duty towards those veterans.”
“The Prime Minister was right then and he is right now. I am working with the Northern Ireland Secretary to repeal and replace the legacy Act. We will honour the Prime Minister’s undertaking to this House and do right by the duty that this nation holds to those veterans who served for more than 38 years during the troubles in Northern Ireland.”
“At last week’s NATO summit all 32 nations signed up to a new defence investment pledge of 5% of GDP by 2035, including, for the first time, spending on national security, national resilience and homeland security. That builds on this Government’s £5 billion boost to defence this year, the funded and costed plan to hit 2.5% of GDP in two years’ time, and our ambition to hit 3% in the next Parliament.”
“My hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces will be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman —he would be a much better person to meet than me on this matter.”
“My hon. Friend asks characteristically searching questions, so let me send him the NATO criteria that were published alongside the pledge last week, and let him and his Committee, when they interrogate me on Wednesday afternoon, pursue any further questions that they might have.”
“The Conservatives “hollowed out and underfunded” defence for 14 years—those are not my words, but those of the right hon. Gentleman’s former Cabinet colleague, Ben Wallace. This year there has been a £5 billion boost in defence spending, but in his Government’s first year, in 2010, there was a £2 billion cut in defence. Just as we boosted defence spending this year, we will increase it to 2.5% by 2027, which is three years earlier than the right hon. Gentleman argued for. We have shown exactly how we will fund that. We have taken the decision—which he did not take—to switch funding from overseas development aid into defence, and just as we have shown where the money is coming from in this Parliament, in the next Parliament we will do the same.”
“I see a huge role. I hope that my hon. Friend took the commitment that the Chancellor and I made, alongside the spring statement, to set a new target for direct defence investment in SMEs, as a sign of that commitment. While I am in the business of committing my ministerial colleagues to meetings, I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry would be only too happy to meet her and to draw on her expertise as part of the development of our defence industrial strategy.”
“I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box and to the Conservative Front Bench team, alongside his two very distinguished colleagues, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) and the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge). I gently say to him that, since the election, his colleague the shadow Defence Secretary argued 13 times for 2.5% by 2030. He only changed his tune after February, when the Prime Minister showed how it was going to be funded and said that we would do it three years earlier, in 2027. We have shown how we will raise the extra funding for this record increase in investment in defence since the end of the cold war. We have shown exactly how it is costed and exactly how it will be funded in this Parliament, and in the next Parliament we will do the same.”
“We are accelerating recruitment. We are dealing with the deep-seated and long-running failure in recruitment, because the previous Government, over 14 years, set and then failed to meet their own recruitment targets. We are dealing with the recruitment and retention crisis in the armed forces. I am proud to say that last year we gave the armed forces the biggest pay rise for over 20 years; that this year there will be another inflation-busting pay rise; and that we are starting to provide better pay, better kit, better housing and better support for forces families—the sorts of things that will keep those valuable and valued members of the armed forces serving our country and protecting us all.”
“Last week, 32 NATO nations came together at the summit in The Hague, united in collective deterrence and in our collective defence of the Euro-Atlantic area. I can report to the House that NATO is now bigger, stronger and more lethal than before. We signed a new defence investment pledge of 5% of GDP by 2035, with new capability commitments from each nation. It was a good day for NATO, a good day for British jobs, and a bad day for Putin. Everyone at the summit agreed that Iran should never have nuclear weapons. We all want the ceasefire between Israel and Iran to hold, and we will work to support it. Finally, we also discussed it creating a new opportunity for a ceasefire in Gaza, which would be a vital step on the path to peace.”
“I welcome the Liberal Democrats’ support for the commitment we have made at NATO; the Leader of the Opposition was unable to offer that support at Prime Minister’s questions last week. If the hon. Gentleman has ideas about how we should fund that commitment in the next Parliament, I would be perfectly happy to hear them.”
“As I said in my response to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), we are absolutely determined that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon. We have been working with allies, on a diplomatic path. Now that a ceasefire is in place, the mind of all NATO leaders, including President Trump, was on putting our weight behind that diplomatic path. That is the way towards ensuring a sustainable and verifiable end to any nuclear programme.”
“Absolute rubbish! The UK and the US are the very closest of defence, intelligence and national security partners. The US was strongly behind the deal we have done on Diego Garcia, because it knows that that deal secures the operational sovereignty there of the UK and the US for the next 100 years and beyond.”
“I can confirm that the £4 billion is funded. I can confirm that the investment in autonomous and drone technology in this Parliament is double what was planned before the election. I can confirm that we will spend and invest that money it in this Parliament. I always like coming to Plymouth; my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces drags me down there frequently.”
“I do indeed. NATO is bigger, stronger and more lethal than ever before. It is our guarantee that we will never fight alone. That is why the leading contribution that Britain makes to NATO deterrence and defence is a big part of keeping us safe for the future.”
“One of the recommendations in the strategic defence review was that we develop an integrated air and missile defence system in this country. We must take our homeland security more seriously than we have in the past, and that is exactly what we will do.”
“It needs no words; the hon. Gentleman has heard the response of the House. We pay tribute to Mr Deach, and offer our deepest sympathies to his family, his friends and his comrades, and our thoughts will be with the hon. Gentleman tomorrow as he bears that coffin into the crematorium or the church for Mr Deach’s final journey.”
“I had one of the best days in this job so far with the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) in his home town of Cleethorpes—they were there together. Behind the event was Alex Baxter, the absolutely formidable figure who organised the armed forces major events team that staged the Cleethorpes Armed Forces Day. Some 300,000 people were expected over the weekend. It was a great boost to our armed forces, to veterans and to the people of Cleethorpes.”
“I welcome the chance today to correct the record from my point of order on 2 June. The House will also wish to know that I have now established a formal procedure for sharing defence strategies in advance of publication with the Opposition, the Select Committee and other key parliamentarians—something that I have also discussed with Mr Speaker. [ Official Report , 2 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 40.]”
“I asked defence officials before 2 June and have done so since the shadow Defence Secretary’s question, but they have still been unable to find any departmental record of a copy of DCP ’23 being shared with me as shadow Defence Secretary. However, having now checked my Opposition staff records from July 2023, I can confirm that an embargoed copy of DCP ’23 was dropped off at my office, along with the conventional “check against delivery” advance copy of the Defence Secretary’s statement. We took a similar approach with the SDR: the shadow Defence Secretary received a hand-delivered, embargoed copy of the SDR with my draft statement around 90 minutes before the statement began. However, unlike 2023, we also offered the shadow Defence Secretary an advance ministerial briefing on the SDR, which he declined.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The grave situation in the middle east is developing, with further reports from Qatar, and I will return from the Chamber to be briefed further, but my wider accountability to this House is important. On 12 June, the shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), tabled a written question about the Defence Command Paper 2023, pursuing the exchange that we had had on a point of order before the strategic defence review statement that I made to the House on 2 June. As we prepared to publish our SDR, it became clear that there were no established departmental procedures for sharing major defence publications with the Opposition Front Bench ahead of publication.”
“In these circumstances, following your encouragement, I suggest that Members of this House be given access to them in advance of my statement. [ Official Report , 23 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 903.] (Correction)”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. We have followed— [ Interruption. ] You want an answer from me, Mr Speaker, and I will certainly give you this: we have followed the procedure from the last defence review, when the shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), was a Defence Minister. I was the shadow Defence Secretary at that time. We had no advance copy of the defence review. We were not offered a briefing, which I have offered him and the other Front Benchers. I am really concerned to ensure that the House has proper access to the report, but we have been following convention. You are quite right, Mr Speaker, that copies of the defence review are in the Vote Office, as is established procedure. They would normally be made available when I sat down after my statement.”
“The strategic defence review will make Britain safer, more secure at home and stronger abroad.”
“We must also renew the nation’s contract with those who serve. We have already awarded the biggest pay increase in over 20 years and an inflation-busting increase this year, and now I have announced that we will invest £7 billion of funding during this Parliament for military accommodation, including £1.5 billion of new money for rapid work to deal with the scandal of military family homes. This SDR is the first defence review in a generation for growth and for transformation in UK defence. It will end the 14 years of the hollowing out of our armed forces. Instead, we will see investment increased, the Navy expanded, the Army grown, the Air Force upgraded, warfighting readiness restored, NATO strengthened, the nuclear deterrent guaranteed, advanced technology developed, and jobs created in every nation and region of this country.”
“The work to confirm a new defence investment plan, which will supersede the last Government’s defence equipment plan, will be completed in the autumn. It will ensure that our frontline forces get what they need, when they need it. The plan will be deliverable and affordable, and it will consider infrastructure alongside capabilities. It will seize the opportunities of advanced tech, and seize the opportunities to grow the British economy. As we lose the national service generation, fewer families across this country will have a direct connection to the armed forces, so we must do more to reconnect the nation with those who defend us. As the SDR recommends, we will increase the number of cadets by 30%, introduce a voluntary “gap year” scheme for school and college leavers, and develop a new strategic reserve by 2030.”
“In the coming years, more communities and more working people will benefit from the defence dividend that this SDR brings. Ukraine also tells us that whoever gets new technology into the hands of their armed forces the fastest will have the advantage, so we will place Britain at the leading edge of innovation in NATO. We will double investment in autonomous systems in this Parliament, invest more than £1 billion to integrate our armed forces through a new digital targeting web, and finance a £400 million UK defence innovation organisation. To ensure that Britain gains the maximum benefit from what we invent and produce in this country, we will create a new defence exports office in the MOD, driving exports to our allies and driving growth at home. The SDR sets a new vision and a new framework for defence investment.”
“Take our nuclear enterprise. We will commit to investing £15 billion in the sovereign warhead programme in this Parliament, supporting over 9,000 jobs. We will establish continuous submarine production through investments in Barrow and Derby that will enable us to produce a submarine every 18 months, allowing us to grow our nuclear attack fleet to up to 12 submarines and supporting more than 20,000 jobs. On munitions, we will invest £6 billion in this Parliament, including in six new munitions factories and in up to 7,000 new long-range weapons, supporting nearly 2,000 jobs. The lives of workers in Barrow, Derby and Govan, where the Prime Minister and I were this morning, are being transformed not just by this defence investment but by the pride and purpose that comes with defence work.”
“Reversing the decline will take time, but we are acting to stem the loss and aiming to increase the British Army to at least 76,000 full-time soldiers in the next Parliament. For the first time in a generation, we have a Government who want the number of regular soldiers to rise. This Government will protect our island home by committing £1 billion in new funding to homeland air and missile defences, creating a new cyber-command to defend Britain in the grey zone, and preparing legislation to improve defence readiness. As Ukraine shows, a country’s armed forces are only as strong as the industry that stands behind them, so this SDR begins a new partnership with industry, innovators and investors. We will make defence an engine for growth to create jobs and increase prosperity in every nation and region of the UK.”
“We will establish a new “hybrid Navy” by building Dreadnought, AUKUS submarines, cutting-edge warships and new autonomous vessels. Our carriers will carry the first hybrid airwings in Europe. We will develop the next generation Royal Air Force with F-35s, upgraded Typhoons, sixth-generation Global Combat Air Programme jets and autonomous fighters to defend Britain’s skies and to be able to strike anywhere in the world, and we will make the British Army 10 times more lethal by combining the future technology of drones, autonomy and artificial intelligence with the heavy metal of tanks and artillery. For too long, our Army has been asked to do more with less. We inherited a long-running recruitment crisis, following 14 years of Tory cuts to full-time troops.”
“However, there can be no investment without reform, and we are already driving the deepest reforms of defence in 50 years. Those reforms will ensure clearer responsibilities, better delivery, stronger budget control and new efficiencies worth £6 billion in this Parliament, all of which will be reinvested directly in defence. Our armed forces will always do what is needed to keep the nation safe, 24/7, in more than 50 countries around the world; but in a more dangerous world, as the SDR confirms, we must move to warfighting readiness, and warfighting readiness means stronger deterrence. We need stronger deterrence to avoid the huge costs, human and economic, that wars create, and we prevent wars by being strong enough to fight and win them. That is what has made NATO the most successful defence alliance in history over the last 75 years.”
“The threats that we face are now more serious and less predictable than at any time since the end of the cold war. We face war in Europe, growing Russian aggression, new nuclear risks, and daily cyber-attacks at home. Our adversaries are working more in alliance with one another, while technology is changing the way in which war is fought. We are living in a new era of threat, which demands a new era for UK defence. Since the general election we have demonstrated that we are a Government dedicated to delivering for defence. We have committed ourselves to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, with an extra £5 billion this year and 2.5% of GDP in 2027, and the ambition to hit 3% in the next Parliament.”
“Through the SDR, we will make our armed forces stronger and the British people safer. I thank those who led the review, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, General Barrons and Dr Fiona Hill, “a politician, a soldier and a foreign policy expert”, as they describe themselves in their foreword. They, alongside others, have put in a huge effort. This is a “first of its kind”, externally led review, the result of a process in which we received 8,000 submissions from experts, individuals, organisations and Members on both sides of the House, including the shadow Defence Secretary. I thank them all, and I thank those in the Ministry of Defence who contributed to this SDR. It is not just the Government’s defence review, but Britain’s defence review. The Government endorse its vision and accept its 62 recommendations, which will be implemented.”
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the strategic defence review. I have laid the full 130-page review before the House, and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so and to make this statement on our first day back from the recess. The world has changed, and we must respond. The SDR is our Plan for Change for defence: a plan to meet the threats that we face, a plan to step up on European security and to lead in NATO, a plan that learns the lessons from Ukraine, a plan to seize the defence dividend resulting from our record increase in defence investment and boost jobs and growth throughout the United Kingdom, and a plan to put the men and women of our armed forces at the heart of our defence plans, with better pay, better kit and better housing.”
“With threats increasing and defence spending rising, we now have a plan for transformation—a plan that will link the best of advanced technology with the heavy metal of our platforms; a plan that will drive the defence dividend to increase jobs and business support across the country; and a plan that puts people in defence right at the heart of our defence plans for the future, with increased pay, better housing and better kit to do the job of deterring our adversaries.”
“His party’s commitment to 2.5% on defence was never in Government Budgets. It was a gimmick launched four weeks before they called the election—they dither, we deliver. On Diego Garcia, I say this to the shadow Defence Secretary. This deal is a great investment in the defence and intelligence base that we share with the Americans. It is essential for activities that cannot be undertaken elsewhere, and that we do not undertake with any other nation. It is a deal worth 0.2% of the defence budget. The US backs the deal. NATO backs the deal. Five Eyes backs the deal. Australia backs the deal. India backs the deal. So how, on this national security issue, have the Opposition got themselves on the wrong side? As far as the SDR goes, this is the defence moment of a generation.”
“I see the way the world is changing. I see the way the Chancellor is fixing the economic foundations after 14 years of failure under the Conservative Government. I have to say to the House that I have no doubt that we will meet our ambition to hit 3% of spending on defence in the next Parliament. It is something that the Prime Minister this morning reinforced. He said that the SDR can be delivered, because our commitment to 2.5% was built into the terms of reference. He said this morning that we are committed to spending what we need to spend to deliver this review. The shadow Secretary of State talks about unfunded promises. He knows about unfunded promises. His drone strategy was unfunded. It was 12 pages, with more pictures than words. His munitions strategy was unfunded and even unpublished.”
“We will hit 2.5% of GDP three years before anybody expected us to, and we have an ambition to hit 3% in the next Parliament. As the Prime Minister confirmed this morning, we will spend what is needed to deliver the vision of the strategic defence review over the next 10 years and beyond.”
“My hon. Friend rightly raises the scale and nature of the increasing cyber-attacks that this country faces. When I had the privilege of taking this job 10 months ago, I was taken aback to find that in the last year, defence across the piece had been subject to more than 90,000 cyber-attacks that could be linked directly to other states. That is why in this SDR, we pick up the recommendation to establish a new cyber-command, so that we can build on the pockets of excellence across defence and ensure that we can more effectively defend against and use offensive cyber to deter such attacks. On funding, the spending review next week is an important moment for the Government, but the Prime Minister settled the funding for defence in his statement in February. The Chancellor has already put an extra £5 billion into the defence budget this year.”
“Last month, also for the first time, we set out a consumer charter, with the basics of what people can expect from the MOD as their landlord. We have also confirmed an extra £1.5 billion over this Parliament to deal with the worst military family homes. We can start to develop for the long term, and build the homes that we need for our forces, and in the country more widely. We will be able to use better the huge asset that MOD land offers.”
“The SDR is a vision for the next 10 years and beyond. It can be delivered within the spending commitments that this Government have made. As the Prime Minister underlined this morning, those spending commitments were baked into the terms of reference, and have been confirmed by the reviewers. As he has said, we will spend what we need to deliver this review, and I am totally confident that we will meet the ambition of 3% in the next Parliament. On military homes, the hon. Lady is right to mention the scandal, which has gone on for years, of making the families of those who serve live in substandard homes, which are often mouldy and damp, with leaking roofs and doors. We can change that, and we have acted to start to do that. This year, for the first time, we bought back family military homes, and we now control 36,000 of them.”
“I welcome what the hon. Lady said on Ukraine. She will recognise that this Government have been supported by all parties in the House in providing steadfast support to Ukraine to fight Putin’s illegal invasion. She will also recognise that since this Government were elected in July, we stepped up the support for Ukraine. I hope that she will recognise that we have also stepped up the leadership that the UK can offer on European security more widely. As well as convening meetings, I chaired the first Ukraine support group meeting after 26 meetings in which the US had led the way. Alongside the French, we are convening the 30-odd nations that are looking at securing a long-term peace in Ukraine, if a ceasefire can be secured. This week at NATO, I will continue those discussions with Defence Ministers.”
“The record defence investment that the Government are making in this country not only reinforces our national security, but can drive economic growth and bring a defence dividend that will drive the mission of this Government to increase economic growth and bring jobs, business and new tech to every part of the country.”
“I welcome my hon. Friend’s welcome for the strategic defence review, which recognises the threats that we face and maps out the framework for the investment decisions that will deliver it, make our forces stronger and make the British people safer. I will work with Members from all parties in the House whenever national security and the safety of our people are at stake. I welcome her support. I also welcome my hon. Friend’s chairwomanship of the Treasury Committee. I hope that her Committee will take an interest in the defence investment at the heart of the SDR and at the heart of our plans.”
“The second thing that I am surprised he has not welcomed is our security and defence partnership agreement with the European Union, which is potentially a first step to working with other European nations in the EU, and using financing that may be available in Europe to do exactly as he urges.”