Healey wrote the charge sheet. Now he must pay it

By Mark Allatt, UK Defence First

Two months after walking out of the Ministry of Defence, John Healey now holds the cheque book. That is the central fact of the autumn Budget. The man who resigned rather than accept a Defence Investment Plan he judged inadequate will, on 28 October, decide whether Britain funds the Armed Forces as he said they must be funded.

Healey’s resignation letter of 11 June was unusually blunt for a loyal Labour minister. The settlement he had been shown that week, he wrote, “falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time”. Extra money was “backloaded” when the pressure of operations and the need to restore readiness fell in the first two years. Spending would rise only from 2.6 per cent of GDP next year to 2.68 per cent in 2030. The Prime Minister had been “unable” and the Treasury “unwilling” to commit what the nation needed. Without a plan that met the moment, he would be forced into decisions that “would reduce the readiness of our Forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations, and could make the country less safe”.

Those were not throwaway lines. Healey set a headmark: 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030, and a clear path to the Nato commitment of 3.5 per cent by 2035. He argued that this would command cross-party support. He cited Sir Keir Starmer’s own warning that intelligence assessments pointed to a possible Russian attack on Nato as early as 2030. Al Carns, the Armed Forces minister, followed him out of the door the same evening.

What followed was a scramble. Dan Jarvis extracted a little more. Starmer’s published DIP added £15 billion over four years rather than the £13.5 billion Healey had rejected, taking spending to about 2.7 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade. That was still far short of the £28 billion defence chiefs had sought. Almost a third of the extra cash - £4.7 billion - was left to be found at this Budget. Starmer presented the plan as a platform on which his successor could build.

Andy Burnham then made Healey Chancellor. Markets briefly marked up defence stocks. The appointment was sold as a signal of intent. Yet Burnham has already declined to commit to 3 per cent by 2030. Reports of their pre-appointment talks suggest Healey did not extract that pledge before taking the job. The Prime Minister prefers to talk about honouring the 2035 Nato target and leaving the path to 3 per cent for the next spending review.

That will not do. Healey cannot now hide behind departmental briefs or the Treasury’s traditional caution. He wrote the charge sheet himself. Three tests follow for 28 October.

First, the £4.7 billion hole in the DIP must be filled with real money, not accounting devices. Healey accused the last settlement of “Treasury trickery”. He cannot now practise it. The extra support must also be brought forward. He objected specifically to a backloaded profile when operations in the Gulf, the Arctic and support for Ukraine were already stretching the force. Front-loading is the logical consequence of his own letter.

Second, he should set the 2030 headmark he demanded. A rise of 0.02 percentage points of GDP after his resignation is not a strategy. If Nato’s own assessment is that a Russian attack on the Alliance could come by 2030, waiting until “the next Parliament” for 3 per cent is an admission that deterrence will remain underfunded through the period of greatest risk. A credible path to 3.5 per cent by 2035 requires more than a recitation of the Hague commitment.

Third, the Budget must show how the money will be found. Healey told Starmer there were “credible ways of meeting the mid-term funding challenges, working multi-nationally and as other European nations are doing”. Defence bonds, which he has previously favoured, reallocation of capital budgets, and a harder look at low-priority programmes are all options. What is not credible is another round of unfunded ambition. He has pledged fiscal discipline and to stay within the rules. That is right. It also means he must choose: taxes, cuts elsewhere, or a slower rise in other public spending. He cannot claim that defence is the first duty of government and then treat it as a residual.

There is a further, narrower test. Healey’s letter listed the extra burdens that had arisen since the January cross-government work: the Strait of Hormuz mission, Arctic Sentry, and the prospect of a post-ceasefire deployment to Ukraine. Those demands have not gone away. A Budget that funds platforms for the 2030s while leaving ammunition, spare parts, engineers and flying hours short in 2027-28 would repeat the error he resigned over.

None of this is easy. Burnham’s early announcements on energy VAT, bus fares and devolution already press on a thin fiscal buffer. The Chancellor has told cabinet colleagues that they must cut to pay for the new government’s pledges. Defence will have to compete with those promises. That is precisely why Healey’s past words matter. If the man who walked out rather than accept 2.68 per cent now delivers little more than 2.7 per cent and a promise to think again next year, the resignation will look like theatre.

The Sunday test is simple. Does this Budget do what Healey said a responsible government must do: give the Forces the resources they need, when they need them, at a dangerous time? If it does not, he will have become the Treasury he once condemned.