John Healey
Main Page: John Healey (Labour - Rawmarsh and Conisbrough)Department Debates - View all John Healey's debates with the Ministry of Defence
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Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
I know the whole House is united in condemning the dreadful attacks on the LNER train from Doncaster to London over the weekend, and our thoughts are with the victims, their families and their friends. This is also the period in which we mark remembrance. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your ceremony in opening the garden of remembrance for constituencies this morning. We will wear our poppies with pride, and we will remember them.
In September, we published our Government’s new defence industrial strategy, backed by nearly £800 million in funding. We are making defence an engine for driving economic growth. We are backing British jobs, backing British industry and backing British innovation.
Sarah Russell
I recently visited Avocet, an innovative manufacturing company based in Holmes Chapel in my constituency. It is looking to grow its business by diversifying into supplying components and materials for drone battery production. However, it has expressed to me the potential for improved support and guidance from the Government in order to break into and thrive in this competitive international market. What steps is the Department taking to support British manufacturing businesses such as Avocet? Does he agree that helping these organisations will unlock vital opportunities for economic growth?
John Healey
I do indeed, and my hon. Friend is right. Firms such as that in her constituency hold the future of our security and our economic growth. That is why we have set up UK Defence Innovation and ringfenced it with at least £400 million in the Budget this year, with fresh freedoms. We have also doubled to £4 billion the amount of money that we will invest in British drones and autonomy over this Parliament.
Gurinder Singh Josan
A key ingredient in strengthening the industrial base is the innovation that our companies bring to the table. A&M EDM Ltd in my constituency is a specialist engineering company working with aerospace, automotive, Formula 1 and other industries. When I visited recently, it was testing a drone engine that it had designed and built, with most parts being produced in house. What routes are available to companies such as A&M EDM Ltd to bring that innovation, specialist engineering capacity, and research and development ability to the defence industrial supply chain?
John Healey
UK Defence Innovation has been set up to transform defence’s innovation system. One of its priorities is to foster collaboration with small and medium-sized firms in fields beyond defence, just like A&M EDM Ltd in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I have set out my determination to see Britain become the best place to start, grow and invest in new defence companies.
Antonia Bance
It is always good to follow another Member for the Black Country. I was recently very pleased to meet with Babcock International, which is based in Walsall, just over the M6 from my constituency, where it makes armoured cars. Can the Secretary of State comment on future opportunities for defence manufacturing in the Black Country and the wider west midlands?
John Healey
The west midlands has a very proud tradition of being at the heart of British invention and engineering, and it has huge potential for the future of defence engineering and invention. In the last year, the Ministry of Defence has spent £1.7 billion directly into the region, which is the highest level for the last 10 years. The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), met with the Mayor of the West Midlands just last week to discuss what other opportunities there may be for firms such as that and areas such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) in the west midlands.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
As the Secretary of State knows, I have brought a company over from Ukraine to show us what it can do with drones. Us getting hold of that technology from Ukraine helps us to supply Ukraine, as well as ourselves. However, the key issue I want to ask about is that of rare earth minerals. They are normally discussed in a business context, but they are critical to the defence of the United Kingdom, and having a supply here in this country, directly owned by us, must surely be a critical issue. Has the Secretary of State looked at this issue, talked to his colleagues in Government and said, “We need a supply that we produce in our own country and use here”?
John Healey
The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is that that we are doing so with close allies. We are also doing so with Ukraine. The right hon. Gentleman has been one of the voices in this House that has pushed us to do more with Ukrainian industry, and I know he will welcome our groundbreaking agreement with Ukraine, through which it will share for the first time with another country its intellectual property for the critical interceptor drone called Octopus. We will develop that further, manufacture those drones at scale within weeks and months, and return thousands to Ukraine to help its fight against Putin.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
The Ministry of Defence spent £1.2 billion with SMEs in 2024-25. Sadly, though, only 2.5% of that spending went to SMEs in Scotland, which report extreme difficulty in accessing those MOD contracts. This is an inevitable consequence of the MOD spending more in one region of England than it spends in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland put together. Does the Secretary of State agree that this is an undesirable outcome, and what steps will he take to increase SME expenditure by the MOD in Scotland to at least Scotland’s per capita share, which is what it contributes to the cost of defence?
John Healey
The first useful step, of course, would be for the Scottish nationalist Government to lift their bar on any support for defence and associated firms. One of the biggest problems for SMEs in the defence field in Scotland is that they cannot get any support from their own Government, despite the big contribution that those SMEs make to jobs, opportunities and security, not just for Scotland and the UK.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
As the Secretary of State said, the defence industrial strategy promises to boost British export success, British businesses and British jobs. As such, I am sure he is as excited as I am about the Aeralis bid to replace the Red Arrow Hawk aircraft, which would deliver around 600 skilled jobs at StandardAero in my constituency. Will he ensure that there is an early decision on the replacement of the Hawk aircraft, and that that decision fully reflects the opportunity that exists to create high-value jobs, drive exports, strengthen British sovereign capability, and enable the United Kingdom to design and build its own aircraft?
John Healey
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Like her, I am very excited about the defence industrial strategy, and she is right to urge me to ensure we take an early decision about the replacement of the Hawk trainer. We will, because that is a long-overdue decision that should have been taken years ago by the previous Administration and the previous Defence Procurement Minister.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
I associate Conservative Members with the Secretary of State’s remarks about the appalling attack in Huntingdon over the weekend.
We all know that the Government cannot deliver a strong defence industrial base without seriously boosting defence spending, yet multiple media outlets have very recently reported that the Secretary of State’s Department is asking the armed forces to make cuts of £2.6 billion this financial year. Very simply, can he tell us what will be cut to find the money?
John Healey
Quite simply, we have boosted defence investment. We have done so by a record amount since the end of the cold war, and three years earlier than the Conservatives’ unfunded plans proposed. Since the election, we have signed over 1,000 major contracts, 84% of them with British firms. We have brought £1.7 billion of foreign direct investment into defence, and we have won major export deals that the Conservatives never managed. On Monday, the Prime Minister and I signed an £8 billion deal with Turkey to buy 20 British Typhoons, which will help secure 20,000 jobs in the wider supply chain for the years to come. I would like to hear Conservative Members welcome that.
Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
We are making the most significant commitment and change to armed forces housing in 50 years. Within six months of the election, we acted to end the worst-ever Tory privatisation. We brought 36,000 military homes back into public ownership, and now we are making a £9 billion investment over the next decade to bring those homes up to scratch. At the same time, we are supercharging the building of new housing on surplus defence land. These plans are set out in our new defence housing strategy, which we published today, and a copy of which I will place in the Library of the House.
Mr Rand
In the week of Remembrance Sunday, it is important to restate that supporting our armed forces and their families is something we should be committed to every day. Over the past decade, two thirds of armed forces service family accommodation was allowed to fall into such disrepair that it was deemed not fit for purpose by the Defence Committee. How will our consumer charter for armed forces families ensure that we do provide homes fit for heroes?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is right to recognise remembrance as a time when we recognise not just the service of those in the past, but those who serve today. We make demands on them that none of us would have to meet. We ask them to deploy at a week’s notice to the other side of the world, and we ask them to move with their families every few years around the UK. The very last thing they should worry about is whether their wives, husbands, partners or kids are living in cold, damp and leaky homes. We are ending what my hon. Friend says is the Tory scandal of unfit forces housing, and we are getting Britain building the homes that we need on surplus defence land—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The shadow Secretary of State will want to catch my eye for his own questions. He should not use up all his ammunition just yet.
Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)
I welcome the £9 billion investment in military housing, but can the Secretary of State reassure Members, those serving and their families that responsive repairs will not be put on hold in the hope of a new bathroom, kitchen or heating system?
John Healey
The introduction earlier this year of a new consumer standard has not just raised the required standard of those repairs, but the response when they are needed. Over the first year of this Government, we have seen the number of complaints about forces housing more than halve from the high under the previous Government. There will always be complaints; there will always be problems. We cannot fix these problems overnight, but I am determined that we will fix them. I am determined for this to be a nation where we say proudly that we provide homes fit for our heroes.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
The UK is playing a leading role in stepping up support for Ukraine. This year we are spending the highest ever level on military aid to Ukraine through the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, which I chaired last month. In this year alone we have managed to get £50 billion-worth of pledges of support for Ukraine from the 50-nation-strong group. Tomorrow I will join Defence Ministers in the Joint Expeditionary Force coalition in Norway, where we will confirm a new partnership with Ukraine to strengthen our support further.
Andrew Cooper
I strongly welcome the Defence Secretary’s continued leadership on Ukraine. I visited Estonia in early September, just prior to the incident in which three MiG-31 Russian fighter jets entered Estonian airspace and stayed for 12 minutes, in a further dangerous escalation of tensions in the region. Even before that incident, the sense I got from the Estonian politicians I met was that they were very much on the frontline, and there was deep concern that, if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, they will be next. What assurances can the Defence Secretary give that contingency plans are in place to support our NATO allies in the face of continued Russian aggression?
John Healey
I commend my hon. Friend, and Members on both sides of the House who have visited Ukraine. That can give an important sense of support and confidence to those fighting in Ukraine. He is right; Putin’s incursions into NATO airspace are reckless and dangerous, and serve only to strengthen the unity of NATO. NATO responded swiftly to those incursions, and I recently extended the UK’s Typhoon contribution to that Eastern Sentry exercise until the end of the year. The UK remains the framework nation for the forward land forces in Estonia—we have almost 10,000 UK troops in Estonia. That strengthens NATO’s deterrence, which is something I will be discussing with JEF Defence Ministers this week in Norway.
Paul Davies
I welcome the commitments made by the coalition of the willing on further military support for the protection of Ukraine’s airspace. However, Ukraine continues to endure daily aerial attacks targeted at civil infrastructure, as Russia seeks to use the approaching winter as a tool of torment. Can the Minister clarify what specific air defence capabilities have been pledged to safeguard Ukraine’s skies and protect critical infrastructure?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is right; Putin’s aerial bombardment of Ukraine is cynical, illegal and targeted at civilians. That is why we have stepped up our efforts to reinforce Ukraine’s air defences. This autumn we have delivered more than 200,000 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition and hundreds of air-to-air missiles. In September we announced a first-of-its-kind joint programme for the new interceptor drone, the Octopus, which will be produced in the UK and manufactured at scale. We aim to deliver thousands a month back into Ukraine to help defend its skies, defend its cities, and defend its energy infrastructure.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As we build up towards Remembrance Sunday, does the Secretary of State agree that it is appropriate for us to remember the circumstances in which two world wars began, when democracies were relatively weak in the face of armed autocracies? Therefore, does he agree that the help we give to Ukraine is the best possible guarantee that aggressors will not be emboldened to attack other countries as well?
John Healey
I do indeed. If big countries believe that they can redraw international boundaries by force and get away with it, then no democracy and no state is safe. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that a secure, sovereign Ukraine is central to Europe’s security in future.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for his answers. Reports in the newspapers indicate that 150,000 new Russian soldiers are being prepared for an onslaught in eastern Ukraine. I do not doubt for one second that the Secretary of State, the Labour Government and this Parliament are committed to doing something, but reports seem to indicate that other countries are slowing down on what they give. Has he been able to encourage other countries to ensure that they replicate what we give?
John Healey
The answer is yes, through the Ukraine Defence Contact Group—50 nations that have committed to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Together, we have secured £50 billion of pledges of military aid to Ukraine in this year alone, and I am proud of the way that the UK has stepped in, alongside Germany, to lead that group. It is part of what we are doing, with others, to step up support for Ukraine, which will be needed even more in the months to come.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
Last week, I was in Turkey with the Prime Minister to sign Britain’s biggest fighter jet export deal in a generation. The £8 billion contract for 20 Typhoons is a win for European security, the British economy and 20,000 UK workers. It comes just weeks after we won the biggest ever warship deal—a £10 billion contract with Norway that will secure 4,000 jobs over the next decade. These deals demonstrate defence as an engine for growth. Today we go further and publish our defence housing strategy, in which we plan to upgrade 40,000 forces family homes and build 100,000 new homes for military and civilians alike. This plan is backed by a £9 billion investment over this decade—more than double what was in the Tory plans. This is a Government delivering for defence and for Britain.
Phil Brickell
May I congratulate the Secretary of State on the Turkey deal last week? A year on from his signing of the Trinity House agreement with his German counterpart, can he outline what progress has been made on implementing that deal, in particular to boost industrial collaboration and drive greater investment into integrated air and missile defence?
John Healey
Indeed, we are a year on from the Trinity House agreement, and our co-operation over the next year will only deepen further. Within weeks, we will have German P-8s flying out of Lossiemouth. We have a new cyber programme to conduct joint activities. We have accelerated work on a new 2,000 km deep precision strike missile, and a new £200 million bridging deal to support the British Army. I have to say that this agreement is more important now than when we signed it a year ago.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
In the Secretary of State’s strategic defence review statement to Parliament on 2 June, he said that the defence investment plan would be
“completed and published in the autumn.”—[Official Report, 2 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 72.]
Will he keep that promise?
John Healey
The SDR quite rightly said that further decisions on investment plans were central to delivering the SDR. We are doing that work thoroughly at the moment so that we will no longer have what the hon. Member’s Government left: a defence programme that was overcommitted, underfunded and unsuited to meet the threats that face us.
James Cartlidge
The Secretary of State did not answer the question. I am afraid the worry is that it is yet another delayed defence Command Paper. That prompts the obvious question: what exactly are the Government delivering for defence except delayed defence Command Papers? Is not this the truth: they are putting the British Army back in the dock, they are surrendering Diego Garcia for £35 billion, and all the while—they have not denied this today—they are cutting £2.6 billion from the frontline this year? Don’t the men and women of our armed forces deserve better?
John Healey
The hon. Member’s figures are wrong, and his characterisation and description are wrong. We have put £5 billion extra into the defence budget in this, our first year, and we are raising defence investment with the highest increase since the cold war. But the public expect us to manage better the budgets that we have got, so we are managing those budgets, which he failed to do. Alongside the strategic defence review and the defence investment plan, we are already acting and have let over 1,000 major contracts, 84% of them to British firms. Today, we are putting £9 billion into defence housing for the future.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
John Healey
No one word can sum up a country as significant and as complex as China, but our experience tells us that China is certainly an economic threat, as well as an opportunity in many areas.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
Research shows that women in the Army are up to seven times more likely than men to suffer musculoskeletal injuries, and 10 times more likely to experience hip and pelvic fractures. Given these stark disparities, can the Minister tell the House what steps she is taking to ensure that women veterans receive appropriate gender-specific healthcare and rehabilitation support as they transition into civilian life?
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
John Healey
The hon. Gentleman is not correct in saying that the troops are there to monitor the ceasefire. A small handful of British forces personnel have been deployed to the Civil-Military Co-ordination Centre at the request of the US, and it is the US that is leading that work.
Joani Reid (East Kilbride and Strathaven) (Lab)
Recent reports show that Babcock is having to recruit hundreds of overseas welders because of a skills shortage in Scotland. This is the direct result of decades of under-investment in further education and skills in Scotland. Can the Minister outline what the UK Government can do to ensure that my constituents can access the apprenticeships and skills that defence jobs depend on?
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
John Healey
The hon. Gentleman is right: the continuation of the Scottish nationalist Government in Scotland is a threat to our security and to future prosperity and jobs in that country.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Given the multitude of security threats that we face, especially in the grey zone of cyber-attacks, it is abundantly clear that we need to accelerate investment in defence, but the Government are just not able to move fast enough. Our German friends, renowned for their fiscal prudence, have relaxed their fiscal rules just for their Defence Department. In the run-up to the Budget, what discussions has my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary had with the Chancellor on relaxing fiscal rules for the Ministry of Defence in order to meet the moment?
John Healey
We have the increase in the budget this year; we have the increase in the budget over the Parliament. Our job now is to ensure that we can deliver value for money for that increased investment, and use that increased investment to drive economic growth across the UK. It is thanks to that increased investment that we have been able to announce and launch our defence housing strategy today.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Now that the Secretary of State has warmed up a bit by calling the SNP a threat to our national security, will he have another go and say whether China is a threat to our national security?
John Healey
I have nothing to add to what I said in response to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), who asked the same question. What a waste of a question.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I very much welcome the Government’s Op Valour pilot programme and the Minister’s commitment to improving support for our veterans. However, I am disappointed that Portsmouth—home to the Royal Navy and one of the largest veteran communities—is not part of the programme. Can the Minister reassure me that councils like Portsmouth city council will be encouraged and supported to join Op Valour and look after the veterans who live in our city?
Mr Speaker
When I bring you in on a topical, it is meant to be short and punchy, not a “War and Peace” question!
John Healey
I have to say that my hon. Friend is wrong on this. Over 400,000 jobs are supported—directly and indirectly—by defence, and almost 70% of the defence investment we make in this country is outside London and the south-east, right across the UK.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
People’s experiences of medical discharge from the armed forces vary significantly, and too often it fails those who need the support most. What steps is the Minister taking to improve the discharge process, including improving consistency across units?