Cabinet Ministers Seek Funds for Defence Spending Increase
Cabinet ministers have been instructed to identify additional funds within their departments to support an increase in UK defence spending following the resignation of John Healey.
The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, informed the BBC that her department remains engaged in discussions with the Treasury to allocate further resources for defence. Healey resigned last week due to a defence investment plan (Dip) settlement that was significantly smaller than anticipated.
The former defence secretary stated in his resignation letter that he
“could not accept a Dip settlement that does not give our forces the resources they need.”Despite Keir Starmer's February assertion that Britain
“needs to go faster”on defence spending, the offer to Healey was limited to an additional £2 billion or 0.08% of GDP by 2030.
Starmer reportedly declined to set a target date for reaching 3% of GDP on defence expenditure, a milestone expected to be achieved after the next general election.
Speaking on Sunday, Nandy confirmed that departments are being asked to identify further funds for the settlement. The new defence secretary, Grant Shapps, who succeeded Healey, has been given until the NATO summit in Ankara in two weeks to propose an alternative plan that would increase investment.
“It’s the responsibility of all of us to do what is the first duty of any government, which is to keep this country safe,”Nandy said.
“I’d last spoke to the prime minister about this on Friday. I’ve spoken to the chancellor this week as well. I’m having discussions with my own officials in my own department about the amount of funding that we make available,”she added.
“We’ve got a new defence secretary who is looking at the defence investment plan in its current draft form and having those discussions with the chancellor and the prime minister as well.
These discussions are ongoing. We are looking very carefully at how we achieve it.”
Nandy indicated that certain areas within her department would be exempt from cuts due to their importance for national resilience, specifically stating that there would be no reductions to the BBC budget because of
“the need to tackle the sources of myths and disinformation, which is actively harming our national resilience.”
When questioned about Healey’s resignation despite ongoing discussions, Nandy responded,
“I can only tell you from my point of view as somebody who is actively involved in these discussions that these discussions are happening in real time.
We have a new defence secretary who served on the frontline himself and has been an outstanding security minister, and I know he wouldn’t have taken the job unless he felt that we could meet this moment, and we are working together constructively in order to achieve that.”
Nandy also rejected the notion that difficult decisions were being avoided to fund increased defence spending, particularly noting that the National Health Service had previously received significant budget uplifts. She acknowledged having privately expressed reservations about the decision to reduce international aid but stated it was
“clear that was a decision that [Starmer] was going to make, a decision by which he would stand.”
Al Carns resigned as armed forces minister later on Thursday following Healey’s departure. Carns, who has military experience, told The Telegraph that the funding allocated was insufficient and that Whitehall lacked the agility to respond effectively to emerging threats.
“I tried to change things from within the system. I made the arguments and pushed where the machinery allowed me to push. But the machinery is not built to move at the speed the world now demands,”he wrote.
“Spending 2.68% of GDP by 2030 is not a serious answer to a world where the character of warfare has changed fundamentally. That figure was not set by the threat, but by the Treasury, which treats defence as a cost to be contained.”
