John Healey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 30 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Spending: Cross-party Talks · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Spending: Cross-party Talks · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Spending: Cross-party Talks · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Spending: Cross-party Talks · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Spending: Cross-party Talks · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Spending: Cross-party Talks · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Spending: Cross-party Talks · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Operation Banner: Legal Protection for Veterans · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Operation Banner: Legal Protection for Veterans · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Operation Banner: Legal Protection for Veterans · Hansard source

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  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.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Operation Banner: Legal Protection for Veterans · Hansard source

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  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.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  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. 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. 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.]

• 2 Jun 2025 · Government Announcements · Hansard source

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  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. 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)

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  Those discussions are for the NATO summit later this month. We go into that summit having made a record commitment to invest and to increase defence spending, in two years’ time, to a level that we have not seen in this country since 2010, with an aim to get to 3% in the next Parliament. The NATO summit will be a discussion about how we spend, how well we spend and the capabilities we can contribute to NATO, just as much as it will be about spending commitments. I say to the hon. Gentleman and to the House that we make an extraordinary contribution as a nation to NATO, and we will step that up through pursuing the SDR vision. Of course, at the heart of it is something we contribute that no other nation does: in full, we commit our UK nuclear deterrent to NATO, as the ultimate guarantor not just of our own national security but of the security of our NATO allies.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  It is always important that public money is well spent and that we can demonstrate good value for money. We still have some way to go on the reform of defence, but the steps we have taken already and the action we plan in the future will help us to ensure that we can get better value for the British taxpayer and better value for the British forces.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  The first duty of any Government is to defend the country and keep its citizens safe, and we invest in defence in order to deter and prevent the war that brings such extreme human and economic costs. I ask my hon. Friend to consider this: if we cannot defend the country, where will we be with an NHS without power, and with submarine cables that mean data does not work? Strong national security is fundamental to a stable economy, a strong society, and I hope she will recognise that it is imperative and important for the country that we pursue the vision in the SDR.

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  I can. My hon. Friend plays an important part in debates in this House, including on the Defence Committee. She recognises that, as we can see from Ukraine, it is the nations that are able to bring together the rapid innovation in new technology with the hardware of established weaponry and platforms that will have the combat edge in the future. I am determined that Britain will be at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, that our forces will be better equipped in the future, and that we will reform and rebuild our British industry to equip them for exactly that.