John Healey is Britain's defence secretary under Keir Starmer's Labour government. He succeeded Ben Wallace, who acknowledged in 2023 that the armed forces were "hollowed-out, overstretched and under-equipped". Mr Healey agreed, saying "what we've not been ready to do is to fight."
He oversaw the publication of the 2025 strategic defence review, which he launched alongside Keir Starmer in Scotland on June 2nd 2025. In the review's foreword, Mr Healey said the government would produce £6bn in savings—a claim treated with scepticism. He appears to have lost his battle with the Treasury for faster defence-spending increases.
Mr Healey told Parliament that a multinational force for Ukraine would carry out "defence and deterrence operations" on land, air and sea after a ceasefire. Britain and France would create "military hubs" to help Ukraine "regenerate" its forces through training and planning. Britain's contingent is expected to be smaller than 7,500 troops. Critics note the army has vanishingly little artillery, having given away most of it to Ukraine, and scant air defence. The army currently has fewer than 73,000 soldiers, almost 50% smaller than the 100,000-plus force that deployed a heavy brigade to Bosnia in the 1990s for six years.
A "defence investment plan" laying out weapons purchases over the next decade has gone AWOL; it was supposed to be published in autumn 2025 but there is still no sign of it. A £24bn ($32bn) gap exists over ten years between the SDR's vision and the funding for it; British newspapers have described an even bigger hole of £28bn over four years. Defence inflation is high and spending on nuclear weapons consumes much of the budget. Sir Richard Barrons, a retired general and one of the SDR's authors, complains that "very little" has happened in the six months since publication. Cuts to amphibious capability, including the decommissioning of two assault ships, cast doubt on Britain's ability to recapture the Falkland Islands. Britain is tied to America for decades: the Trident D5 nuclear missile is due to last until the 2040s and the RAF's F-35 jet until the 2060s. Sir Ben Wallace, defence secretary from 2019 to 2023, has argued that Britain should "at least prepare" for the possibility of the United States turning its back on its allies.
In July 2025 Mr Healey signed a 50-year bilateral treaty with Australia alongside David Lammy, Britain's foreign secretary, cementing the AUKUS submarine arrangement. On the flight deck of HMS Prince of Wales in Darwin, Australia, he told journalists Britain would be "ready to fight" in a potential conflict over Taiwan. The carrier's visit to Darwin harbour on July 23rd 2025 was the first time a British aircraft carrier had berthed at an Australian navy base since 1997.
A chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs.