John Healey MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 3 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  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.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Strategic Defence Review Recommendations: Timetable · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is exactly right. Cadet forces cannot exist without the adult volunteers who support them, and they are central to our ability to increase the number of cadet forces across this country by 30% by 2030, which will give so many young people opportunities in the future.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Strategic Defence Review Recommendations: Timetable · Hansard source

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  The Government have accepted all 62 recommendations of the strategic defence review. Implementation of the review’s recommendations is already well under way.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Strategic Defence Review Recommendations: Timetable · Hansard source

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  In the last year, we have taken huge steps to start to make good on decades of substandard housing for military personnel and their families. We have brought 36,000 military family homes back into public ownership so that we can plan exactly the sort of upgrade that the hon. Lady talks about. On the rest of the SDR, we have announced the purchase of 12 F-35A aircraft, which will join the dual capable aircraft mission of NATO; we have launched our new £70 million campaign on cadets; and we have stood up the cyber and specialist operations command. Today, we are publishing the defence industrial strategy to make defence an engine for growth. This Government are delivering for defence and delivering for Britain.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I share with the right hon. Gentleman, and, I think, every Member of this House, the pleasure and honour of attending such breakfast clubs with veterans in my constituency. He is right about the range of concerns that veterans raise, which includes the pressures of homelessness. Recognising the forces’ service in local authority housing priorities is our first step, and the £50 million going into the Op VALOUR system to increase support for veterans will also play a part.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle). She served as a Minister in both this and the previous Labour Government with great commitment, and we thank her for her service. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Last week I travelled to Norway to sign the biggest British warship deal ever—a £10 billion contract that will secure 4,000 jobs for the next two decades. Last week I also visited Kyiv, during my fifth visit to Ukraine, where I met Defence Minister Shmyhal, visited a drone factory and chaired a meeting of the coalition of the willing with more than 30 Defence Ministers. The message to Moscow from one and all was of defiance and determination: the Ukrainians will keep fighting Russian aggression, and the coalition will step up support for Ukraine and preparations for a peace in Ukraine. Tomorrow from London I will co-chair the meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, attended by around 50 nations. This week I will also host the meeting of the E5 Defence Ministers here in London.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We are always ready to take further steps on imposing economic sanctions, and to close any loopholes in those sanctions. We have a record, under both the last Government and this Government, of being at the forefront of imposing these sorts of economic measures on Putin’s regime.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I will indeed, and my hon. Friend will be encouraged, I hope, by the visit I paid to Turkey, and the initial agreement that I have signed with Turkey for a big new order of Typhoons, which will be built in Lancashire.

• 8 Sept 2025 · NATO Defence Spending Target · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right. This is about not just how much the Government spend, but how well they spend. Mr Speaker, you will remember that under the previous Government, the Public Accounts Committee branded our defence procurement system as “broken”. We are reforming procurement, and that will be part of the statement this afternoon on the defence industrial strategy by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). At the heart of this, we made a commitment to the British people at the last election that we would raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, and we are doing that three years early. This is a Government who are delivering for defence and for Britain.

• 8 Sept 2025 · NATO Defence Spending Target · Hansard source

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  On the contrary, both the Foreign Secretary and I have been consistent that, taken across the range, the cost of the settlement with Mauritius for Diego Garcia is split between the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. For defence, our commitment is less than 0.2% of the defence budget. That is a good investment for this country, and it gives us a sovereign right to operate that base with the Americans for the next 99 years.

• 8 Sept 2025 · NATO Defence Spending Target · Hansard source

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  At the Hague summit in June, all 32 NATO nations agreed to step up and increase spending on national security to 5% by 2035. I am proud that this Labour Government played a leading part in the discussions that led to that historic agreement.

• 8 Sept 2025 · NATO Defence Spending Target · Hansard source

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  The investment in Diego Garcia is a great investment in the defence and intelligence partnership with the United States. Together, we do things from Diego Garcia that cannot be done elsewhere; we do things together that we do not do with other nations. The deal is worth less than 0.2% of the annual defence budget. How is it that the Conservatives have got themselves on the wrong side of this argument about national security, when we stand alongside the US as our closest allies?

• 8 Sept 2025 · NATO Defence Spending Target · Hansard source

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  The response of NATO has produced results exactly to the contrary of those President Putin would have wanted when he invaded Ukraine three-and-a-half years ago. NATO is now bigger; it is 32 nations strong. The commitment that all 32 nations made in the June summit to increase national security spending to 5% by 2035 is a strong deterrent message to Putin, Russia and other adversaries, and it will make NATO bigger and stronger in order to deter in the years ahead.

• 8 Sept 2025 · NATO Defence Spending Target · Hansard source

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  It should come as no surprise to anyone that the defence investment plan will be funded from the defence budget. That is exactly what will happen. It will be funded and supported by the record increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war—by the £5 billion extra in this year’s Budget—with an aim to spend 3% of GDP on defence during the next Parliament. These are commitments that the previous Conservative Government had 14 years to make, but never made. This is a Government who are delivering for defence and delivering for Britain.

• 8 Sept 2025 · NATO Defence Spending Target · Hansard source

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  When we settle our defence investment plan and produce our annual report and accounts, the data that the hon. Gentleman seeks will be set out clearly and in the customary way to this House.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Defence Sector: Innovation · Hansard source

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  Far from being the reserve, the right hon. Gentleman is first up for the Opposition this afternoon, and I welcome that and the investment in Shropshire. I reassure him that the Government will continue to support that. I pay tribute, as he encouraged me to do, to the workforce in his area. When the defence industrial strategy is published, the House will see how we are looking to define not just the British industry, but investors, entrepreneurs and the workforce as an essential part of strengthening British industry and innovation, and the future for British jobs.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Defence Sector: Innovation · Hansard source

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  I am sure that the House will want to offer its sympathies to His Majesty and the royal family on the passing of the Duchess of Kent. The world is more dangerous and less predictable that ever, and as a result we need a strong British defence industry that is capable of innovating ahead of our adversaries. Our defence industrial strategy, launched later today, will meet that challenge. It will create jobs, grow skills, and drive innovation. It will make defence an engine for growth in every region and nation of the UK, and it will put Britain at the leading edge of innovation within NATO.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Defence Sector: Innovation · Hansard source

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  I take my hat off to the firm in my hon. Friend’s constituency—it is exactly those sorts of businesses that are the backbone of a strong British defence industry. Small or medium-sized companies, often with the potential to grow, have not in the past seen support from Government. That is why we have set up an SME support centre that is dedicated to making it easier to access Government contracts, and why we will ringfence £400 million of direct defence investment that will go to SMEs. That will grow in each successive year.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Defence Sector: Innovation · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right that this is the biggest British warship deal ever, and it is Norway’s biggest ever defence contract. When the Prime Minister of Norway announced the detail, he said, “We asked ourselves two questions: who is our best strategic partner, and who builds the best warships?” The answer to both was Britain. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I hope—we will work to ensure this—that that leads to other export contracts that will bring jobs and a future to British industry.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Defence Sector: Innovation · Hansard source

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  I know that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), will be pleased to meet my hon. Friend. She recognises the truth at the heart of the need for a strong British defence industry that is resilient and capable of supporting the businesses, jobs and innovation that we need to develop here in Britain. Gone will be the days when we let contracts in the defence field without worrying where the jobs, businesses, and long-term investment will go.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend, and she is right that it was the biggest drone attack in the past three and a half years since Putin’s illegal invasion. These air attacks are directed at civilian areas with civilian targets. I saw for myself this week the damage that brings when I stood outside the bombed-out building of the British Council in Kyiv, and I saw the determination of men and women—military and civilians alike—in their defiance to keep fighting in the face of Putin’s illegal invasion.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  We totally condemn Russia’s air attack on Ukraine over the weekend. It is the worst since Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine began, hitting a Government building for the first time. Putin is escalating his attacks, and we must step up and speed up our support for Ukraine. Last week, I announced that over £1 billion of profits from frozen Russian assets has been put into military aid for Ukraine. Tomorrow, I will host and co-chair from London the 30th Ukraine Defence Contact Group, when 50 nations will together confirm increased military aid for Ukraine.