Dan Jarvis Appointed Defence Secretary After John Healey Quits

Dan Jarvis has been appointed the new defence secretary following John Healey’s resignation.

The former Parachute Regiment officer has been security minister since the general election in 2024.

Healey dramatically quit on Thursday morning in protest at the amount of money being provided by No.10 and the Treasury in the Defence Investment Plan (DIP).

In a blistering letter to the prime minister, he said he had been left with “no other option” after learning that defence spending will go up from 2.6% of gross domestic product (GDP) next year to just 2.68% in 2030.

It is understood that amounted to an extra £13.5 billion, less than half of the £28bn army chiefs said they needed.

Healey said the funding settlement would force him “to make decisions that would reduce the readiness of our Forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations, and could make the country less safe”.

But in his reply, Starmer said he was “proud of our record on funding”.

The PM insisted the DIP “will provide the resources our military needs to keep us safe and the clarity the British defence industry needs to plan”.

“It will make the big strategic investments we need for the long term and give the certainty which private finance needs to invest,” he added.

“It will allow our armed forces to transform and modernise and back them with the tools they need to change the way we fight – and to deter our enemies.”

Jarvis served in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan during his time in the Army.

He was elected MP for Barnsley Central in 2011, and has represented Barnsley North since 2024 following changes to constituency boundaries.

He was promoted to the cabinet less than an hour after junior defence minister Al Carns also quit in protest at the Defence Investment Plan.

In a coruscating resignation letter to the PM, he said he could not defend “a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task”.

Carns said: “I have sat in the rooms, seen the assessments, and spoken to the commanders who will be asked to do more with less, and I cannot in good conscience stand at the dispatch box and defend a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task.

“A serious country funds its defence to meet the threat it actually faces, not the threat it wishes it faced.”

Earlier, Labour MP Pamela Nash, who was John Healey’s parliamentary aide, also resigned.

She said: “The defence of our nation is the most important responsibility for any government. The delays and difficulties with securing the necessary funding to progress the defence investment plan has been the latest issue that is damaging to the trust of the public in us.

“We saw this laid bare in last month’s election results. Our Government’s successes are consistently drowned out by mistakes and the failure to be bold when it matters most.

“Our country is more divided now than it has ever been in my lifetime, and our political opponents are both the provokers and the beneficiaries.

“If we cannot provide a strong vision for the UK’s future, and enact a clear, progressive route to get there, then we are allowing the unthinkable: for those opponents to take power. We must do better.”

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