John Healey quit as defence secretary on Monday, warning in his resignation letter that the government’s defence investment plan “falls well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time”. The plan, which has yet to be published, was due to set out how the UK would fund new equipment and infrastructure over the next decade, following the strategic defence review published on 2 June 2025.
Healey told Sir Keir Starmer that the prime minister was “unable and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats”. According to the letter, the proposed investment plan would increase defence spending to 2.68% of GDP by 2030 – a rise of just 0.08 percentage points from the existing 2027 commitment of 2.6%, equivalent to about £2.4bn in today’s money. Healey said the government should instead aim for 3% of GDP by 2030.
“John Healey resigns as defence secretary, saying the government's investment plan "falls well short" of what is needed.”
His resignation came as the UK’s military chief also wrote to the prime minister, with Sky News reporting that an offer of around an extra £13bn to fund the investment plan was considered insufficient. The unusual intervention underscored mounting alarm within the armed forces over the scale of the funding gap.
The downturn in spending has coincided with a dramatic shrinking of Britain’s military. In 1990, at the end of the cold war, the army had 153,000 regular soldiers; today there are 73,790. The 2025 strategic defence review recommended the regular force should not drop below 73,000. But applications to enlist in the regular army fell by about 40% in 2025 compared with 2024, according to the Ministry of Defence. The number of reservists has fallen from 76,000 in 1990 to 25,770.
The Royal Navy has seen its major combat ships decline from 48 destroyers and frigates in 1990 to just seven frigates and six destroyers today. Its readiness has been questioned after it took weeks to deploy a single ship, HMS Dragon, to the Gulf to help protect an RAF base in Cyprus. The RAF has gone from more than 300 combat jets in 1990 to 107 Typhoons and at least 37 F-35 Lightning IIs – though these are technically superior. Uncrewed aircraft systems, or drones, which did not exist in 1990, now form part of the UK’s air capabilities. The threat from drones has been highlighted in the Ukraine conflict, where they now kill more people than traditional artillery.
The government has said it is planning “the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war” – but that is a low bar because defence spending has been on an almost constant downward path since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It currently plans to commit 2.5% of GDP to Nato-qualifying spending by April 2027 (2.6% including security and intelligence services), with an “ambition” to spend 3% in the next parliament. Whether the prime minister can convince his own party and Treasury to go further now remains in question.