How Wes Streeting is faring as Defence Secretary

Three weeks into the job, Wes Streeting has delivered a keynote at Farnborough, stood alongside the Prime Minister in Barrow for an £8.4 billion submarine announcement, toured the frigate hall at Rosyth, and repeatedly declined to guarantee the spending target that his predecessor resigned over, which is a reasonable summary of both the energy he has brought to the role and the one question hanging over it.

He arrived at Main Building on 20 July, appointed by Andy Burnham in his first cabinet, becoming the department’s third Secretary of State in a matter of months following John Healey’s resignation on 11 June and Dan Jarvis’s brief caretaker tenure. Healey, who quit saying the Treasury had been unwilling to commit the resources the country needed at a time of rising threats, is now Chancellor, which means the man who walked out of Defence over funding is the one now holding the purse strings, an arrangement Streeting has been quick to point to as grounds for confidence.

The appointment drew a mixed reception, with a former head of the British Army reported as disappointed by the choice and some in the defence community questioning what a politician with no service background would bring to a warfighting department, though that reading rather undersells the record he arrived with, doesn’t it?

He had run Health for two years and shadowed it for three before that, which is a longer apprenticeship in a major department of state than most Defence Secretaries bring to the post, and his time there involved negotiating and then delivering a substantial spending settlement while driving down staff vacancy rates, experience that translates more directly to the Ministry of Defence than his critics allowed, given that recruitment, retention and the management of very large procurement budgets are among the department’s most persistent difficulties.

His framing on the day of the appointment was characteristically direct, saying that keeping the country safe is the first duty of government and that the armed forces would have the resources they need, with particular emphasis on standing steadfast alongside allies and Ukraine, and he has stuck to that line since without embellishment.

His first substantial outing came two days later at the AGF Defence Summit at Farnborough, where he told the audience that more than £11.8 billion in contracts had been agreed in the ten days following publication of the Defence Investment Plan, declaring that defence was up and flying again.

Alongside over £1 billion for Typhoon upgrades and continued commitment to the £8.6 billion GCAP programme with Italy and Japan, he set out work on the Storm Fighter collaborative combat aircraft and an ambition for a prototype of the uncrewed Brontanax to conduct a test flight next year, while also thanking industry for persevering through the delays to the investment plan, an acknowledgement that the document had arrived late and amid considerable friction.

Where the questions concentrate is on money, because when pressed at Farnborough and repeatedly since on whether the government will reach three per cent of GDP by 2030, Streeting has declined to give the guarantee. His argument is fiscal rather than strategic, namely that announcing a figure without setting out how it will be funded invites a loss of market confidence and rising borrowing costs, a trap he says previous governments fell into repeatedly, and he has been consistent in saying that this government will pair any new commitment with an explanation of how it is paid for. He has said that he supported Healey’s resignation over the funding question, describes the new Chancellor as a firm friend of defence, and insists he has every confidence the investment plan will be fully funded, while declining to rule out tax rises as part of the answer.

Critics have not found that entirely satisfying, given that Healey resigned saying he was certain Britain should reach three per cent by 2030 and his successor is now defending the absence of precisely that commitment, though it is worth noting that Burnham himself declined to commit to the target the day before the Barrow visit, and supporters would argue that a pledge arriving with a funding mechanism attached is worth considerably more than one that does not. Sitting behind all of it is NATO’s push towards 3.5 per cent by 2035, alongside the Office for Budget Responsibility’s earlier assessment that reaching three per cent would cost an additional £17.3 billion in 2029-30.

On delivery, the record so far consists largely of announcements he inherited rather than initiated, since the £8.4 billion Dreadnought contract with BAE Systems was agreed before he took office and the Defence Investment Plan, which converts the 2025 Strategic Defence Review into commitments spanning naval base modernisation, the frigate programmes, the F-35A purchase and the Hybrid Navy, was published three weeks before he arrived. That is less a criticism than an observation about timing though, because any Secretary of State three weeks into the post is by definition executing a plan drawn up by someone else, and his visit to Rosyth and Edinburgh on 7 August, taking in Type 31 construction and service family accommodation, followed a well-established pattern of demonstrating that defence spending reaches well beyond the south east.

The tests that will genuinely define the tenure remain ahead of him, among them whether the investment plan survives sustained contact with the Treasury, whether the frigate and submarine programmes hold their schedules, whether recruitment and retention begin to improve, and whether the three per cent question is eventually settled with a funding route attached.

On the evidence of the first three weeks, though, there is rather more to be encouraged by than not, because he has been visible where it matters, notably fluent in front of industry audiences who had every reason to be sceptical, and clear that his purpose is deterrence backed by the capability to fight if it fails. A department that has churned through three Secretaries of State since June needed someone willing to grip it quickly and make the case for defence in terms the Treasury understands, and on both counts he has started well, with a Chancellor who resigned this very job over funding sitting across the table from him and a Prime Minister who has pledged to fund the plan in full.

The commitments still have to arrive, but the groundwork looks sound.

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