The resignation of John Healey as Defence Secretary is a damning reflection on the current state of affairs and a warning that national security cannot be run as an accounting exercise, the chief executive of ADS, the trade body representing more than two thousand businesses across the United Kingdom’s aerospace, defence, security and space sectors, has said.
Kevin Craven issued the statement on Thursday in the hours after Healey quit the Cabinet over the funding settlement behind the Defence Investment Plan, saying the news “has sent us reeling.” Over the years he had known the outgoing Defence Secretary, Craven said, Healey had “consistently shown himself to be an intelligent, supportive and highly principled man” with the best interests of UK defence in mind in everything he does.
The resignation, Craven said, was “something to lament” and “truly a damning reflection on the current state of affairs.” The consequences for the United Kingdom and its allies of getting the Defence Investment Plan wrong, “as now seems certain”, he said, were “of a magnitude far beyond our worst fears.”
The sharpest line in the statement is aimed squarely at the Treasury’s role in the dispute that brought the Defence Secretary down. “National security and defence of the realm is not an accountant’s job,” Craven said, adding that it was imperative an adequately funded plan was published as soon as possible. “It should not take the resignation of an honourable man for that realization to sink in.”
On a personal level, Craven thanked Healey for his service and his “tireless recognition of the vital importance of industry as a strategic enabler” to UK security.
The ADS statement is among the strongest of the industry responses to a day that has seen the trade bodies representing British defence manufacturing line up behind the departed Defence Secretary, with Make UK Defence calling the resignation “a wake-up call for those inside Government still blocking the acceleration of defence investment” and reporting that member companies have gone bust waiting for the plan, while a techUK survey published last week found 93 per cent of defence technology suppliers reassessing investment or recruitment as a direct result of the delay. The chair of the Commons Defence Committee, Tan Dhesi, earlier called the resignation “a grave moment.”
Healey resigned on Thursday after telling the Prime Minister that the financial settlement behind the Defence Investment Plan, shown to him in full on Monday afternoon, was backloaded, would reach just 2.68 per cent of GDP by 2030 against the three per cent headmark he had pressed for, and would force decisions that “could make the country less safe.” The plan had been due to be published before the NATO summit in Ankara next month, and Downing Street has yet to name a successor.
Interesting to see that increasing numbers of former service personnel are posting on social media putting potential new recruits off from joining up. Meanwhile the number of medical negligence claims increases. The UK is in a financial crisis and a very poor example. The Defence Department should recommend neutrality as other countries, including the US wake up to the fact that the UK is a basket case dependent on others including for its nuclear weapons.
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