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.
This article is the opinion of the author and not necessarily that of the UK Defence Journal. If you would like to submit your own article on this topic or any other, please see our submission guidelines.
Defence should be happy to get a high profile minister who seems to have the PM’s ear and also has a solid track record as a political operator. I’m not a big fan of Streeting personally but he seems to be as effective as any minister in the current government.
The last thing Defence needs is another ex forces (failure) who left the forces to go into politics like Ben Wallace that talked a great game when in office but as soon as he leaves we find it’s all smoke and mirrors.
The dig at Ben Wallace aside, I do agree. Between a high profile and seemingly competent new Defence Secretary, and a Chancellor who previously quit over a refusal to fund defence, this might be the most encouraging situation the MoD has had in years
Ben Wallace steadfastly supported Ukraine and I believe if he hadn’t put so much effort in Ukraine it would have lasted weeks as Putin predicted.
Emboldened by that Putin would clearly have moved forward and attacking a NATO country was just a matter of time.
Successive Governments stuck with Wallace and for good reason – frankly the Labour Government should have found a way to keep him on.
Any minister can only do his best with what he/she has to hand.
Personally I wish Wes well.
It says this is a guest article but never lists the author?
It does.
Not sure about Streeting’s rack record. I was at least impressed by his recognition that NHS England was a waste of space serving no purpose other than to deflect proper oversight- and the fact that he chose to do something about it. Other than that though he seems to have done little to address the innate dysfunction and lack of appropriate focus in the NHS so it remains to be seen if he can make any more impact on Defence.
Mate honestly he did more in the nhs than any other health secretary I’ve known and I worked in the NHS under 7 of them.. he’s been less mouth and more trousers than any other health secretary.
Fair enough
I don’t agree I have just had to use the NHS and the incompetence was shocking a 111 call suppose to call me back never did but then update the file on NHS app saying they called, when I challenged it given all the call records are on the phone I was told I was the one in the wrong!!! Then over 5 days to get the correct treatment becasue labs are reduced satff over the weekend. So if there is an improvement benifit stits probaly benefiting staff more than patients!!!! If thats the type of improvement were expecting in defence then we’re in trouble.
Here’s the stark reality about the NHS. Before WWII, healthcare was moving towards either a local model, where you could vote out underperforming councillors if local healthcare services failed, or a German-style model, which performs far better than our bloated NHS. Yes theres ‘local trusts but there zero local accountabilty that diisappears into the either of the NHS management and white hall.
A fun fact: Henry Willink actually wrote a healthcare-for-all proposal in 1944 based on local accountability. Yes, a Conservative politician, despite the common accusation that the Tories never wanted universal free healthcare, published a paper proposing exactly that.
Both of these systems would have put far more power in the hands of local voters, or at least given people the ability to switch providers when performance was poor. Yes there may have been regional defferences but thats there today but people have no power to change that.
If you’re wearing rose-tinted glasses, this may be uncomfortable to hear, but it seems very likely that Attlee and Bevan gave us the worst of the possible healthcare systems: one where we have little control and very little choice. Perhaps classic case of polticians led by ideology over actualy what was best for us.
What is really corrupt is the use of any kind of change as political capital, rather than genuinely asking whether something could be done better. Thats unforgiveable.
I don’t respond to comments as lifes too short.
I know you will not respond but I’m going to give you a cash course on 2 elements of the UK health system..
111 and out of hours was privatised a long time ago in the Langsley reforms. Essentially Langsley took out of hours care away from NHS Primary Care provision and gave it to a group of private companies that have been skimming cash and providing a crap service for a decade.. Vocare and their ilk.. these private companies essentially get a 5 year contract to run a regions out of ours service, they are universally shite and use models based around unqualified call centre staff using computer based algorithms… essentially every 3-5 years each area ditches its provider for being shite and re contracting out, but as all the 111 out of hours providers are universally shite lowest cost, highest profit private providers it never gets better…
Privatisation at its very best..
It’s essentially the same with labs.. as a way to save money and due to no capital investment most all NHS hospitals labs are now outsourced to private labs.. running lowest cost highest profit contracts…
Both of these create massive grief for NHS staff who have to try and work in partnership with these high profit low quality companies, that are running these elements of the healthcare system because the government did not want to undertake capital investment in services and essentially gave them away to private companies.
So sorry your experience was private health driven 🤷not public sector core NHS… and it was provided by privately employed individuals not NHS employees.
I’ll make an exception and respond only becasue the page was open from last night.
Its very simple if I have contract with some one or an entity I am responsible for the terms and their performace to the end client. The contrator are reponsible for meeting the terms in their contract which I was responsible for drafting and accepting. If I am not monitoring there perfomance adequately and have week contract then the problem is with me not the contractor. Infact in so many cased its far easier to hold a contractor to account with strong contract than underperfoming employees due to prtrsacted HR policies.
Its a recurring theme in the MoD as we know so unsurpising other areas of governmnet have similar issues.
On labs in my area the I know for a fact the mirobiology lab in my area is run by the NHS beacuse an old school friend runs the lab and is an NHS employee. Its also state of the art lab so has been heavily invested in.
NHS 111 call centres are commissioned by local Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and operated by a mix of organizations. These include regional NHS ambulance trusts (such as the London Ambulance Service), private healthcare providers (such as Practice Plus Group), and not-for-profit social enterprises or community interest companies (such as DHU Healthcare and HUC)’
‘Service performance improved since 2023 and in February 2026, 75% of the 1.5 million calls were answered within 60 seconds.’
Nuffield Trust
Ian, as well as taking the bold decision to bin the NHS England mega-bureacracy, Streeting conducted other major reform actions, got the waiting lists down, improved ambulance response times and resolved several knotty pay disputes. No-one could have done more.
Too soon to judge! I’ll call him out if he proves to be a liability but belive he at least needs time to get his head around everything and make his mark first.
His strong will and being one who is not scared to resign if he can’t achieve his goals are strong points in his favour. The Cabinet table in terms of ‘Friends of Defence’ has not been so prominent for some time, and the new Chancellor, who himself resigned due to inadequate expenditure, could form a pro-defence alliance in the face of those who would expose our country with little regard for the outcomes.
To have Healy as Chancellor and Wes head of defence who by his opening statement has placed pressure on the Labour party and Chancellor to deliver , must surely be a good start. I dont know anything about Wes but he has set his own term in Defence to high goals which us good. If these two do not get defence moving forward to 3 percentvas promised by the UK and last prime minister then the uk really is going down the toilet fast . Kier Starmer lied in public over defence spending promises and numbers so we can not get any worse . Kier and Rachael from acvounts should be ashamed of their actions to not up holf defence as the number one role of govt. Even if a drive to 3 petcent officially goes ahead the UK is still pathetic in some areas such as RN ships and subs. And ballistic missile defence and attack
What can I say about Wes streeting other than he
1) cut 30,000 nhs administrative, management and leadership posts in the most focused reorganisation I’ve seen.
2) drop the waiting lists by 500,000 hitting his intermediate target
2) getting 65% of patients seen within 18 weeks hitting the intermediate target
3) dropped the long waits to the lowest level since 2020..
On the negative side he did not hit his AE wait time target… but really that’s a shit target anyway.
All in all he kicked arse in the DOH and NHSE… I suspect the MOD is presently getting a behind the doors kicking..
I think we have to give Wes 6 months in office and get past the budget before we pass any serious comments on his success or otherwise.
It’s far too soon to say.
He’s ambitious, he’s a big name, he was an effective HS as J has noted several times, he’ll not want a dead end job or be seen as a failure.
And then how does one judge anyway?
Under every DS the cuts continue, not a single additional asset bar Drones and a handfull of Jackal has been ordered, and the DIP remains a lot less than the MoD needed, Healey resigned over, and HMG continue to contradict themselves on a daily basis.
Maybe they’ll all be poor until HMG and the nation change attitude and priorities, which will never happen until such things as the P8s lined up at Lossiemouth go up in smoke.
Then they’ll all go, “oh…” and promise that lessons will be learned!
TLDR, I’ve not much faith in any of HMG to be honest.
At least Industry is improving.
Yes it’s a good point, he can do a good job and be a good defence secretary, but only within the parameters that are set by the country.
If they country is only willing to pay X and risk Y to defend itself that is all he will have to work with…
Competence still fails if they wider context will not allow for success.. the best brick layer in the world can’t build a wall without the right number of bricks.. and an incompetent bricklayer will fuck up the wall no matter how many bricks he has…
I think that may be one of the problems with British politics since 9/11 really, the context has been so problematic that we can no longer tell if the brick layer has enough bricks or is just shite.. and as the human brain has inbuilt negative bias we always think they are “Shite”… and essentially have build up a story that they are all failing when infact ( to use another analogy) the patient was always going to die no matter how skilled the trauma team.
Useless on the back benches, where he used to mouth off from. As HS he failed to resolve the junior doctors dispute, instead resorting to his customary mouthing off at the BMA. He stabbed his former boss in the back. His successor did far better in alot less time. The only upside is this government is running on borrowed time, hopefully not enough to **** it up, even more than it already is.
Streeting is just in a holding pattern along with “Hi call me Andy” Not until the budget will we see the true measure of any these characters. Meanwhile the silly season progresses as it does most years only this time we have Andy playing grinning mate in a sort of suit giving it the man of the people message which I think will start to wear thin very quickly from September.
I genuinely cannot stand Wes Streeting. But out of the lot we’ve got across all parties right now, he’s the one I’d actually trust to get a grip on the MOD.
Think about what he actually did at Health, not what you feel about his face on the telly. He walked into a department he himself called broken back in 2024. By the time he left waiting lists were falling, including the biggest one-month drop outside Covid since 2008, and he’d beaten his own waiting times target despite strikes hammering the system the whole way through. Ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes were the fastest they’d been in five years. A&E waits were the best in five years too. GP funding got an early boost of something like £950m in the 2025/26 contract, which grew faster than the rest of the health budget, and staff vacancy rates dropped to their lowest ever. NHS satisfaction actually went up for the first time since 2019. He also managed to get the Tobacco and Vapes Bill over the line, which nobody else had managed.
Not saying it was all sweetness and light. Lists are still miles above pre-pandemic, cancer targets kept getting missed, and the whole NHS England restructure under him was a mess from most accounts. But that’s my point, even with all that going on he still moved the needle on the stuff that actually matters to people, and he can go on telly and defend an unpopular decision better than almost anyone else in the cabinet.
That’s exactly what Defence needs right now, not another safe pair of hands who just manages decline. It’s had three secretaries of state in under a year, it’s meant to be delivering this huge investment plan (T26/31, F-35As, Hybrid Navy (CABOT et al), and it needs someone who’ll actually pick a fight over money and win it, not just nod along. Whatever you think of him as a bloke, that’s the one thing he’s proven he can do.
Doesn’t make me like him any more. Still want to throw a brick at my telly every time he’s on Question Time. But out of what’s actually on the table, he’s the only one with a real track record of delivering under pressure.