Wes Streeting has blamed “poor leadership, poor judgement and bad politics” from No 10 for the resignations of John Healey as defence secretary and Al Carns as armed forces minister after a row at the top of government over defence spending.
In an exclusive interview with the New Statesman, Streeting, who resigned as health secretary in May and is planning to challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership, said the row “underscores the case for change and change quickly because we can’t go through any more of this inertia.” He also laid out some proposals to fund defence spending and attacked “juvenile” government briefings against Healey.
Streeting told the NS: “I just urge my colleagues to wake up and smell the coffee if they haven’t already. To take really seriously what John Healey and Al Carns have said about the defence of our country and to understand that at the heart of these challenges is poor leadership, poor judgement and bad politics. And unless that changes, we will give this country to Nigel Farage and he will walk into Downing Street at the next general election. And I do not want that on my conscience.”
The former health secretary said that Healey and Carns had been treated badly by No 10 and the Treasury, and that their departures show “this is not a government that is open to ideas, this is not a government that is willing to draw on expertise.”
Healey and Carns resigned on Thursday in protest at the government’s Defence Investment Plan (DIP), which they said was “inadequate” to defend the country and keep armed services personnel safe. Keir Starmer has defended the DIP as a “hard-edged decision” while anonymous government sources attacked Healey as a proponent of using cuts to public services to fund military spending.
Streeting, who is open about his plans to challenge Starmer after the conclusion of the Makerfield by-election, described the government briefing against Healey as “juvenile” and said that it “debased his critics”.
He told the NS: “The other thing that’s really disappointed me in the last 24 hours is that John Healey is one of the most respected figures across the Labour Party. He is a good man, and has been a great defence secretary, and the way in which he was attacked by Downing Street yesterday and the charge that was levelled at him by I think, frankly, juvenile briefers, that he wanted to cut schools and hospitals to fund defence, I thought really debased his critics actually, and showed that there is a level of, I just think, total unseriousness about the scale of the challenge facing the country as well as the scale of the challenge facing the party.”
Streeting has rejected the idea of binary choice between spending on defence and spending on public services, setting out some alternative proposals for rearmament funding if he were to become Prime Minister. He floated inheritance tax-free defence bonds as a way for the public to help fund military spending through their own savings and investments. The former health secretary also suggested that Britain could join the Defence Security and Resilience Bank, the multilateral development bank for defence investment by allied democracies.
He told the NS: “We’ve seen serious proposals around the Defence Security and Resilience Bank, which is now led by Canada. Great initiative. We’re not part of it. We’ve seen serious proposals for defence bonds, which would be inheritance tax-free defence bonds, so that we can get the huge amounts of money that are currently sat in all sorts of other savings and investments, probably not earning a great deal of interest, actively investing in the defence of our nation today.”
In Streeting’s view, the Prime Minister has failed to take responsibility for defence spending as well as a number of other issues. “[He] says he takes responsibility. I don’t think he does, actually. I don’t think he’s taken responsibility or even acknowledged what happened to good Labour people who lost their seats in May. And I don’t think he has taken responsibility for gripping this Defence Investment Plan and when you’ve got a defence secretary saying that the Chancellor is unwilling to fund it, and the Prime Minister is unable to effectively lead, I think it underscores the case for change and change quickly because we can’t go through any more of this inertia.”
He also lambasted the government for announcing a £4.5 billion walking and cycling scheme the day after Healey and Carns resigned, calling it “bad judgement as well as bad politics”.
“Now, as a former health secretary, I’m all in favour of walking and cycling,” he said. “I think these are good things, but would people watching and listening honestly say that if you’ve got a defence secretary who’s telling you there is insufficient funding to keep our country safe, would you, the very next day, as a matter of style, let alone substance, have an announcement for four and a half billion for walking and cycling?” he said. “That’s not a choice I would make, and I think it’s a really good example of bad judgement, bad policy, as well as bad politics.”
Streeting said that while he was “used to hearing complaints from backbenchers feeling like they’re completely disenfranchised”, it was a surprise “to see good ministers treated like this”.
He told the NS: “I think that’s the other thing that’s been clear to me, having served in the government, but also laid bare publicly now by John and Al: this is not a government that is open to ideas; this is not a government that is willing to draw on expertise. I mean, John Healey was given the defence settlement on Monday afternoon, and as far as I understand it, they were planning to publish the plan this week. That’s not the way to treat your defence secretary.”
Wes Streeting’s full interview with the New Statesman will be available next week
[Further reading: Why John Healey had to resign]
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Subscribe here to commentThe podcast accompanying this has been available since yesterday on Apple podcasts as has the previous one acoompanying Anoosh’s excellent cover story. The line about listening ad-free on the app is trotted out but neither is yet available on the app? Why always so slow?