Healey says PM and Treasury not giving military the money it needspublished at 12:21 BST
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The start of Healey’s letter, saying he is writing with “great regret and reluctance”
John Healey has resigned as defence secretary in a letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Here are some of the key lines – we’ll have more soon:
“This new era for defence required further investment through the Defence Investment Plan. The excellent and extensive cross-government work that completed in January-overseen by you, me and the Chancellor – confirmed the scale of the challenge and the rising demands on defence.
“Since then, you have been 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.
“As I’ve outlined to you, there are credible ways of meeting the mid-term funding challenges, working multi-nationally and as other European nations are doing, to allow us to protect our ability to deliver the missions of our Labour Government.
“You know what defence needs. You made the argument for this powerfully in your speech at the Munich Security Conference back in February. Without a DIP (Defence Investment Plan) that meets the moment in this way, I am being forced to make decisions that would reduce the readiness of our Forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations, and could make the country less safe.”
