The election of a new Labour government on 4 July 2024 offers the opportunity for a change of direction at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the potential for the much-needed reform of the British procurement system. The task of addressing the dysfunction of the MoD and the procurement system falls on the shoulders of the recently appointed Defence Minister John Healey, or as he is officially known, the Rt Hon John Healey MP, Secretary of State for Defence.

Healey has been an MP since 1997; in the first Blair government he started off as a junior minister before becoming Economic Secretary to the Treasury and then Financial Secretary to the Treasury between 2002 and 2007. Understanding how the Treasury, the British finance ministry, works will be extremely advantageous for a defence minister, since relations between the Treasury and the MoD are seldom that positive.

In the Brown government from 2007 to 2010, Healey held ministerial roles in local government and then housing and planning. After Labour lost the 2010 general election, Healey held a number of Shadow Cabinet Positions. With the election of Sir Kier Starmer, the new British Prime Minister, as Labour leader in 2020, Healey was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in April 2020, meaning that he is rather well-prepared to manage the defence portfolio.

One thing we do know is that Healey is firmly in support of assisting Ukraine; less than two days after becoming defence minister, Healey visited Ukraine, meeting with President Zelenskyy and defence minister Rustem Umerov in Odesa. He confirmed a previously promised aid package of ammunition, missiles, ten more AS90 self-propelled howitzers (SPHs) to add to the 32 already supplied, and an AS90 support package. There are rumours of a further military aid package that would see the transfer of a substantial number of British Army Warrior IFVs and support variants to Ukraine; it is difficult to see Healey being averse to something like this.

The UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (right) and the Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey (left), have instituted a Defence Review that will report in 2025. Balancing British military commitments versus capabilities will be a daunting task.
Credit: Crown Copyright 2024

The new British government has actioned a Strategic Defence Review (SDR), with the objective of balancing commitments against capabilities versus available budgets. The government has said that it will move towards increasing defence expenditure to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), according to the House of Commons Library: “The UK spent an estimated 2.3% of GDP on defence in 2023.” No firm date for this increase in defence expenditure has been given; however, the Defence Review will help to determine when the increase in defence expenditure can take place.

Work on the Defence Review has already commenced, with the report due to be delivered in the first half of 2025. The review will be led by Lord George Robertson, a former Secretary General of NATO and a former Defence Secretary in the Blair government. He will be assisted by Fiona Hill, currently Chancellor of Durham University, previously at the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations, before becoming Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs at the National Security Council in the Trump administration. Born in Britain, Hill is a US citizen and regarded as an expert on Russian geopolitics and strategy. The final member of the review triumvirate is General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander of Joint Forces Command from 2013 until his retirement in 2016.

The review team will deliver its report to Prime Minister Kier Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, as well as to Defence Secretary Healey. Right at the start of the review process, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran were clearly being described as areas of strategic concern for UK defence planners.

Reform agenda

There is no hiding from the fact that there is something deeply wrong with the British procurement system; that John Healey intends to deal with this problem was evidenced by his speech to the Policy Exchange think tank on the theme of ‘A New Era for UK Defence with Labour’ at the end of February 2024 when he said: “We have to secure better value for public money. And we also need a more strategic approach to procurement, looking to boost British industry, reinforce national resilience, strengthen our NATO leadership and exploit technology to raise the UK’s international standing. Again, we need to meet the challenge of procuring and innovating at a pace that matches the increasing and diversifying threats.

Under Healey’s announced plans, this will be achieved by strategic leadership in procurement via the appointment of a National Armaments Director (NAD) – presumably replacing Andy Start, who was appointed NAD under former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in 2023. According to Healey, “The NAD will be responsible to the strategic centre for ensuring we have the capabilities needed to execute the defence plans and operations demanded by the new era. I envisage core delivery tasks that currently I don’t see vested anywhere in the system, led with sufficient authority or accountability to carry them out effectively. This leadership includes:

  • Alignment of defence procurement across all five domains to cut waste and duplication.
  • Securing NATO standardisation, collaboration with allies and driving export campaigns. 
  • Delivering a new defence industrial strategy.

He or she will be an important part of the corporate centre, sit in the Department of State and serve on the Defence Board. Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) will continue operate as the professional contracting authority to manage defence procurement and to provide the high-level commercial expertise required for larger programmes. It will focus on delivery and execution. Direction from NAD. Delivery from DE&S.

New British Defence Secretary John Healey (left) and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy (middle) visit recovering casualties in an Odesa military hospital. Healey visited Ukraine soon after taking office and confirmed a previously offered military aid package.
Credit: Crown Copyright 2024

Troubled horizon

Nobody can disagree with the need for a credible Defence Review and the need to reform procurement; while positive noises about the UK defence industrial base are also welcome, there is a potential downside though!

Prior to the July 2024 election, UK media reported that Labour MP for Leeds North East Fabian Hamilton speaking at the Baab-Ul-Ilm mosque in Leeds said: “If we win the election next week we will stop arms sales to Israel immediately.” Hamilton is on the left wing of the Labour Party, but he suggested that David Lammy, the new Foreign Secretary, supports this arms embargo. Certainly an arms embargo on Israel would allow the government to appease its left wing and Muslim voters, a voting bloc that cost Labour a number of seats in the election. Hamilton then went on to say that the new government would: “Stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia.” The implication was that Lammy would be in support of this embargo as well.

An arms embargo on Israel allows the government to take a moral stance, appease some of its party base, and have relatively limited economic consequences. However, bearing in mind the government has said it wants to boost British industry, such a move would probably prove unhelpful for the British subsidiaries of Elbit and Rafael, not to mention support for certain key systems such as Sky Sabre, which uses the Rafael MIC4AD command and control (C2) system.

Saudi Arabia is a slightly different matter for UK exports. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been one of the most important defence export markets for Britain. An embargo would have significant economic consequences for the UK’s defence industry and others, added to which, with Saudi Arabia being a key strategic player in the Middle East, the inevitable post-embargo rupture in relations would arguably weaken British influence in an important region of the world. Such an embargo would also cause problems with international partners on collaborative programmes; for example by blocking Eurofighter sales to Saudi Arabia. Also bear in mind that Saudi Arabia was interested in partnering into the Global Combat Aircraft Programme (GCAP); a Saudi contribution to development costs and potentially significant order uptake, would be extremely helpful to the programme, while an embargo would put paid to that possibility. In short, the British government is faced with difficult political, economic and strategic decisions on the embargo question.

Aside from these, the government still has numerous other obstacles to surmount if it wants to repair British defence capabilities. The first obstacle is money, since there is simply very little available to increase spending, especially as the economy is presently growing at a sclerotic rate. Then there is inflation, which erodes the value of the defence budget as it causes price rises across all defence expenditure headings. Fixing British defence procurement will help matters, but past experience makes many observers deeply cynical that the deep-seated problems within British defence can be easily overcome.

David Saw