John Healey | |||||||||||||
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_2.jpg) Official portrait, 2024 | |||||||||||||
| Secretary of State for Defence | |||||||||||||
| Assumed office 5 July 2024 | |||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer | ||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Grant Shapps | ||||||||||||
| Minister of State for Housing and Planning | |||||||||||||
| In office 5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010 | |||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown | ||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Margaret Beckett | ||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Grant Shapps | ||||||||||||
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| Member of Parliament forRawmarsh and Conisbrough Wentworth and Dearne (2010–2024) Wentworth (1997–2010) | |||||||||||||
| Assumed office 1 May 1997 | |||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Peter Hardy | ||||||||||||
| Majority | 6,908 (20.4%) | ||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||
| Born | (1960-02-13)13 February 1960 (age 65) Wakefield,West Riding of Yorkshire, England | ||||||||||||
| Political party | Labour | ||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||
| Children | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Education | St Peter's School, York Lady Lumley's School | ||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Christ's College, Cambridge (BA) | ||||||||||||
| Website | Official website | ||||||||||||
John Healey (born 13 February 1960) is a British politician who has served asSecretary of State for Defence since July 2024. A member of theLabour Party, he has been theMember of Parliament (MP) forRawmarsh and Conisbrough, formerlyWentworth andWentworth and Dearne, since1997. He previously held various junior ministerial positions underTony Blair andGordon Brown from 2001 to 2010.
Born inWakefield, Healey was educated first atLady Lumley's School. After attendingSt Peter's School, he studied atChrist's College, Cambridge, where he received aBA inSocial and Political Science in 1982. After university, he worked as a journalist forThe House and then as adisability rights campaigner. He later worked in communications and as a campaign manager for various organisations andtrade unions. After an unsuccessful candidacy forRyedale at the1992 general election, Healey was elected to Parliament as MP for Wentworth in the1997 general election. He served under Blair asParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Adult Skills from 2001 to 2002, asEconomic Secretary to the Treasury from 2002 to 2005 and asFinancial Secretary to the Treasury from 2005 to 2007. Under Brown, he served asMinister of State for Local Government from 2007 to 2009, and then in acabinet-attending role asMinister of State for Housing and Planning from 2009 to 2010.
Following the2010 general election, he was elected to theShadow Cabinet and appointedShadow Secretary of State for Health byEd Miliband. He stood down from the role in October 2011 and returned to the backbenches. He returned to the shadow cabinet asShadow Secretary of State for Housing underJeremy Corbyn from 2016 to 2020. He endorsedOwen Smith in the2016 Labour Party leadership election in an unsuccessful attempt to replace Corbyn. AfterKeir Starmer'selection as Labour leader, Healey was appointedShadow Defence Secretary. During his tenure in the position, he supported Ukraine following its2022 invasion by Russia, and advocated for higher military spending and closer cooperation withNATO. Following Labour's victory in the2024 general election, Healey returned to government and was appointed Defence Secretary by Starmer inhis ministry.
John Healey was born on 13 February 1960 inWakefield, the son of Aidan HealeyOBE, who served as the Deputy Chief Physical Education Officer ofHM Prison Service. He was educated first at theLady Lumley's School inPickering before moving to the independentSt Peter's School, York for sixth form.[1] He studiedSocial and Political Science atChrist's College, Cambridge,[2] where he received aBA in 1982.
Healey worked as a journalist and the deputy editor ofThe House, the internal magazine of thePalace of Westminster, for a year in 1983.[3] In 1984 he became a full-timedisability rights campaigner for several national charities.
Healey joined Issues Communications in 1990 as a campaign manager before becoming the head of communications at theManufacturing, Science and Financetrade union in 1992.[4] He was appointed as the campaign director with theTrades Union Congress in 1994,[3] in which capacity he remained until his election to theHouse of Commons. He was also a tutor at theOpen University Business School.[3]
Healey's first attempt to enter Parliament was as candidate forRyedale at the1992 general election, where he finished in third with 13.8% of the vote behind the incumbentConservative MPJohn Greenway and theLiberal DemocratElizabeth Shields.[5][6]
At the1997 general election, Healey was the Labour Party candidate forWentworth, which had become available following the retirement of the Labour MPPeter Hardy. Healey was elected to Parliament with 72.3% of the vote and a majority of 23,959.[7]
Healey served as a member of theeducation and employmentselect committee from 1997 until he became theParliamentary Private Secretary to theChancellor of the ExchequerGordon Brown in 1999.
At the2001 general election, Healey was re-elected as MP for Wentworth with a decreased vote share of 67.5% and a decreased majority of 16,449.[8] Following the election, he was appointed as theParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Adult Skills at theDepartment for Education and Skills.
At the2005 general election Healey was again re-elected with a decreased vote share of 59.6% and a decreased majority of 15,056.[9]
On 29 June 2007, Healey was moved to theDepartment for Communities and Local Government as a result of a government reshuffle. Shortly after his appointment he assumed responsibility for assisting the recovery fromwidespread flooding across the United Kingdom.[citation needed]
In a Cabinet reshuffle on 5 June 2009, he was appointedMinister of State for Housing and Planning, replacingMargaret Beckett who had resigned. While Minister of State for Housing and Planning, he was criticised for suggesting that more people renting properties rather than buying their own homes was a good thing.[10]
At the2010 general election Healey was elected to Parliament as the MP for the newly created constituency ofWentworth and Dearne with 50.6% of the vote and a majority of 13,920.[11][12]
Healey came second in the election for the shadow cabinet in 2010, and was appointedShadow Secretary of State for Health.[13] He resigned from this position in 2011 in order to spend more time with his family.[14]
At the2015 general election Healey was re-elected as MP for Wentworth and Dearne with an increased vote share of 56.3% and a decreased majority of 13,838.[15][16]
In 2015 three Rotherham Labour MPs,Kevin Barron,Sarah Champion and Healey, started adefamation legal action against UKIP MEPJane Collins afterCollins falsely alleged in a UKIP conference speech that the three MPs knew aboutchild exploitation in Rotherham but did not intervene. In February 2017 the MPs were awarded £54,000 each in damages.[17]
Following the election ofJeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader, Healey was appointed Shadow Minister for Housing. He supportedOwen Smith in the failed attempt to replaceJeremy Corbyn in the2016 Labour Party leadership election.[18] Following the leadership election, Healey was appointedShadow Secretary of State for Housing in October 2016.
At the snap2017 general election Healey was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 65% and an increased majority of 14,803.[19] He was again re-elected at the2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 40.3% and a decreased majority of 2,165.[20][21]
Following theelection ofKeir Starmer as leader of the Labour party, Healey was appointedShadow Secretary of State for Defence in 2020.[22]
As Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Healey repeatedly stressed his support forUkraine in theRusso-Ukrainian war sinceRussia's invasion in 2022, endorsed the UK's support for Ukraine, and committed to continue Britain's support for Ukraine in any future Labour government.[23][24][25] In May 2024, Healey visitedKyiv along withShadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development AffairsDavid Lammy and met the head of the President's OfficeAndriy Yermak and Defence MinisterRustem Umerov. In a joint statement, Healey and Lammy stated: "The next Labour government's commitment to Ukraine will be ironclad, and European security will be our first foreign and defence priority."[26]
Healey has argued in favour of higher spending on the British military with a larger armed force, closer co-operation and leadership with NATO and European nations over security and defence matters, and for a "comprehensive UK-Germany defence and security pact".[27][28] Healey has said thatNATO will need to do more "heavy-lifting' in Europe, as the winner of the2024 US Presidential Election is likely to prioritise the threat of China.[29]
In April 2024, Healey committed to raising Britain's defence spending to 2.5% of Britain's GDP by 2030 and commissioning a strategic review of the threats to Britain and its capabilities.[23] In June 2024, he and Starmer announced Labour's nuclear deterrent "triple lock", pledging to build fourDreadnought-class submarines to replace Britain's existingVanguard-class submarines, maintain a continuous at-sea deterrent, and deliver needed upgrades now and in future.[30]
Healey voted in favour ofBritish participation in the 2003 Iraq War.[31][32] In 2024, he said that the decision to go to war "wasn't sound at the time" and said the lesson was that military intervention could not have a successful outcome without sufficient diplomatic, economic, and security follow-through.[32]
Due to the2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, Healey's constituency of Wentworth and Dearne was abolished, and replaced withRawmarsh and Conisbrough. At the2024 general election, Healey was elected to Parliament as MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough with 49% of the vote and a majority of 6,908.[33][34] After Labour's victory at the general election, Healey was appointedSecretary of State for Defence by Starmer on 5 July.[35] Healey visited Ukraine shortly after being appointed Defence Secretary, meeting withVolodymyr Zelensky inOdessa.[36]
Healey alongside Starmer, attended the2024 NATO Summit on 9 July, where he told reporters in that Britain will be the "leading European nation" in defence spending and declared that Britain will be "democracy's most reliable ally". Healey said that he acknowledged that the European members of the alliance, have to take on more responsibility in guarding both Ukraine and the west against Russia and also the need to cooperate with the US regardless of who is inside the White House.[37][38]
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Healey supported the government's "root and branch" defence review and hailed it as the "first of its kind" which would consider the state of the armed forces, threats to national security and the defence capabilities needed to address with ultimate the goal of spending 2.5% of national income on defence.[39][40] Upon taking office, Healey said that problems in the British military were "worse than we thought" after a defence review was conducted by the new government. He noted that "these are serious times" with "rapidly increasing global threats" and said that he wanted to avoid "age-old tactics" by the armed forces over funds to back pet projects.[41] Following a financial audit conducted by the government following the election, Healey warned of possible cuts on defence spending as "tough choices" lie ahead to tackle the £22 billion "black hole" in public finances.[42]
On 3 September 2024, the government announced that it had suspended 30 out of 350export licences to Israel which faced criticism from both politicians and the Jewish community. The criticism was due to the timing of the suspension, as it took place on the same day as the funerals of six murdered hostages were held. Healey responded by saying that it was the government's "legal responsibility" to review export licences and to judge "whether there is a clear risk that anything we supply from this country could be linked to a serious violation of international humanitarian law".[43][44] He insisted that theUK's support for Israel remained "unshakeable".[45] Healey stated that "without fear or favour" the government will subscribe to international law in reference toICC prosecutor Karim Khan applyingarrest warrants against three seniorHamas officials alongside Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu and Defence MinisterYoav Gallant. Healey also further stated that failure to recognise the ICC ruling will threaten global "rules-based order".[46] In August 2025, Healey defended hundreds of RAF surveillance flights over theGaza Strip.[47]
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In October 2024, Healey signed the landmarkTrinity House Agreement withGermany, marking a new era of defence cooperation between the two nations.[48] To modernize the UK’s defence forces, Healey announced in November 2024 the decommissioning of outdated military assets, including five warships and 70 military aircraft. The £500 million cost-saving measure is intended to redirect funds towards advanced weaponry and capabilities.[49] Healey launched a new Defence Industrial Strategy in December 2024 with the intent of prioritising investment in UK-based defence firms, aiming to stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and enhance national security by fostering innovation and resilience within the sector.[50] In a move to rectify past financial inefficiencies, the UK government, under Healey's direction, reacquired approximately 36,000 military housing properties for £6 billion in January 2025. This decision is projected to save £230 million annually in rent.[51]
Regarding thewar in Ukraine, one of Healey's early actions was to direct officials to expedite military support to Ukraine, including the provision of additional artillery and 90 Brimstone missiles.[52] Healey warned on 13 February 2025 that there can be nonegotiation "about Ukraine without Ukraine" afterUnited States PresidentDonald Trump andVladimir Putin agreed to begin talks to end the war.[53]
In October 2024, Healey condemned Chinese military exercises nearTaiwan.[54] In July 2025, Healey said that the UK was prepared to "fight together" with Australia to defend Taiwan fromChina if necessary.[55]
In September 2025, Healey warned 'there have to be consequences' for those supporting the bannedPalestine Action.[56] Healey said he expected newly appointed Home SecretaryShabana Mahmood to be "just as tough" asYvette Cooper on Palestine Action.[57]
Healey married Jackie Bate on 25 October 1993 inLambeth; they have one son.
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