New Defence Secretary urged not to accept less than £18billion from Rachel Reeves to boost military

Published: 23:32, 13 June 2026 | Updated: 23:42, 13 June 2026 New Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis should demand at least £18 billion extra from the Treasury as a condition of signing off on the long-awaited defence investment plan, Whitehall sources have said. The former Parachute Regiment officer, who has been security minister since the 2024 general election, was appointed after John Healey dramatically quit on Thursday in protest at the lack of funding for the Defence Investment Plan. He was promised an extra £13.5 billion, less than half of the £28 billion Army chiefs said they needed. This triggered a resignation letter in which Mr Healey said he had been left with ‘no other option’ after learning that defence spending will go up from 2.6 per cent of gross domestic product next year to just 2.68 per cent in 2030. Mr Jarvis has been given an additional two weeks to review the proposals before the plan is published before a Nato meeting on July 7.  Now defence sources have said he should refuse to agree to the plan unless the extra funding hits £18 billion. A source said: ‘The Strategic Defence Review included 62 recommendations for new equipment, which was costed at £28billion. The new Defence Secretary has been urged not to accept less than £18billion from Rachel Reeves to boost the military Ms Reeves reportedly can only offer the Ministry of Defence £10 billion, with a further £3.5 billion to be made from 'efficiency savings' ‘[Chancellor] Rachel Reeves said it could only offer the Ministry of Defence £10 billion, with a further £3.5 billion to be made from “efficiency savings” based on the retirement of warships, bases and aircraft. ‘That is nowhere near enough and the bare minimum which would work, and Dan should accept, is £18 billion.’ In his letter, Mr Healey said the funding settlement would have forced him ‘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’.  In his reply, Sir Keir Starmer said he was ‘proud of our record on funding’. The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.