The UK’s most senior military officer said the armed forces would have to scale back operations if the government does not increase short-term funding, the latest signal of strain in the defence budget after the resignation of the cabinet minister overseeing the department.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, who was appointed chief of the defence staff in September 2025, gave evidence to the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee on Tuesday morning. He said his primary concern was the level of “day-to-day activity funding,” which covers operational activity, exercises, and training.
“Those are the things that make sure the men and women of our armed forces are as ready as they can be with the equipment that they have got today,” Sir Richard told peers. “And without changes to the settlement, as John Healey set out, then those areas will come under pressure.”
He added: “We will have to dial back our activities and our exercise and operational activity if the level of resource funding that’s available to us does not increase. Now, that’s still to be debated and decided.”
The warning follows the resignation of John Healey as defence secretary last week. In a statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday, Healey said his departure “had been necessary in securing the future of Britain’s armed forces and our alliances.” He told MPs: “My decision last week was about our country, not career.”
Healey said the current Defence Investment Plan (DIP) — a 10-year spending blueprint that was due to be published last week but has been delayed — “backloaded” increases when the military needed to “speed up readiness to fight” in the first two years. In his resignation letter, Healey warned that the proposed cash settlement “would reduce the readiness of our Forces and increase the risk to personnel on operations.”
In his Commons remarks, Healey said the DIP offered “a rise at 0.08% from next year to 2030, no date for reaching 3%, no path to 3.5%.” He argued that the UK needed to be spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030, and that “well over half of Nato members will be spending 3% or more” by that point. “When allies are looking for British leadership, we must not fall behind,” he said.
Healey also took aim at Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whom he said was “unwilling” to provide adequate funds. “Our adversaries do not follow timetables set by the Treasury,” he warned.
Armed forces minister Al Carns followed Healey in resigning, saying in his own resignation letter that the level of investment in the DIP was “inadequate to the task” of defending the country. In his Commons statement, Carns said the plan did not pay enough attention to drone warfare and was too focused on traditional defence hardware.
New defence secretary Dan Jarvis is currently reviewing how the money will be spent. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, speaking to reporters at the G7 summit in Evian, France, said the government was increasing the defence budget from 2.3% of GDP to 2.6%. He added that the DIP would give the UK “capability for the future” and that he had already reallocated money from other departments to defence.
“The new defence secretary is reading in, and we’re talking to him about how and what we will spend that money on, in terms of capability, and he’s got his own thoughts now on what the priorities should be,” Starmer said.
The government has committed to increasing defence spending to 3.5% of national income by 2035, in line with NATO allies. However, there has been no indication from Downing Street that additional funding beyond current plans will be made available.