Armed forces minister quits after Healey exit as defence funding row deepens

The armed forces minister has followed former Defence Secretary John Healey in quitting the government in a dispute with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer over funding for the military.

Al Carns resigned on Thursday evening, writing to Sir Keir to tell him the government's defence investment plan (DIP) was "neither transformative enough nor sufficiently funded".

It came after Healey resigned in a scathing letter that said the level of military spending proposed by Sir Keir "falls well short" of what's needed to protect the country.

Dan Jarvis, the security minister and a former British Army officer, was appointed to replace Healey in the cabinet role on Thursday evening.

Sir Keir has yet to respond to Carns' exit. In his response to Healey's resignation, the prime minister said he was "proud of our record on funding", adding the defence funding plan "will provide the resources our military needs to keep us safe".

Only an hour or so before his resignation, Carns had suggested he was willing to wait until the DIP was finalised before considering his position in government.

But shortly after strikingly candid interviews with Sky News and the BBC, he posted his resignation letter to X, writing he could not defend "a level of investment I know to be inadequate to the task".

Labour MP Pamela Nash has also quit as Healey's parliamentary assistant at the Ministry of Defence.