We spoke with Defence Secretary John Healey. We began by asking him whether the scope of the prime minister’s recent reshuffle only serves to highlight that the previous cabinet hadn’t been working properly.
John Healey: Now it’s a sign that we’ve got through a hard first year where we came into government. Started to clear up the mess when we found a government previously that crashed the economy, wrecked the NHS, hollowed out the armed forces. And so I’m proud of what we’ve achieved as a Labour government in the first year.
Ayshah Tull: Lots of movement in Cabinet. Isn’t that a sign that Sir Keir Starmer got his top team wrong in the first place?
John Healey: But you know, the story of the last year is of getting on and starting to make those differences. If you’re a mortgage payer, you’ll have seen five interest rate cuts over the last year.
Ayshah Tull: Shabana Mahmood at the Home Office. What difference can she make that six conservative home secretaries haven’t been able to make and Yvette Cooper seemingly hasn’t been able to make?
John Healey: Well, if you look at the progress that Yvette Cooper has made, you’d have to say, look, 35,000 people deported because they had no right to be here. Well, this is the basis now for Shabana Mahmood to move on and start to deliver the really big changes.
Ayshah Tull: That delivery…
John Healey: And that is for all of us in government. It isn’t just a matter for the Home Office. So in the MOD, looking at military and other sites as ways of being able to put up temporary accommodation and close the asylum hotels for good.
Ayshah Tull: Where are these barracks going to be?
John Healey: We’re looking at military sites, non-military sites. We’re looking at the options of temporary accommodation. Our overriding priority is to get the asylum hotels, expensive asylum hotels. We had 400 of them opened up under the previous government. The number is coming down, but not fast enough. Keir Starmer has dedicated the government to closing the asylum hotels, to restoring control of our borders, to reducing the amount of net migration in this country, because it’s part of the sort of rebuilding the renewal of this country long term that this government was elected to change.
“Keir Starmer has dedicated the government to closing the asylum hotels, to restoring control of our borders, to reducing the amount of net migration in this country, because it’s part of the rebuilding the renewal of this country long term that this government was elected to change.”
– John Healey
Ayshah Tull: Is it going to be appropriate for women and children to be in these settings?
John Healey: Most of the asylum hotels are for single men. Hotels are already part of a range of accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees. That will continue.
Ayshah Tull: Are women and children going to be put in these barracks?
John Healey: I’m not ruling anything out or in at the moment. I’m saying, we are looking…
Ayshah Tull: So children, unaccompanied children, or children could be in these barracks?
John Healey: What I’m saying…
Ayshah Tull: Is that sensible?
John Healey: So what I’m saying now is, we’re looking hard at fresh options. We are doing that as a whole government, not just leaving this to the Home Office. And you can see Shabana Mahmood as the new home secretary building on the progress that Yvette Cooper was able to make to take this further and deliver better in the months ahead.
“You can see Shabana Mahmood as the new home secretary building on the progress that Yvette Cooper was able to make to take this further and deliver better in the months ahead.”
– John Healey
Ayshah Tull: She’ll also have on her in tray, of course, Palestine Action. We saw the protest yesterday. The Met said that the conditions were intolerable. Should they still be a proscribed group?
John Healey: The strength of feeling is shared so widely. We’re all anguished by what we see in Gaza. We all desperately want to see an end to the man-made starvation there. But for those people who want to voice that concern and protest, I applaud them, but say to them, you do not need to hitch that protest to Palestine Action, because Palestine Action is a proscribed group. And I’d say to those holding some of the placards, they may not know what some members of that proscribed group have done.
Ayshah Tull: And just finally and lastly on the deputy leadership, will you be running?
John Healey: No, this is not for me. But the deputy leadership…
Ayshah Tull: Why not?
John Healey: The deputy leadership is a really important post. It’ll be a really important vote for the Labour party. And it is alongside the deputy prime minister’s job, which, of course, the prime minister has now pointed David Lammy to carry out.
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