𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Defence Secretary John Healey has stressed that the Government does not believe Iran has any plans to attack the UK, but declined to rule out that the country has the capability to do so.

Asked repeatedly on Sky News whether Iran could reach London with missile strikes, he said: “We have no assessment of Iranian plans to strike London.” Pressed further on whether the country has the capability to strike London, he said: “What I’m saying, and trying to reassure people is, that we’ve got no assessment that Iran has any plans to attack.

“But we have the resources, we have the alliance in place to be able to defend Britain, and we do that with allies, and we do that with Nato. As far as Iran goes, they’re demonstrating a capacity to hit across the Middle East, we see the same tactics and technologies that we see employed by Russia in Ukraine, and this is the hidden hand of Putin in both conflicts.

“I’m releasing today our latest defence intelligence assessment, which says that Russia was almost certainly providing training, sharing intelligence with Iran ahead of this conflict, including on types of drones, including on electronic warfare, and whilst Putin may want us to be distracted by the Middle East, we’re determined that we won’t be.”

The Defence Secretary also said The Treasury is not holding up the long-delayed defence investment plan. This came after Labour MP Tan Dhesi, who chairs the Defence Committee, suggested the plan might now be delayed until after May’s elections, adding the situation was a “mess”.

When asked if the Treasury is delaying the plan, Mr Healey said: “No … Rachel Reeves, as Chancellor, has given defence an extra £8 billion this year over what the previous government put in. We’re spending £270 billion in this Parliament alone. We’re putting in place, from next year, the biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War.”

After being asked if the Treasury has been asked to “scale anything back” on the defence investment plan, Mr Healey replied: “No, we are working with the Treasury, we’re working across government to finalise this defence investment plan.”

This is despite ministers promising to publish the 10-year plan before Christmas, but the top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, Jeremy Pocklington, said it had to be agreed by “everyone across government” before being finalised.

Tehran has previously stated it had unilaterally limited the range of its missiles to 2,000km. However, military experts were then spooked by Iran launching two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) towards Diego Garcia, a joint US-UK base in the Indian Ocean, about 4,000kms from any Iranian launchpad. The Wall Street Journal and CNN reported that one of the missiles failed mid-flight, while the other was hit by a US interceptor.

UK Defence Secretary John Healey said one failed and one was shot down last Friday. Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday denied the allegations that it was behind the launch of the missiles.