Who is new chancellor John Healey? Labour veteran who quit as defence secretary

His resignation came days before Andy Burnham’s pivotal by-election in Makerfield, adding to the sense that Sir Keir’s premiership was falling apart.

Healey earned plaudits from across the political spectrum for resigning on a matter of principle.

He had clashed with Reeves, the woman he is now replacing, pointedly saying in is resignation letter that the Treasury had been “unwilling” to “commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats”.

His return to government in the most vital job of all in cabinet after the prime minister is an even bigger surprise than his resignation, given that his name had not been mentioned as a frontrunner in the increasingly feverish speculation about who Burnham would choose.

Sources told the BBC that Burnham and Healey “have the same outlook” on many of the prime minister’s priorities, including reindustrialisation, the cost-of-living, and driving growth across the country.

The softly-spoken Yorkshireman has a remarkable record as someone who has been on the Labour frontbench almost continuously since 2001.

Born in Wakefield in 1960 and educated at Lady Lumley’s Comprehensive School, Pickering, and Peter’s School in York, he studied social and political science at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Before entering politics, he worked as a journalist, briefly editing Parliament’s in-house magazine The House, before becoming a disability rights campaigner and trade union official.

He is married and has one son.

He first came into Parliament in Tony Blair’s landslide general election in 1997 as MP for Wentworth, a former mining area north of Sheffield, which following boundary changes is now Rawmarsh and Conisbrough.

He retained the seat with a majority of 6,908 in the 2024 general election, with a Reform UK candidate in second place.

In the early 2000s, he held a string of ministerial posts, including housing, local government in the Blair and Gordon Brown governments.

He spent five years at Brown’s Treasury where he oversaw policies such as the child trust funds and attempts to regenerate and devolve power – the Regional Development Agencies, later scrapped by the coalition government.

Speaking to the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson earlier this month, Healey said: “The Treasury’s a paradox. You have some of the very best and brightest officials in the Treasury, but you have too often a Treasury orthodox that’s a dead hand on dynamic government.”

He added that maintaining financial stability was a key function of the Treasury but “also it can and it has to drive economic growth, raise levels of productivity, support business competition, investment for the for the future”.

And he claimed the department “was in denial about the commitment that the UK has rightly made to NATO and to our people” to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP, which would not come until 2034/35 under current plans.

“The Treasury still often sees defence as a drain on public spending and not the driver of economic growth that we’ve demonstrated in two years,” he told Nick Robinson.

Healey’s other area of expertise is housing. He served as shadow housing secretary when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, despite supporting a failed attempt to oust Corbyn in 2016.