Strait of Hormuz: Merchant Shipping

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an interesting and important point. The commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is an important restatement of the fundamental principle, not only in the Middle East but across the world, of the freedom of navigation. It is an extremely important point and the noble Lord is right to remind us of it. That remains our policy objective with respect to the Strait of Hormuz. It is an international waterway; it should be free and the freedom of navigation should operate there. On the noble Lord’s other point about nuclear, I reread the memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States, and, for me, that could have been followed through to start addressing many issues, including the nuclear issue that he referred to.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question follows on from that of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I stress that I am asking not for any operational information but for a general statement. Are UK bases and UK military assets being used by US forces in the continuing attacks on Iran. Specifically, were they used in the attack on the nuclear power plant under construction at Darkhovin?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do not often do this, but let me read the advice that I have had about UK bases involved in recent strikes, because I need to be clear that I am getting it right. The noble Baroness said in her opening remark why I would do this, so let me read the points. Our position on this has been consistent. The Government took a decision in Britain’s national interest not to get involved in the initial phase. We have acted in defence of our allies, including by approving the US to use our bases for the specific defensive and limited purposes of destroying Iran’s missiles at source. We remain in close communication with the US, including on our efforts to support the restoration of freedom of navigation through the strait, through our independent and defensive mission.

Future Capability of the Armed Forces

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, for securing this debate. The level of engagement on a Thursday afternoon shows the interest in your Lordships’ House. The debate has been particularly useful in that, unlike nearly all the discussion in the other place and in the media, it has not just focused on, as the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, framed it, “What are we spending?” but rather on “What are we using defence and security money for?” Is it on capabilities that make us more secure, or is it driven by imperatives of private profit or pride?

There is one form of defence spending to which I want to draw attention and to question. It is one that noble Lords who are regular Tube users here at Westminster Station will know. As we descend the escalators, we are confronted by, blared at by, a shiny advert for BAE Systems. Future jet fighters; Navy capabilities: the subject occasionally varies, but, for the seven years that I have been in this House, that prime and no doubt very expensive advertising spot has been permanently occupied by BAE Systems. Ultimately, of course, the cost of that no doubt very expensive, endless advertisement, directed at a small number of Tube users—parliamentarians and officials—is part of our defence budget. But it is not, I suggest, spending that makes us any safer.

I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark for, in his valedictory speech, introducing another point that I want to make: that our security is about much more than defence. Soft power, diplomacy and the international service provided by the BBC World Service are crucial, and all this together needs to be treated as a package. Last week, I put to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, that the FCDO was in turmoil and the noble Baroness denied it fervently. Well, this morning, I was on the picket line in King Charles Street with PCS members who are FCDO staff, expressing their anger and fear about the turmoil—and that very clearly is an accurate word—in the department. That is a workers’ rights issue, disappointing to all there in the light of having a Labour Government, but it is also a security issue for us all.

I will pick up another point, from noble Lords on the Conservative Benches, who have suggested that the welfare budget must be cut to allow for more defence spending. Yet we have also heard, occasionally from the Conservative Benches and from around the House, about the most basic defence resources of all—human capability and human will. The foundations of our welfare system were laid after the Boer War, with an awareness that child poverty and general deprivation meant that many young men were unfit to serve. If people have not been cared for by society and have been left without the basic resources to live decently, while they see the few—the “have-yachts”—harvesting the resources that might have been sustaining them, that is not going to build the will, let alone the physical capability, to stand up to the threats we face.

On defence procurement, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, we have huge problems with the tradition, established over decades, of commissioning works of art, and, I would add, making decisions for economic rather than military reasons. We often heard from the previous Government—there are similar hints from the incoming one—that they used defence spending as a form of economic development funding. But that risks doing two things badly, rather than focusing on the activity that is supposed to be the spending’s purpose.

Defence Readiness Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. I was listening to her speaking about the 89 lines of the risk register. I am perhaps inspired by the fact that I was yesterday with the campaign group More Than a Score doing SATs exams. Perhaps we could set an exam for when we have a new Cabinet and Government. A couple of months afterwards, they could all sit down and do an exam on the risk register to prove that they understand it and then tell us what they are going to do about it.

Like all speakers already, and no doubt all coming speakers, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for securing this debate and for the brilliant work that he and the preparedness committee do. We begin this debate in a bad position. There are many concerns about the lack of resilience and defence capacity in the UK, but I am referring to a much more specific issue—an issue for this House, this Parliament. We do not have the information we need to understand the crucial basic problem of food security, and the lack of it in the UK.

I am referring to the joint intelligence chiefs’ report on the impact of nature’s collapse and food security—a problem around the world. I note that just yesterday, Mary Creagh, a Defra Minister, told MPs that a redacted 14-page version of some of the findings, published after repeated freedom of information requests in January, should provide enough information. The Cabinet Office refused to send a Minister or official to the Environmental Audit Committee to answer these questions.

This is a serious cause for concern. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, just said, this appears to be in a context in which the Government are focused on trying not to scare people, specifically on food security. I have heard testimony from multiple experts who have been trying to get the Government to warn the public about the insecurity of our food supplies and about the need, where they can—for many, it is not financially viable—to create some private food stores and stores of fresh drinking water kept up to date.

I have been asking the Government about whether they will consider holding public government stores of food. Switzerland holds three months for the whole country and is looking to go to 12. I got a very clear answer to a Written Question from the Government: “No, we are not considering that. We think the market will provide”. I am afraid that is not what the experts are saying. Like others, I do not think that keeping the public in ignorance is the way to manage this situation. That produces fear. It produces anger—something we are seeing a great deal of. Being honest and open with the public about the fact that we have a huge food security issue and need to think about changing our entire food system to tackle this, and in the meantime providing points of security along the way, is crucial.

Coming back to the Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, noble Lords can now see very clearly where I and the Green Party stand on the question of whether we need just a defence readiness Bill or a much broader defence and resilience Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, we face many threats in this age of shocks, as we have now shifted our global climate from the very stable Holocene into the very unstable Anthropocene. We have a great many health threats, many of them associated with biodiversity collapse. To cross-reference the previous debate on space, we have a society and an economy that are hugely dependent on satellites. We heard about the risk of the Kessler effect and the cascading loss of the satellites on which we are entirely dependent. These are all risks we need to understand, assess and manage.

I thought the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, was really interesting. She is absolutely right: we have not defined “the whole of society”. That term is thrown around, but I suggest that we need something broader. We have seen a very obvious example of this in Finland and Poland both considering rewetting their peatlands as a potential defence against Russian aggression. We have to think about the state of nature—yes, I am cross-referencing my Bill from last Friday—as part of our security and resilience. The peatlands are very obvious, but if we have healthy soils, clean rivers and clean air then we are a much stronger and more resilient society that is able to take whatever is thrown at us. More than the whole of society, we have to think about the whole of the system—human and more than human. The resilience of all those systems together is a measure of our security as a society.

This is where I am going to lose some people who have been with me up to now: although we keep chasing growth, growth and resilience go in two different directions. A seedling that is growing at great speed, is heavily fertilised and receives lots of irrigation water is not going to survive in tough conditions if you have not looked after the soil or ensured that it can stand up against the wind. We need something that is tough, strong and can take knocks. Simply chasing growth means going in the opposite direction to that, and it is a dangerous direction.

Armed Forces Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 6th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I welcome noble Lords who have said that they are relatively new to engaging in military issues, which is something that your Lordships’ House should encourage more of. In this age of geopolitical shocks, unlikely to reduce in intensity or frequency any time soon, and direct if undeclared attacks on the UK, we need far more and broader engagement in security issues than has traditionally been the case. We need a realistic assessment of the level of Armed Forces that the UK population and economy can support, rather than seeking to find a place in the world beyond our capabilities, and a realistic assessment of the unstable diplomatic environment in which we operate. We know who our friends are, and we also need to know that those who have been our friends in the past may not be so in the future. We owe it to the Armed Forces, as the whole of society, to be brutally realistic about the circumstances we now find ourselves in.

I begin by being positive. I welcome the defence housing strategy and the creation of the defence housing service, which, as the letter to noble Lords from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, put it, aims to put first the needs of forces personnel, veterans and their families. That will be a welcome change from the disastrous privatisation—one more disastrous privatisation—of forces housing that, as the Financial Times summarised it,

“sparked multiple court actions and saddled the government with billions of pounds in rent and maintenance costs”.

When I was completing the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme a few years ago with the RAF—I should perhaps declare now that I am completing the RCDS international security and strategy course—forces housing was the issue raised with us perhaps the most often when we spoke to forces personnel, and it is undoubtedly going to take a great deal more in costs and attention to repair. I note the amendment in the other place on ensuring consistent investment and support in the Bill for forces housing, and I think that is certainly worthy of your Lordships’ consideration.

I also welcome the improved attention to the Armed Forces covenant and to victim support, particularly for women and girls, and I was interested in the technical issue raised by the right reverend Prelate, who is not currently in his place, about the treatment of domestic abuse cases; that certainly deserves more examination. I will be probing the Government on how they might act more strongly on rape and sexual assault cases, something the House united in indicating its strong desire for changes to in 2021.

Saying that, I note that I am a veteran of the Armed Forces Bill 2021 and the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill 2025. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, will be hearing from me on some very familiar issues, and I make no apology for that. They are important issues, particularly violence against women and girls in the military and the recruitment of 15, 16 and 17 year-olds into our forces, but I will be adding a couple of new issues to raise.

The Long Title includes

“to make provision about visiting forces”.

I note that in the other place Green MPs supported what was a new Clause 4, which probably comes under that provision, and I will be happy to work on that here, but I want to raise a new issue now and pursue it at later stages, one that I have also raised by way of Written Question. It is that of foreign personnel based or visiting here who commit crimes.

This issue is raised through an excellent job of reporting by the Guardian, which it deserves to be commended for, on the case of Jacob Wulfson, who strangled in his apartment in Cambridge a British woman he met online. This case was allowed to be tried at an US airbase court martial, instead of him facing UK justice. That involved an all-male panel of Wulfson’s fellow US Air Force officers, all stationed at the same base as him. The victim described the hearing as a “distressing and degrading” experience. She said that the system, which was unfamiliar to her,

“picked me up, chewed me out”.

I want to see whether we can use this Bill to prevent any similar cases in future.

I will also be delighted to back up the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, not currently in her place, on the issue she has indicated she intends to lead on, that of inadequate paternity leave in the military. I note, since I was speaking on Friday about transparency in lobbying, that I have been lobbied on this by the NGO called The Dad Shift, and I am backing the campaign that it is leading. I always try in your Lordships’ House to bring the voices of people who cannot be here, so I want to bring some of those voices of men who have indicated their concerns about the current inadequate provision of maternity leave. This is from an Army soldier:

“Being posted 4 hours away from my child when she was born was tough, only having 2 weeks to bond before I was back to being 200 miles away with limited time to travel back and see her was tough and has definitely caused irreparable damage to our relationship, ultimately leading to the collapse of my relationship with her mother too”.


Another said that when his child was born, he was granted two weeks of standard paternity leave, with an additional two weeks of discretionary leave due to his wife requiring an emergency c-section. It is usually said that it takes at least six weeks to recover from a caesarean section. I note that in the joint service publication JSP 760, there is a discretionary element of providing additional compassionate leave, as that second account indicates, but it is, of course, discretionary.

It is difficult to put a full scale on this problem, but nearly eight in 10 service families have children, and 32% have children under five. The level of paternity leave actually taken has dropped, which may be accounted for by a slight fall in headcount, but it is a really significant drop. I would be interested if the Minister, now or in future, can provide any information on what he knows about the level of take-up of paternity leave.

I note that there is a review of parental leave arrangements currently ongoing, due to report in late in 2026 or early 2027, so there is a window of opportunity here for your Lordships’ House to do something really positive. I would argue that it is obviously the right thing to do, but also a great many of the contributions to the debate today have focused on retention of military personnel, and this is obviously an important issue, as well as supporting military families.

I come to the second issue that will not surprise those who were here in 2021, about recruitment of 15, 16 and 17 year-olds into the military and particularly the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, where over the past five years an average of 2,380 children have been trained each year. This has been a cause of considerable complaints and campaigning. I note that I am drawing on the work of Child Rights International Network, which obtained the inspectors’ reports from the last Ofsted visit to the site in March 2024. Recorded under a section titled “Ill-treatment of recruits by staff” was the following. In 2021: eight allegations made, six substantiated and military action taken. In 2022: 10 allegations, five substantiated and action taken. In 2023: six allegations, two substantiated and actioned. For 2024, the data was greyed out.

I have seen some very disturbing footage of not just the treatment of recruits by instructors but behaviour within groups of recruits. It cannot be shared very widely because it might identify the child who took it, but it is very disturbing. There are reports of a 16 year-old former recruit who witnessed his friend being so badly beaten by an instructor that they broke his leg. He was then forced to march on it for miles. We are an utter outlier among developed countries in recruiting 15, 16 and 17 year-olds, and this is something that I will be raising further.

I want to mention just two more issues. One is the Wiltshire Police investigation of sexual abuse during military examinations, which has been ongoing for some time and dates from the 1970s up to 2016 at different locations across the UK. I wonder whether the Minister can update us now, or I will understand entirely if he wishes to do it in writing, on how that inquiry is proceeding. There are a great many people with cause for concern who would like to know what is happening with that.

I also note a very specific issue, but one that is clearly of great concern to some people, with good reason, calling for the recognition and protection of the SS “Tilawa” from 1942 and comparable cases. This is identifying a statutory framework gap governing maritime war graves. Perhaps, again, the Minister might like to write to me about that. I realise it is a fairly technical issue, but it is one that we will be raising in future.

Defence Investment Plan

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree with that. In the document, it talks about the need for the transformation of our Armed Forces, and much of that will be around uncrewed capabilities and drones. It is not only about big primes; much of this, including in Ukraine as the example, is delivered by small and medium-sized businesses, which have that particular agility to which the noble Lord refers, and we need to develop that.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, with the honourable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, much of our debate today, as in the many months leading up to the defence investment plan, has focused on the bottom line and where the money is coming from; we have, unfortunately, had far less debate about how the money is being spent. I note that less than £10 billion over four years is set aside for homeland defence in areas such as cyber security, air and missile defence, and undersea infrastructure protection. By comparison, about £100 billion is being spent on nuclear submarines and jet fighters, AUKUS subs and cruise missiles. As the leading article in the Guardian said today, we are still binding our force structure to an American-led posture. Is that not deeply dangerous in the current geopolitical circumstances of an unstable, uncertain America?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

“No” is the answer to the noble Baroness’s question. Homeland defence runs all the way through the document: how we have better air defence, what we do about improving the use of reserves, and various protections for our critical national infrastructure, which is really important. As I have said before, on our alliance with the United States, the development and maintenance of things such as our nuclear deterrent are really important, not only for our defence and security but for the defence of Europe and beyond, and we should continually reiterate that.

Palantir: Public Service Contracts

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Monday 29th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really important point. Palantir provides us with the capability that we require at the moment, but he will be reassured by the fact that, alongside granting this contract to Palantir for the next three years from this April, we are seeking to look at options with small and medium-sized and other companies that could provide the same capability, so that we have a competitive process in future. That also answers the noble Baroness’s point. I suggest that will keep Palantir on its toes in the marketplace as well.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, have His Majesty’s Government considered applying a fit and proper person test to owners and managers for public sector IT contracts, particularly those involving Britons’ private data, with particular attention to their respect for human rights and the rule of law? If they do not have that, the contracts will not be worth the paper they are written on.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I understand the point that the noble Baroness is making, but the point I made at the beginning is that these contracts are with Palantir UK. Anyone who has been a Minister knows that contracts signed on behalf of the Government have to have a fit and proper process. We will not take on people to run things for us who have criminal records of a particular sort, do not pass the monetary test or have other considerations around them that mean we see them as a security threat—of course we would not. The people who have gone through this process and been given the contracts have passed the tests set for them as part of the risk assurance process.

The noble Baroness is perfectly entitled to her opinion, but taking the decision not to grant Palantir the contract would have consequences as well—many patients now being seen would not be seen, many crimes being solved would not be solved and the operational abilities and capabilities of our Armed Forces would be undermined because no one else can provide that capability. That is the side that I am on. The noble Baroness can take the side that she is on.

Civil Preparedness for War

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, for securing this debate. Like other speakers, I will not just talk about civil preparedness for war but acknowledge that we are in the age of shocks, and that we face not just geopolitical and terrorism threats but threats from climate, from the collapse of nature and of course from pandemics, which continue to loom over us.

It is not just me or the Green Party saying this. I can go back to October 2025, when, as we now know, the Joint Intelligence Committee security assessment report for Defra warned that

“biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse”

threatened the foundation of our lives. That was in October 2025. That report was supressed by the Government and finally published on 20 January 2026. That report may only be in the redacted form. This is unclear—perhaps the Minister can tell me whether that is the full report.

Then, there was a second repressed Defra report, finally released on 24 March, which warned of the risk of the “catastrophic failure” of the UK’s food and water systems by 2030. Therefore, my first question to the Minister is: would he acknowledge that the first step of preparedness has to be the Government being honest with the public about what they know and the risks that we face?

To focus on those risks for a second, the government advice—which noble Lords may not know, because it is not very widely publicised—is that every household should keep three days’ worth of food in the cupboard. Here, I reference the very powerful speech by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka: how many households cannot afford to buy three days’ worth of food and stick it in the cupboard? There are very many. So, it is no good giving that advice if they cannot possibly do it.

Then, there is our oligarchic food system. Some nine big retailers supply 94.5% of all retail food. Tesco supplies nearly one-third of retail food sales and sends those out from 20 distribution centres. It is not just me who points out the vulnerability of that; it is obvious to anyone who might want to disrupt British society. Across all the retailers, it is 131 distribution centres.

I am going to be party political here for a second and address a question of philosophy. For the Green Party, resilience is at the heart of our political philosophy. We know we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. We know that an over-fertilised seedling with a thin, slender stem and very shallow roots that races up for the light will not be resilient. To be resilient, we have to build a healthy society, which is what is at the core of Green Party political philosophy.

Middle East: Defence

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Wednesday 11th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I join my noble friend Lord Robertson in the tribute to our Armed Forces and I thank him for the points he made about the way in which the Government have acted and the various policy decisions that they have made. I know it has a been long-standing demand from my noble friend, who led the government review—the SDR—which laid out some of the challenges we face and the investments that the Government will need to consider. I am sure the Prime Minister will read his letter with interest. He made those comments at Munich, and we look forward to seeing how the Government will turn the 3% ambition into action in the next Parliament, should economic conditions allow, and similarly the commitment to 5% by 2035. Perhaps my noble friend will share the response from the Prime Minister when he receives it.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in reflecting on what the Minister and the Statement said, that Iran has lashed out with

“dangerous, indiscriminate and reckless strikes”,

which is clearly an accurate description, I join the Front Benches and others in offering thanks to the British service personnel who are seeking to protect threatened communities, ships and other sites.

At the same time, we are seeing extensive and extremely heavy strikes by America on Iran, particularly in built-up areas. The Mines Advisory Group says that when explosive weapons are used in populated areas, 90% of the casualties are civilians. That results not only in physical trauma but a great deal of mental trauma. Today, a report has come out about the Minab elementary school where 175 mostly small children were killed by a Tomahawk strike which it now appears came from the US. Are the Government speaking to the US about minimising civilian damage and following international law, particularly in view of the fact that many of the civilians under these strikes will be those who have been seeking to overturn the Iranian regime?

Boarding of Sanctioned Vessels

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Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I shall not stray into that territory, because I am sure that other people are more legally qualified to answer than I am. However, the action that was taken was on the legal basis that it was a stateless, sanctioned vessel. It sailed on one flag when it was in the eastern Caribbean and, when it fled from the United States, it changed to a Russian flag. I say to the noble Lord, as I say to all noble Lords, that, when we question the United States and its willingness to take on Russia, the big strategic point that we should not lose is the fact that the United States took on a Russian-flagged shadow vessel. That should give us all comfort.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister spoke about global stability. He may be aware that, in both the US Senate and the House of Representatives, bipartisan Bills have been introduced to prohibit the Pentagon and the State Department from using funds appropriated by Congress to

“blockade, occupy, annex, conduct military operations against, or otherwise assert control”

over the territory of another NATO member state. Does the Minister agree that that Bill would be a real contribution to global stability?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do not know about the Bill, but if the noble Baroness is referring to Greenland, the Government have been very clear that that is a matter for the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland. There is no change in government policy on that. However, Arctic security is becoming an increasingly important challenge for the Government and for all of us. Irrespective of what the noble Baroness is really asking, dealing with that is a challenge for all of us: Arctic security is a priority and we must make sure that we defend our interests there.

Ukraine and Wider Operational Update

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Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It is a hypothetical situation. It goes back to the point I was trying to make in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. There is a need for a national conversation about the threat that we face. There is a national conversation about the state-on-state threat that exists now in a way that people would not have predicted a few years ago. The Cold War and Russia and one country versus another country were supposed to be the wars of the past; we were supposed to be combating terrorist activity, counterinsurgency and those sorts of things. Although those threats have not totally gone away, the state-on-state threat has now re-emerged. Part of the national conversation has to be about what that means for our country and our Armed Forces.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question is also about the national conversation. To put it on the record, the Green Party supports the principle of UK troops serving in a peacekeeping role in Ukraine, following a negotiated settlement with a robust international mandate and standards. We are very pleased that the Statement says there will be a debate and a vote in the other place beforehand; that is the minimum democratic standard. Can the Minister reassure me that MPs will be able to scrutinise robustly the Government’s proposal, so that they will have before them—this follows on from the noble Baroness’s questions—details about the size and the composition of the force, what weapons they would have, the rules of engagement, and measurable indicators of what success looks like? It is important that it is not just a debate but a full debate.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

There will be as wide a debate as possible. Some of it will not be debated on the Floor of the House necessarily—for example, rules of engagement and so on. Having said that, let me reiterate what the Prime Minister stated last week, because it is important to make sure that I am accurate:

“If there were a decision to deploy under the agreement that was signed yesterday, I would put that matter to the House for a debate beforehand and for a vote on that deployment.”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/1/26; col. 254.]


The noble Baroness can read into that the answer to her question.