Future Capability of the Armed Forces

Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, for securing this important debate. He speaks with great authority, particularly about the Reserve Forces. I agree with everything he said about that subject and congratulate him on his service.

I speak to employers and employers’ organisations who are keen to support our reserves. I take this opportunity to once again talk up the role of the voluntary reserve. They give us a continually refreshing source of capability and long-term resilience. They are central to our Armed Forces’ present and future capability to defend and deter, and they need to be nurtured. Employers need support to shoulder their share of responsibility. I ask the Government once again to continue to encourage more employers to take on reservists. I look forward to progress reports on the SDR’s medium-term aim of seeing the active reserve expanded by 20%, although I acknowledge that the ambitions of the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, go beyond that.

The subject of this debate raises huge questions about national priorities in an era of new external threats. Other speakers in this debate are far more qualified than I am to speak about matters of national security and war-fighting readiness, but I can comment on one essential component of national resilience: the role of the defence industry, which the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, already touched on. The future effectiveness of the UK’s Armed Forces depends in large measure on their access to platforms, munitions, cutting-edge skills and capabilities that match the challenge of modern warfare and deterrence.

The SDR said that the defence industry must play an indispensable enabling role. It said that our Armed Forces needed to be underwritten by a thriving and resilient industry, ready to scale and innovate. As we meet today, we are falling short of this ambition. The SDR called for changes in procurement practices. It said that industry should be partners, not clients, with companies engaged early in processes and rewarded for productivity and risk-taking. The Industry and Regulators Committee is currently looking at this. The evidence the committee has heard so far chimes with what I have been told separately by defence companies, and by the people who work for them and their trade unions.

Prime contractors have told me about their supply chain vulnerabilities. They have talked about problems in sustaining UK suppliers where they cannot provide predictability to smaller companies, and they are all too aware of MoD bureaucracy that stifles innovation and speed. This is fundamental to today’s debate. Down the chain of dependencies, the capability of the Armed Forces is tied to the strength of the defence industry’s sovereign supplier ecosystem. Safeguarding these small businesses is critical to national security and not a secondary consideration.

The SDR asked the MoD to develop a support package for industrial partners and remove barriers to collaboration. I invite the Minister to tell the House what progress is being made towards this goal.

In conclusion, I note with great joy today’s announcement of a new partnership with 35 universities to boost defence skills and research. I have met many graduates and apprentices in defence companies who tell me that their universities and schools did not encourage them to seek careers in the defence industry. I invite the Minister to take that back to colleagues.