King’s Speech

Baroness Kingsmill Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kingsmill (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to contribute to this debate on a subject that I believe sits at the very heart of everything else that we discuss in this Chamber: the security and safety of the UK and all of us. I declare an interest as a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly—PA—and as a chair of the sub-committee on defence and transatlantic economics.

I welcome the Government’s stated commitment to defence. In a dangerous and volatile world, these words of resolve matter. However, I have to say, with respect, that words alone are not enough, and on this occasion the words were not accompanied by the legislative framework that the scale of the threat requires. There had been real anticipation, widely reported, that the King’s Speech would include a defence readiness Bill. It did not. That absence should trouble every Member of this House who has read the strategic defence review, particularly those who have read and absorbed the extraordinary speech given last week by my noble friend Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who led the review.

The strategic defence review called for warfighting readiness, new munitions factories, enhanced cyber and missile defence, and a revitalised industrial base. Ministers accepted all 62 of those recommendations, yet the promised 10-year defence investment plan remains undelivered. Accepting recommendations is one thing; funding them, legislating for them, and giving them the permanence and priority they deserve is quite another.

It is in this context that I draw the attention of the House to a report published earlier this month by the Center for European Policy Analysis—CEPA—entitled “Unleashing Defense Innovation”. It is a serious and timely piece of work, and its central argument deserves to be heard in this Chamber. The report makes clear:

“Europe’s surge in defense spending”—


and there is such a surge—

“represents a once-in-a-generation strategic opportunity … but without a modernized investment strategy, new funding risks entrenching outdated force structures rather than delivering real deterrence”.

Spending more on the wrong things is not a solution; it is just a more expensive version of the same thing. The CEPA report is particularly instructive on the question of financing. It argues compellingly that private capital, venture investment, private equity and sovereign wealth funds must be mobilised alongside public expenditure, if we are to transform our defence industrial base at the speed that the threat demands. Procurement cycles that outlast entire technology generations are, as the report rightly observes, both strategically reckless and economically wasteful.

The Government should read these words carefully. Legislation that removes the regulatory and other barriers currently preventing institutional capital flowing into defence would be a significant step forward, and that is precisely the kind of bold structural reform that a defence readiness Bill could provide. Our NATO alliance remains the bedrock of our collective security, and I am glad that the Government have reaffirmed it, but NATO is not a comfort blanket but a commitment—and commitment requires capability. As my noble friend Lord Robertson has himself warned, our reliance on the United States, predicated on the assumption that it will always be there, has led to a diminution in our capability. We cannot outsource our security and then be surprised when the terms change. The alliance is only as strong as its members and Britain must be a strong member, not in aspiration but in armour, munitions and readiness.

I want to say something that bears repeating in this Chamber. We talk a great deal about the conditions necessary for democracy to flourish: free and fair elections; the rule of law; an independent judiciary; and a free press. All these things matter enormously, but none can be sustained without the hard infrastructure of national security. A democracy that cannot defend itself is a democracy that will not long endure. Strong defence is not the enemy of liberal values; it is the guarantor.

The Government have the diagnosis: my noble friend Lord Robertson and his distinguished colleagues gave it to them. The Center for European Policy Analysis has shown the way forward on innovation and finance. What is missing is the courage to act on it with the urgency and legitimate seriousness it demands. I hope that Ministers will hear this message not as a political challenge but as a patriotic one, offered, as I believe it is by all sides of the House today, in the national interest.