King’s Speech

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I disagree with a great deal of what the previous speaker has just said, but I am extraordinarily glad to live in a country where he has the right to say it and I have the duty to listen.

I will talk a bit about defence, like most Members taking part our debate on the King’s Speech, starting with the powerful contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. He started by endorsing the Prime Minister’s comment in his introduction to the King’s Speech that the Iran conflict demonstrates the need for the UK to be stronger and to move with greater urgency. However, he also pointed out that the bit of the speech that should have told us how much the Government intend to spend on hard power appeared to be missing. I hope the Government will say something shortly. I wish that, among the 37 pieces of legislation on other subjects, they had been able to give us more news than we have had so far. Nevertheless, I am going to continue to assume that the Government are serious about defence, even if they are dangerously slow in getting active.

There is, and I worry about this, a growing strand of opinion in the country that asserts that NATO is now a busted flush, that the US is no longer a reliable ally and that we should look for our security somewhere else. I think that is a line of argument that we should be extraordinarily wary of and should be countering strongly—it does not make sense. With an overbearing Russia on our doorstep, underpowered Europeans cannot afford a divorce. Actually, if truth be told, the Americans need the facilities and the rights of passage they have with their European allies. They do not have an interest in the end of NATO, and divorce would be quite painful for them. I do not think that, as things stand, NATO will collapse, but that relatively reassuring state of affairs is not unconditional. It depends on what we do next, and particularly on what Europeans do next.

The international landscape in which NATO was originally built has shifted materially since the start of the change that was visible with Obama. Mr Trump’s behaviour has undoubtedly made adjustments to the new situation harder on both sides of the Atlantic than it need be, but we cannot complain about his exposure of the inadequacy of our defence efforts and our lack of political pulling power that results from that, which other Lords have also remarked on. While NATO is not a busted flush, there is a mounting crisis of credibility, so, with some exasperation, I ask the Government how long they will go on without doing much, if anything. The situation, as the Prime Minister said, is urgent.

The Government tell us that national security is their primary duty. They have accepted the wide-ranging and very insightful defence review conducted by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, but over a year later we still do not have the defence investment plan and the Government have not joined the EU’s defence, security and resilience bank. Serious spending on defence by the UK is backed up to the end of the cycle.

The important point is that our European neighbours are not waiting about; they are moving faster than we are. Each day news comes of agreements on kit that they will build and of the creation of bilateral corporate partnerships between them that will fulfil contracts. Many could turn out to be long term. The corporate structures could be set and the defence market opportunities could be cleaned out before the UK is ready to get going. Frankly, we risk being shut out.

This not only deprives us of the economic growth that the Government advertise that defence will bring to traditional defence-building regions of this country, which badly need the business; it is adversely affecting our claims to political influence and leadership inside the alliance. Our reputation took an embarrassing dent the other day with our pathetic performance in the Mediterranean. My plea to the Government is: we have the words; can we now have the deeds?