Defence Readiness Bill

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, it is customary to say what a pleasure it is to follow the previous speaker, and I do so with genuine enthusiasm. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has chaired the National Preparedness Commission with great vigour, and it has produced a great deal of extraordinarily detailed and high-quality work. Much of it, it seems to me, is oven-ready for government to take on. We have a good start there, but, as the noble Lord’s own speech has pointed out, there is still an awful lot of work to do, and I have one or two questions for the Government as well.

On Tuesday, there will be the Second Reading of the cyber security and resilience Bill, which is an important and necessary part of wider resilience. One might say that we have waited quite a long time for that. It does not, however, answer the question of what we mean when we talk about the whole of government, or for that matter, more ambitiously, the whole of society, which is phraseology about resilience that has taken hold in the last couple of years. There is a great question mark around what it really means.

If we are going to make it mean something, it seems to me that the whole of society implies a general strengthening of the sinews of society, a lot of it physical as well as digital, and much wider participation, beyond government, with organisations and individuals involved in the development of the security itself and its maintenance. This is not virgin territory. There are models, which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has mentioned, notably in Scandinavian countries, where, among several of them, there is a form of national service of various kinds and household preparation for emergencies, including emergencies of a kind that do not necessarily involve conflict. There is extensive shelter provision in some countries. The most obvious example of that is to be found in Finland, where life for a wide segment of society can, in extremis, be maintained underground. The roots of such extensive provision lie in that country’s geography and history.

I am not sure that this country would go for that. Our historical experience has been different, where our planning has largely focused on the continuity of government and essential services. However, in adopting whatever model we do, there is still much—I really do mean much—that we could learn from the Scandinavian approach. My questions for the Government are the following. What model are we going for? Do we use the phrase “whole of society”, and, when we use it, what do we mean by it? Do we have anything in our mind's eye when we use the phrase?

As far as I can see, we have not done a great deal so far under the heading of resilience, beyond the sort of work that the preparedness commission has been doing, with the aim of any particular model emerging. I do not mean by that to say that we have been idle. That is not the case; as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has cited, climate work has been done, and there are other examples. But none of that has been drawn together or, as far as I can see, yet taken any legal form, nor do we have any settled machinery of government to take implementation forward.

The role and organisation of the Cabinet Office and its relationship to COBRA has in recent years been altered and then changed back, while yet other forms of resilience are going to be located elsewhere. To my surprise, it is DSIT that has found itself not just promoting science, technology and innovation but responsible for ensuring secure structures for cyber in government. Dotting responsibility for security around government seems pretty odd, when it has previously had a home in the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office is a welcome antidote to one of the other problems that we face in the structure of our Government, which is the shortcomings that arise from the “lead government department” model.

The strategic defence review specifically mentioned the need to increase the protection of our vulnerable critical national infrastructure and called for a defence readiness Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned. We need to enable the mobilisation of our reserves and our industry to war-readiness levels, but there is a problem about delay. Mr Luke Pollard, in another place, has said that the Bill will come only towards the end of this parliamentary Session, and the way he put it rather suggested to my ears that it might not come even then. I hope we can have some reassurance from the Minister. After all, NATO’s assessment is that, by 2030, Russia may decide to step up its existing level of aggression in Europe to something that is truly frightening.

We need to be ready, but we are cutting it fine with all our preparations, are we not? I would say too fine. The Government talk about a national dialogue on defence, and I think this House agrees strongly with that, but they need to start ASAP. To make sense and to be clear and honest with the electorate about what they may be involved in, that needs to include aspects that come under the heading of resilience. That should include questions such as whether there is going to be some kind of national service.

I come back to my questions. What are the Government going to propose to the country by way of a whole-of-society approach? What is going to be asked of us? A significant chunk of the picture still seems to be missing. In his reply, could the Minister begin to fill in some of the detail?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

I certainly never resort to rhetoric, so the noble Baroness has my assurance on that. I thank my noble friend Lord Harris for introducing such an important debate, and everyone who has contributed to it. The MoD is developing this work, and I will say a bit more about that, but the overall responsibility across the whole of government is with the Cabinet Office. I know noble Lords understand that, but it is important to lay down again that the co-ordinating function is for the Cabinet Office. Notwithstanding that, the Ministry of Defence has a crucial role and will do what it can to accelerate the progress that many have mentioned.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and other contributors to the debate that the defence readiness Bill will be introduced in this Parliament. I cannot go any further than that. I cannot remember who it was, but somebody said it would be introduced in the next Parliament. The Government’s intention is to introduce it in this Parliament, which is as far as I can go.

In terms of the scope of the Bill, which goes to the heart of the question and is the point of the debate introduced by my noble friend Lord Harris, what the defence readiness Bill should contain is under discussion, so there are talks going on about what the scope should be. Many of the other points that have been raised are the responsibility of other government departments. At the same time, other pieces of legislation which deal with some of this are being looked at. One example that has just come to mind for me is the Civil Contingencies Act, but there are all sorts of other pieces of legislation which are important as well.

I also draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that NATO has seven resilience requirements and, as part of NATO, we and all the members accept them. They deal with many of the points that have been raised: continuity of government, energy supplies, dealing with uncontrolled movement of people, food and water resources, mass casualties, civil communications systems and civil transportation schemes. All of those deal with some of the infrastructure problems and challenges that the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned. They are part of a readiness programme which all member states in NATO will be looking at.

My noble friend Lord Harris and others mentioned the important point about the changing nature of warfare and the importance of understanding that war is about cyber, climate and information and all the things we have talked about. We need to address those as well in any plan that we bring forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, asked when the Bill would be introduced. I answered that. She asked me to define “the whole of society”. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, did it quite well. We can tie ourselves in knots about what the whole of society means but we all know that what we are talking about is everybody’s responsibility. Every part of society has a part to play, whether it be business, industry, government agencies, voluntary organisations, the military, individuals or groups of people—the list goes on—the devolved Administrations, local authorities and local resilience forums. All those have to be involved in bringing a plan together and in any conversation. The challenge is how you do that in a constructive and co-ordinated way that is not fragmented. As I say, the whole of society—

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

I thank the Minister for making that clear. It is an ambitious aim—in my view, it should be.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that comment.

To answer the points from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, from the NATO resilience actions she can see many of the things that will need to be addressed and will be addressed as we go forward. Like, I suspect, many people in the Chamber, I disagree with her about growth. I have never seen growth and the environment as conflicting. You need good growth and alongside that you need to care for the environment, but you have to have growth in the economy and trying to bring about that growth is really important.

On the NATO seven resilience actions, to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, the national conversation is absolutely fundamental. We accept that. If I was going to criticise myself, I think I mentioned to the noble Baroness that I have been moved from the national conversation; in the reorganisation it has gone to another person. I have taken on a couple of other functions within the Ministry of Defence and that has gone to somebody else. In a moment, I will come to something that I tried to do. I would not say it was “ploughing a furrow” but it was an attempt to get it moving.

I say seriously to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, that of course the national conversation is really important and fundamental to it. We are not frightened of doing it; the discussion is about the right way of doing it. That is the conversation and that is difficult. What exactly is the message that you want to get across? You have to ensure that people can rise to the challenge without frightening them. A discussion and debate would take place, if we had it in here, about what that means and what that should be. But the noble Baroness is quite right about the need for a national conversation and for us to move more quickly.

The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, whose service as an active reservist I always try to note, will know that in the Armed Forces Bill, due to be in Committee in September, there are a number of measures about the reserves. One of them is to reduce the threshold at which you can recall reserves from “almost imminent war” to “war readiness”. It would be interesting for us to debate what war readiness means. Committee might be the time for the noble Lord to table an amendment—not to vote on, but to explore the Government’s thinking. We are trying to lower the threshold, and the noble Lord makes an important point about that. The wider point, which my noble friend Lord Harris referred to, is whether it should be not just for war but for some of the other things we have talked about. We can have that discussion. On that issue, he will know that additional sums of money are being made available; usually, it would be left up to the reserve commanders themselves to look at how that might be allocated.

I have answered many of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, raised. On national conversations, the lesson from Finland and some of the other Baltic countries is the way they have found to speak to their people without unduly worrying them while alerting them to the change. The big thing about what they do and their example to us—the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and others talked about this—is the importance of homeland defence. The military and conflict have always been seen as about war in the traditional sense. From a UK point of view, it is almost seen as going overseas or on to the continent of Europe, whereas we are now talking about a threat to the homeland. How we deal with that is an important challenge for us all. It takes the UK into territory that we have not been in for quite a significant period, particularly since we have not been occupied in that sense, depending on how far you go back—noble Lords understand the point I am making.

The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, asked about the national conversation. She is quite right that it will be somebody else’s responsibility, but I have done work within the department which I hope will help move it forward. As she knows, there are drafts and drafts. We are alert in the department to the need for the MoD to move forward and talk with other government departments about what responsibilities they should have to deal with something so important. I have answered her point about the defence readiness Bill, though perhaps not with the certainty she would want. We have discussed the finance; I know she specifically asked about the defence readiness Bill, but she can be assured that we will make the case for how important it is to fund it properly.

I thank all noble Lords who participated in this debate, which is hugely important. There are all sorts of things going on across government and society to deal with this issue. It is an absolute priority for the Government and all noble Lords. We all want to accelerate the progress and process. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, made the point that we should get on with it, and we would all agree with that. I thank my noble friend Lord Harris for introducing the debate. It has been a very important one.