Strategic Priorities Statement: Defence

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I will absolutely pass that on to the Chancellor.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, defence is the single most important activity of the state, and it is therefore unfortunate that many ESG funds have excluded investment in defence stocks, hitting our innovative UK companies. Does the Minister agree that the rebranded National Wealth Fund must lead the way more clearly and work with private sector funds to spur significant investment in the UK defence sector, as well as in other priority areas?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I do agree with that, because the noble Baroness described exactly what the National Wealth Fund is there to do: to work closely with the private sector to catalyse more private sector investment in industries that we consider to be priority sectors. As the rest of this Question has shown, defence is very much one of those priority sectors.2