King’s Speech

Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (Con)]

It is a very great pleasure to have a few moments to speak and comment on the gracious Speech. I have a matter of concern, which I put to the Ministers on the Front Bench, that quite rightly both His Majesty and our Government have declared that we are in an extremely volatile world, with an enormous number of challenges globally. My question to the Ministers is: why was there no mention of our closest and infinitely most powerful ally, the USA? Nowhere is this commented on at all. It is a very odd thing indeed. We are told that it is a pivotal moment, with the world more volatile and dangerous than ever before. Where is there mention of the USA? There is a comment on NATO, but it does not comment that NATO is largely financed by the United States of America, our closest, deepest and most important partner. Where are His Majesty’s Government standing on this?

I am not quite convinced that using His Majesty the King’s visit to cover the Government’s nakedness in this matter will quite suffice. As His Majesty pointed out in his speech to Congress, our real relationship with the USA goes back 400 years; the 1777 back to 1600 research that I and others have been carrying out shows that the bedrock of the special relationship is an enduring relationship that has been going on for over 400 years.

Of course, you may say that we disagree, and that, while the USA is indeed the most powerful nation on the globe today, we are bound to disagree, and maybe the Government disagree with some aspects of US policy. Yet noble Lords may recall the letter of George Washington to his son in, I think, about 1770, in which he says that true friendship cannot qualify as such if there has not been at least one very significant disagreement. So friendship incorporates disagreement. I do not ask that the Government necessarily agree with the USA Government, but that is excuse at all for apparently discarding and dismantling our most important relationship of all.

I do not believe that we can fulfil our defence of the nation, which we are demanded to do, unless, when we celebrate the 250th anniversary as perhaps the most important thing this year following the King’s visit, we recognise the USA and see that our enduring relationship goes back at least 400 years. I believe that the key to the enduring relationship is the trade and industry that we in the United Kingdom carried out for so many hundreds of years. Indeed, if you look at the 1776 Declaration of Independence, you will find that five Middle Temple Benchers actually signed it. So we are integral to this relationship. I leave it with the Government to tell me, and other colleagues in this Chamber, why they have somehow apparently forgotten that and discarded it.

Yesterday, I had the great honour of entertaining one of the tribal leaders of what is now a nation, the Chickasaw, and the week before the chief of the Muscogee tribe. Their relationship with us goes right back, and it is based on the enduring relationship of trade and business. That is really what it is all about.

I ask the Government to confirm that the US-UK relationship is the most important one for us.