King’s Speech

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, the King’s Speech was right to emphasise that we face an increasingly dangerous and volatile world, but is what is laid out a match for what is required? We are a divided country. We can trace that back, at the very least, to the financial crisis of 2008, when billions were pumped into the banking system to stabilise it, with the City of London particularly exposed. When people see their living standards suffer, they can be beguiled by simple solutions. Into that played the Brexiteers and our economy was seriously further damaged, with a reduction in GDP of 8% to 11%. The UK became even less of a desired destination for investment. London as a leading financial centre was eroded. Now we see people reaching even further to the right and the left, and we know from history the risks of that.

We are in a divided world where the use of force is undermining any notion of the mutual benefit of a rules-based order, with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump attacking Iran, theoretically to secure something better than the JCPOA—which took the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, and others four years—without any line of sight on achieving that and seemingly without any assessment of what the consequences might be. That makes crystal-clear that we cannot simply sail on alone.

We are indeed part of the European continent and best defend our interests by being part of the EU grouping, as my noble friends Lady Suttie, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Razzall have said. The Government’s plan to move closer to Europe is therefore welcome but far too limited. Like my noble friend Lord Thomas, I note that the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee has described as “woefully inadequate” the Government’s response to their own paper on seeking such a closer relationship, hiding behind, as the committee put it, “generalities”, with a

“lack of a clear and comprehensive vision”.

I welcome the Government’s recognition of Palestine, to which the Minister referred; I had a Private Member’s Bill on this in the last Session. I hope we have not reached a point of no return in terms of a contiguous Palestinian state alongside Israel. Stability, security and prosperity in the region are desperately needed.

The economic challenges that the Government face pose problems for us all. I come here to the cuts in development assistance, theoretically to help fund defence. That is of course a false choice, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark have said. As we read in Monday’s Times, our military leaders have written to the Prime Minister emphasising that cutting foreign aid will compromise national security. They rightly argue that foreign aid helps to prevent the instability, extremism and displacement that military force otherwise later has to confront at greater cost. I ask the Minister: what is the Government’s response to that letter to the Prime Minister?

A reminder of how we can be directly affected by what happens elsewhere is encapsulated in the current Ebola outbreak. Back in 2014-15, we recognised the risks of the west African Ebola epidemic. The far-sighted Chris Whitty harnessed anthropologists to assist in finding acceptable ways to mourn the dead that did not then endanger the living. He set up field diagnostic clinics and hospitals in Sierra Leone, with the US working in Liberia and France in Guinea. An appalling disease—which could have had a terrible impact globally, including in the UK—was checked in its tracks. ODA money went into vaccine research in the Jenner Institute in Oxford and elsewhere. That paved the way for our stellar performance in vaccine development in the pandemic.

All that has gone by the wayside. The Americans now criticise the WHO for moving slowly when they themselves cut its budget, which affected the WHO’s disease surveillance abilities. We have slashed our aid budget. The Minister noted that we are committing £21 million to the Ebola outbreak. In 2014-15, we put in £420 million. Our contribution now is a mere 5% of that earlier effort. The Government need to be far more aware of when the left hand undermines the right. Cutting aid is one area, and now we have immigration restrictions that are throttling our universities. We are in danger of losing our leading edge here. The Government are right to aim for the UK’s economic security and growth, but the measures we see here leave unanswered many of the areas that must be tackled if such growth is to be achieved.