Defence Readiness Bill

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has brought forward a very timely debate. If we were in any doubt of that, we need only to think about the business of the House today, where there was a Statement on the independent review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics. One might think that that issue could be contributing, if not to hybrid warfare, to something of which politicians and ordinary members of society need to be aware.

We have heard about hybrid threats. The noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, reminded us of the poisonings on our soil. Other noble Lords may, like me, have received an email this morning from Cyber Security, which is the Lords’ phishing education programme. It sent me a little email saying, “We sent you the email below to try to make sure that you wouldn’t get caught out by phishing”. Again, that is not something we would necessarily think of as defence readiness, yet it is the sort of issue the whole of society needs to think about.

There was a set of questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, about what we mean by the “whole of society”. I had assumed from reading the SDR, from listening to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, from other contributions today and from the Minister’s past speeches that the “whole of society” means what it says on the tin: that we need to be prepared—not just policymakers, the Ministry of Defence and people dealing with specific issues concerning security, cyber security, hard security and critical infrastructure, but every individual.

We heard today how some countries, particularly our new NATO allies Finland and Sweden, do a very good job in preparing their citizens. What lessons have His Majesty’s Government taken from our partners and allies? Circulating booklets to households and businesses, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, suggested, is one thing, but will that really do the job? Will people really say, “Oh, a leaflet has come through the letterbox. I’d better read it, make a note of it, get my wind-up radio and my battery torch, and make sure I’ve stocked the cupboards and got clean water”? They could do something else. Obviously, as a Liberal Democrat, I do not want to believe this, but I understand that, when we put leaflets through letterboxes, sometimes they do not get read. Sometimes, they go directly into the recycling bin—if we are lucky. Obviously, if leaflets went out on national resilience and preparedness, they would have a measure of gravitas and weight, coming from the Government. But equally, there is a real danger that people will not necessarily read a document.

So we need to be very open to a whole range of different approaches to how we have the conversation the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, talked about. It cannot just be leaflets through doors, and a conversation in and of itself is not enough either. A conversation is useful, but we need that to be the start, not the end. It needs to be an opportunity to persuade people—wherever they are in the United Kingdom, whatever their background, whatever their work interests and whatever their personal interests and circumstances—that they need to stop and be much more aware. I understand that there are parts of the country where people still feel that they can leave their front door unlocked and nobody will walk in. Most of us do not feel like that, and we need to make people aware that there are all sorts of other aspects of their lives where they need to be aware and mindful of what may come forward.

In order not to cause an unwelcome emergency on the Liberal Democrat Benches, the Whips like us to arrive many minutes before the start of the next item of business. I noticed that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, arrived 15 minutes after me, but when I arrived on my Benches, I could see a look of relief from one of our Whips. I thought I had timed my arrival well, because I was thus able to listen to the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, speak in the previous debate on space. It was interesting because, as I listened to him, I thought that if I did shorthand and transcribed what he said at the end of the debate, it would have been perfectly suitable for a debate about national and defence readiness and resilience. The noble Viscount talked about businesses needing certainty, which the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, also referred to. That is crucial for our defence readiness. Businesses need to know what the Government’s priorities are. They need to know when contracts are likely to be let.

As the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, also said, there is an increasingly crowded marketplace. He was talking about space, which is one aspect of defence, but it is also true in other aspects of defence. This is the point where, like the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, I beg to part company from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, because dual-use technology is hugely important. The whole-of-society approach should be about persuading individuals, and it also needs to be about working closely with businesses, partly on defence investment and R&D.

My final point is on reserves. As the noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, pointed out in the debate on Monday, the role of reserves is crucial. We need to prepare businesses to be aware that their reserves may be called up. That needs to be part of a whole-of-society planning process.