Civil Preparedness for War

Lord Bishop of Chester Excerpts

Monday 20th April 2026 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I add my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for bringing this vital Question forward, and I declare my interest, having served for a brief while in chaplaincy in our Armed Forces. Both the SDR and the 2025 resilience action plan raise this whole-of-society approach as a “fundamental element” of our national security. We have heard comparisons with the Nordic states. I would also draw comparisons with such countries as Ukraine and Taiwan, except the difference is that social inequality is far greater in this nation.

I had intended to make some erudite points about faith communities, which are brought in by the resilience action plan—I am sure that my right reverend friend the Bishop of Manchester will make them far more eloquently than I could—but I was hijacked by an accidental focus group that I found myself conducting over the weekend. As I discussed this matter with my nieces, nephews and godchildren—a group of highly intelligent 18 to 27 year-old adults—some clear and, for me, shocking themes emerged.

The first was their surprise that this issue is on our radar. They said, “Surely war is a thing of the past”. Secondly, when I asked what we needed for civil preparedness, they said, “We do not feel like a cohesive group. We don’t really have a sense of national pride”. One of them even said, “Rather, it is more a sense of national shame. When people fly our national flag, we are concerned”. I asked them, “What about Covid, when we pulled together?” They said, “That’s true, we did”. I asked, “Would we do it again?” They said, “The problem is that, in the end, Covid diminished trust rather than increasing it”.

Three themes emerged from this informal conversation. The first was a really serious diminution in trust. The fact that our political system across the nation, at every level, is addicted to tearing down rather than building up will end up biting us.

The second theme was a serious reduction in willingness to volunteer or serve. One of the things my research has turned up—I struggle to believe this—is that, today, we have 12,000 fewer firefighters than we did in 2000. To me, that is a really interesting statistic in terms of what we give to serve the other.

The third theme was the well-known rise in mental health issues across society, particularly in the community made up of our younger adults and older teenagers. As I have said a number of times in this place—I deeply believe this—the question is not so much how we make Britain great again but how we make Britain kind again. The fundamental social building blocks on which civil resilience rests come down to all of us. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to invest in what one might call the softer side of this societal infrastructure, on which previous generations have fallen back and which has enabled us to stand together?