Strategic Defence Review

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I will make one suggestion to the noble Lord: perhaps he and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and others in this Chamber who have professional experience and expertise with respect to reserves, will set up a meeting with me about how we might more effectively reach the target of an increase of 20% by the 2030s. I would appreciate the experience and ideas that the noble Lord might have on that.

The defence readiness Bill will come after the Armed Forces Bill in the autumn. The concept of defence readiness is, again, that we face a new type of threat, not only potentially of missiles or state actors but of cyberattack and the disablement of critical national infrastructure. I do not know whether the noble Lord realises, but the Defence Secretary pointed out yesterday that the MoD has had 90,000 state actor threats in the last two years—that is an astonishing figure—and we have seen big business bodies affected by cyberattack. The defence readiness Bill will be about asking how we protect critical national infrastructure and what we need to do to prepare for something happening. Are we ready to defend ourselves, protect our population and ensure that things continue? The defence readiness Bill will help us understand that and develop the sorts of structures we need to do that. Of course, people will be at the heart of it. That Bill will come some time at the beginning of 2026.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, thanks are indeed due to my noble friend Lord Robertson and his team for this review, and to the Minister and the Secretary of State for the vigour with which they have addressed the challenge of redressing the balance in the priority we give to the defence of our nation. They ought to be congratulated. However, my experience of two comprehensive spending reviews has taught me that CSRs never fully meet the expectations of the Ministry of Defence. I speak from experience of a time in which we were spending more on defence, as a proportion of our GDP, than we are today. Having said that, can the Minister therefore give us an assurance that his department and the Treasury are looking at innovative mechanisms to supplement defence spending, potentially including peace bonds? There has to be a conversation with the British people about how we fund defence. The strategic defence review gives us an honest and clear basis for that conversation, but we have to be prepared to spend more and we have to be prepared and willing to spend more effectively. We have to use innovative mechanisms to raise the money to do so.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I say to my noble friend that, as this progresses, it may be that we have to look at innovative and different ways of funding. I am no expert on all these things, but I am not averse to looking at any novel or innovative ways in which funds may be raised.

There is a more general point to be made. The current threats mean that we have to ensure that our Armed Forces have the funds and resources that they need—I think people recognise that. Difficult decisions were made about funding the increase to 2.5%, and people accepted that because of the new threats that we face. We need to continue to make the point that there cannot be security for nations or countries without armed forces. You cannot do anything about poverty or refugees being moved and a whole range of other things unless you have security. Security delivers the stability that we need to live the lives that we want.

80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, it is an honour and a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Peterborough in this important debate. She brings not just a deep and abiding faith and a passion for community development, the growth of parish congregations and the pivotal role of young people in communities, in two dioceses, but her own personal experience, having been brought up in a rectory, and of working as a manager in the NHS. I have no doubt that she will make a hugely valuable contribution to this House.

This week and these proceedings are very much about memory and commemoration. It is my privilege to chair the Sir Winston Churchill Archive Trust and the Memorial Gates foundation and Memorial Gates Council. We in the trust are very much about ensuring that Sir Winston Churchill’s personal papers are available and accessible to the nation and the world. Many Members of this House will recall that the Memorial Gates was founded by the late and much-loved Baroness Shreela Flather, who sat for so long on the Benches opposite and who gave so much to our nation’s life. But her enduring gift was the Memorial Gates, which highlight and commemorate the particular contributions of the Commonwealth—and the Asian, African and Caribbean Commonwealth in particular—to the service of this nation. They need to be remembered. But both the archive trust and the Memorial Gates Foundation are not just about remembering of individuals, their service and in many cases, their ultimate sacrifice; they are also about remembering the cause which they served and the reason for that sacrifice.

That cause was most succinctly laid down in the Atlantic Charter, to which reference has already been rightly made. We hold in the archive trust—you can go and look at look at it on the website at any time; it is available generally and globally, and is particularly accessible to schools—the original documentation and the writings of Sir Winston around the charter. The charter represents the causes of self-determination, sovereignty, freedom and justice—the very causes that are at stake in so many places in our world at this time, and particularly on the continent of Europe.

We need to remember that cause. One man who did and who never forgot it was a member of the Royal West African regiment. His name was Joseph Hammond and he has written of his experiences in the 14th Army—our 14th Army of Great Britain in Burma. He served in that army; this weekend, he will be 100 years old, and his life and service will be commemorated in Ghana. I have had the privilege of meeting him—I grew up in the Gold Coast, which is now Ghana—and he has established a foundation, the heart of which is the cause of peace, development and education.

In memorialising, as we have done this week, surely one of the best things we can do is to make sure that, in the review of the curriculum that is currently taking place, the history and sacrifice, and above all the values that we are commemorating, are not lost for generations to come. That is something positive and practical we can do, and I hope that Ministers in responding will indicate that that will be their response to the review.

Joseph Hammond remembered the charter—self-determination, freedom and justice—and he, with other ex-servicemen of the 14th Army, coming back to the Gold Coast, then took part in the struggle for independence, because they took Churchill at his word. They fought for independence and they won, after a demonstration on 28 February 1948. Today in Accra, marking the spot where they demonstrated, there is a marble arch, and emblazoned on that arch are the words “Freedom and Justice”. That is what they fought for, what they won and what we must never forget, and we remember Joseph Hammond and all those others who died and who served.

[Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to take part in this debate today—