Defence: Strategic Defence and Security Review

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the process of consultation and debate with outside bodies is well under way. The noble Lord makes his points about involving those parties, and I myself have been to see some of them. I was at the Royal United Services Institute and at Chatham House discussing precisely those broad issues behind the SDSR, so the process of consultation with outside experts is under way. I wish we had seen more, for example, about Labour’s approach to defence and security, which might have fed into a more public debate before the election.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, as the SDSR of 1998 sought to reduce the Reserve Forces, and the coalition’s recent SDSR moved in the opposite direction, if my noble friend is still serving in a coalition Government in the next Parliament, in which direction does he think it is likely to go?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as the noble Lord has remarked, we are in a much more acute security situation, not only in eastern Europe but in north Africa and across the Middle East, than we were five years ago. One of the questions that whichever Government emerges after the next election will have to consider is what spending priorities are, and how far we need to raise the issue of security within that. I again stress that an SDSR is not just about military spending: there are a wide range of other security threats—some very long term—which that includes.