Defence Industrial Strategy 2025: Economic Growth and Job Creation
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, of course we welcome the decision to award the helicopter contracts for Yeovil, which the local MP, Adam Dance, has been campaigning for, and we are glad that it has been signed. But the reality is that without this investment plan, there are jobs and investment on hold in defence installations right across the UK. They desperately need to know when the orders are going to flow and when the money is going to come through. We also need to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses have a real stake in building up our high-tech capacity and in filling in our munitions requirements.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
On the last point, of course munitions are important, as we see particularly at the moment. That is why the Government are investing £1.5 billion in six new munitions sites. Thirteen sites have been identified, they are being reviewed, and we will come forward with those munitions sites so that we have them available. Again, that is money being invested. We are also talking about small and medium-sized businesses. We know that the future is not just in the big primes but in small and medium-sized businesses. That is why we have set up within the Ministry of Defence an organisation to drive that growth. Small and medium-sized businesses are crucial, and we will develop those as well.
Royal Navy: Nuclear Submarines
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
A key point for all of us in this House, our nation and our alliances is that it is a continuous at-sea deterrent, and I reassure everyone that we maintain that. The noble Lord is right that it has been the foundation of our alliance’s peace and security for decades under all Governments, and long may it continue.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, can the Minister say how many of these submarines are operational at any one time? Many have been out of service quite frequently. Given the constraints, are we sure that we can maintain the programme that he has outlined and deliver AUKUS on time and on budget?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I am confident about that. I will not go into the number of submarines that are operational for obvious reasons, but the noble Lord will have heard the First Sea Lord outlining the submarine recovery plan a couple of months ago, which was about doing more to ensure that our docking and maintenance facilities are of the standard that we want. That will also help us ensure that we get the availability that we want.
Ministry of Defence: Budget Shortfall
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
The Government explain it by using the figures I have just outlined. There is billions of pounds of additional money. You cannot alter the fact that it is going from the figure I just gave to the noble Lord, Lord Young, to the figure it will be. The noble and gallant Lord knows far better than me that choices have to be made within that budget about what capabilities you will spend it upon. One of the choices that confronts us is what lessons we learn from Ukraine, and what capabilities we need to ensure that we fight the war of the future and not the war of the past. That is part of the discussion that is going on at present.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
Is not the reality that the defence investment plan has been delayed because of concerns inside government and the Cabinet about its affordability, especially given the commitment to increase our own sovereign capacity? In that context, is not the reality that cuts will have to be made to achieve that, and simply to fulfil the current budget? Will the Government recognise that we need to have a much clearer and honest declaration of exactly what is needed? The public need to know what the threat is and why we need to spend more on it.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I agree with the last point about making sure that the public have greater awareness of the threats faced, and the national conversation. The noble Lord has asked me about that before, and we are seeking to do something about it.
Within the current budgets, we have signed more than 1,000 defence contracts since July 2024, 86% with British-based businesses, and spent more than £31 billion with UK industry. If the noble Lord were Secretary of State for Defence, he would have a budget and would have to make choices about which capabilities he believed were necessary to bring the country to the war-fighting readiness we need. Those are the discussions at the present time. I know there is frustration about the delay to the defence investment plan, but I would rather have a plan that is affordable and meets the needs of our Armed Forces and defence industry, so that we can fight the wars of the future.
Defence Spending
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
I agree with much of what my noble friend says about the threat that we face and the need for us to respond appropriately. All I would say is that we are increasing defence spending. My noble friend asked about the chiefs, and I will quote directly from the speech the Chief of the Defence Staff gave just a few weeks ago, in December. He said that he was looking at the greatest “sustained” rise
“in defence spending since the … Cold War”.
That is enormously positive. We are trying to respond to the threats that we face today, and there will be debates about how much we spend. My noble friend refers to the defence investment plan. It was due to be published by the end of the year, not six months ago, and we are looking to publish it as soon as we can. We want to make sure that the investment choices that we make within it are the right choices for ensuring that we have the capabilities we need now, as well as in the future.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, can I press the Minister on why the investment plan has been delayed for so long? Is it because there is disagreement within the Government about its affordability and how we can develop our capacity if we were to reduce dependence on Americans and yet have walked away from joint procurement with the EU, which Canada has joined, and we have rejected?
Lithuania: Balloon Incursions
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
We are contributing to a whole range of efforts to deter Belarus’s activity, or Belarus acting as a Russian proxy. Lithuania and a number of other states have requested a NATO counter-hybrid support team from us. In the next couple of weeks it will work with Lithuania to assess what is going on there and what needs to be done, and to support Lithuania and others, if necessary, in order to deter this activity and respond appropriately.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We have plenty of time. We will hear from the Lib Dem Benches next.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, in a normal world, Belarus would be offering co-operation to stop this smuggling, rather than sneering and saying that Lithuania has to solve it. Lithuania has offered €1 million to anybody who can work out how to deal with these balloons. What are we doing, in co-operation with NATO’s centres of excellence in Tallinn and in Helsinki for countering hybrid and cyber threats, to ensure that we can find ways of dealing with the balloons? They represent a threat to the whole of NATO.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I agree with the threat that they represent, and the destabilisation and disruption that they cause. We are doing exactly what Lithuania has asked us to do. It has asked us, with NATO, to send a counter-hybrid team to Lithuania to work with it and establish what it needs to do to deal with the threat from the balloons, and the drone incursions, and find the most appropriate way forward. We are doing exactly what Lithuania is asking us to do within the auspices of NATO.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference 2026
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
I first thank the noble Lord for the comments that he made and his association with my remarks about the tragic death. It is appreciated by everyone in this House and beyond. The noble Lord will know that there is no difference between us all. We support the work of the IAEA in ensuring that Iran’s nuclear technology is not used for the making or establishment of a nuclear weapons facility; we take action with respect to that. The noble Lord will have seen the action that others have chosen to take. The UK takes this very seriously, and we continue to press Iran to ensure that it abides by the provisions of the NPT.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, the challenge of the review next year is to prevent the escalation, never mind the reduction, of nuclear weapons, and to ensure that there is no worrying escalation by America, China or Russia of their threats to test nuclear weapons, for example. How can we be sure that we put the process into reverse rather than see it escalate?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
The establishment and existence of the NPT, which involves 191 countries, including all the countries—Russia, China and the United States—that the noble Lord has mentioned, provides a conference and a venue in which much of this can be discussed. All I am saying is that the NPT has been a successful vehicle. We need to continue to support it to try to take this forward.
The noble Lord mentions the comprehensive test-ban treaty; that has been another success. I know the point that he is making about the apparent re-establishment—according to President Trump—of that. That is a matter for America. This country has not tested a nuclear weapon since the early 1990s. We adhere to the provisions of the comprehensive test-ban treaty, and to the provisions of the NPT. We ask and call on other countries to do exactly the same.
President Trump: Nuclear Weapons Statement
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
The noble Lord makes a good point. With all the questions and my comments so far, it is extremely important that we do not let rhetoric cause a problem. The question that the noble Lord has posed is important. As I have said in my answers so far, it is important that we talk about the success of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. We have not conducted a nuclear test explosion since 1991. The United States and others have conformed to that as well. People must be really careful in the use of rhetoric in whatever circumstance. Our debates and discussions on these matters are looked at and pored over. I take the noble Lord’s point very seriously. We need to be very careful in how we discuss these matters while having the right to discuss them.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
In a conflict-beset world, a credible nuclear deterrent is unarguable, but macho posturing by the leaders of the United States and Russia is an alarming development that undermines the non-proliferation treaty. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, will the Government take a lead to encourage or persuade India, Pakistan and Israel to sign that treaty, reaffirm it, strengthen it and make it clear exactly what has been said? A nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
We encourage all states to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It has been a huge vehicle by which we have worked together to keep the world safe. This Government accept, as previous Governments have done and as do many Governments across the world, that the nuclear deterrent is part of the security architecture of the world. Part of having a nuclear deterrent is to deter from war, deter from aggression. The restatement of the deterrent policy is consistent with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, under which the noble Lord will know that the UK is allowed to have weapons.
Caribbean: US Military Action
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
My noble friend makes a really important point. At the end of the day, of course we must act according to the UN charter and international law. The UK Government do that. This is nothing new across the world, let alone between the US and the UK. We are always sensitive about intelligence sharing and about how much we discuss that.
My noble friend has highlighted the fact that the UK, along with our friends in the Caribbean and with the alliance with the US, acting in accordance with those principles of the UN Charter, has stopped hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of drugs coming out of that area of the world and into the US or Europe. Sometimes we should talk about that as much as we talk about other things.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, there is no doubt that the regime in Venezuela is authoritarian, represses dissidents and is probably involved in drug trafficking. Does that justify extrajudicial killing without evidence by our ally? If the Government have withheld intelligence, as the press reports say, we on these Benches welcome that, but can he clarify? Does he not recognise that when an ally loses trust or changes a relationship of trust to one of transaction, transactional decisions can go both ways?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
What I am saying to the noble Lord is a really important point. The lawfulness of the actions of the US is a matter for them. As far as the UK Government are concerned, we act in that region in accordance with international law and the fundamental principles of the UN charter. By doing that, we protect many people’s lives, in the United States, the rest of America and in Europe. That is something we ought to celebrate as well.
Ukraine
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and the strong unanimity which has been shown by our Front Benches and, indeed, right across the House. Like others, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Barrow, whom I have encountered in the past, and I very much appreciate what he had to say and look forward to hearing much more from him.
I want to take noble Lords back to 5 December 1994, when the Budapest memorandum was signed. From Ukraine’s perspective, it was a cast-iron security guarantee in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. The Russian signatory was Boris Yeltsin. He was replaced by Putin at the end of 1999. Shortly after that, I became a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where I served until 2005. In my early meetings there, there were outspoken voices on the Russian delegation warning of the erosion of democracy within Russia and of Putin’s malign intent. By the time I left the Council of Europe, those voices had disappeared.
The second Chechen war started in 2001. The late Lord Judd, distinguished and much-missed Member of this House, was the rapporteur for the Council of Europe. Russia refused him a visa to visit the region, and the Assembly suspended the voting rights of the Russian delegation. A week later, Tony Blair took Putin to meet the Queen.
My point is that the hostile intent of Putin’s Russia became apparent to me very early on in his rule, but, sadly, the British political establishment refused to recognise it. Indeed, at that time, Conservative MPs even left the mainstream group in the Council of Europe to join the European Democrat Group alongside Putin’s MPs.
The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky—a very brave man, whom I had the privilege of meeting this week—and the seizure of the assets of Yukos, Russia’s most successful post-Soviet company, raised barely a ripple here; the media was not interested. At the time, the Magnitsky scandal went pretty much unnoticed. It took the murder, attempted murder and unexplained deaths of Russian expatriates in the UK to wake people up to the Russian threat. Of course, the most high-profile example of this was Alexander Litvinenko.
Then, in 2008, Russia annexed Ukraine. Still, we did not react. Encouraged by our weakness, Putin invaded in February 2024. Yes, he misjudged it badly; he failed to recognise the resolve of the Ukrainian people. If Budapest meant anything, if the threat to the front-line states needed to be countered, we had to act. We have acted very late and in concert. It was a little ironic that President Trump was proposing to meet President Putin in Budapest of all places.
Nevertheless, the support has so far been enough only to contain the Russians and, for the Ukrainians, exhausted and facing increasing build-up of Russian strength, the situation, as many people have commented, does look bleak. It may be that, over the next five years, the commitments that European states are making will build up a defensive capacity that will fully deter Russia from expansionism. However, with US vacillation and focus on China, the situation could deteriorate very rapidly.
So, what steps can the UK and the coalition of the willing take, first, to enable Ukraine to hold back Russian advances and, secondly, to make the Kremlin understand that it cannot win? We should make it clear that our war is not with the Russian people, many of whom may believe it is the West that is the aggressor, because that is what they have been told. We ended the Cold War and—naively, as it turns out—celebrated a peace dividend, only to arrive at a place today where we have a hot war that is getting hotter.
We should salute the bravery and the resilience of the people of Ukraine, but we should recognise their exhaustion and suffering. They are at the cutting edge of innovation in fighting this kind of war. We should value the strength and realism of the front-line states, as my noble friend and others have said—the Baltics, Finland, Sweden and Romania. They are our front line of defence if Russia moves and are much better equipped than we are to defend us than we are to defend ourselves.
Somehow, we must get across to the United States that swithering and vacillation only encourage Putin, who has to be faced with determination to be convinced that he cannot win. We should not underestimate the extent to which we here in the UK are effectively already at war with Russia. We know what it is doing to our infrastructure and the threats that it is making, and our social media is infiltrated by Russian algorithms designed to sow anger and division. No wonder Nigel Farage and Alex Salmond had a platform on Russia Today. Right now, Putin thinks he can win, and he is playing us along. Unless he believes the price is too high, maybe he will. We really have to step up to make sure he does not.
Defence Spending: Scotland
Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts(10 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Coaker (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that suggestion, which I will certainly ask the Ministry of Defence to consider. The increase in defence spending gives us a huge opportunity not only to protect our country better but to generate jobs and increase wealth across the regions and nations of this country. The idea of trying to ensure that deprived communities, particularly in Scotland but across the whole of the UK, benefit from that is something any Government should take seriously, and I certainly will take that back to the MoD.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, it is worth recording that Scotland has around 35,000 defence jobs and 11,000 people in the forces. We are building seven warships, and we have naval and RAF bases. Will the Government consider, in the new defence era, extending the engagement of the entire industrial complex of Scotland, including offshore oil and gas, the energy sector, IT and cyber, to ensure a proliferation of investment right across the economy and not just within the specialised defence sector? On recruitment, would it be worth considering reviving some of our traditional historic defence regiments, such as the Gordon Highlanders?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I will take on board any ideas about how we improve recruitment, and that is one. The broader point that the noble Lord makes about defence investment is very important. Of course, we will continue to invest in the various sites I have mentioned. The noble Lord made a point about the involvement of the whole of business and the community in the new warfare and the new battleground of the future, so of course it will involve the oil industry and the business sectors because they are defending critical national infrastructure—the energy sources for our country. All those things become crucial not only in Scotland but across the whole of the UK. To deliver that, we need a whole society, whole community, whole business effort, which is what the new defence industrial strategy that we will be publishing soon will take on board.