Boarding of Sanctioned Vessels

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I shall not stray into that territory, because I am sure that other people are more legally qualified to answer than I am. However, the action that was taken was on the legal basis that it was a stateless, sanctioned vessel. It sailed on one flag when it was in the eastern Caribbean and, when it fled from the United States, it changed to a Russian flag. I say to the noble Lord, as I say to all noble Lords, that, when we question the United States and its willingness to take on Russia, the big strategic point that we should not lose is the fact that the United States took on a Russian-flagged shadow vessel. That should give us all comfort.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister spoke about global stability. He may be aware that, in both the US Senate and the House of Representatives, bipartisan Bills have been introduced to prohibit the Pentagon and the State Department from using funds appropriated by Congress to

“blockade, occupy, annex, conduct military operations against, or otherwise assert control”

over the territory of another NATO member state. Does the Minister agree that that Bill would be a real contribution to global stability?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do not know about the Bill, but if the noble Baroness is referring to Greenland, the Government have been very clear that that is a matter for the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland. There is no change in government policy on that. However, Arctic security is becoming an increasingly important challenge for the Government and for all of us. Irrespective of what the noble Baroness is really asking, dealing with that is a challenge for all of us: Arctic security is a priority and we must make sure that we defend our interests there.

Ukraine and Wider Operational Update

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It is a hypothetical situation. It goes back to the point I was trying to make in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. There is a need for a national conversation about the threat that we face. There is a national conversation about the state-on-state threat that exists now in a way that people would not have predicted a few years ago. The Cold War and Russia and one country versus another country were supposed to be the wars of the past; we were supposed to be combating terrorist activity, counterinsurgency and those sorts of things. Although those threats have not totally gone away, the state-on-state threat has now re-emerged. Part of the national conversation has to be about what that means for our country and our Armed Forces.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, my question is also about the national conversation. To put it on the record, the Green Party supports the principle of UK troops serving in a peacekeeping role in Ukraine, following a negotiated settlement with a robust international mandate and standards. We are very pleased that the Statement says there will be a debate and a vote in the other place beforehand; that is the minimum democratic standard. Can the Minister reassure me that MPs will be able to scrutinise robustly the Government’s proposal, so that they will have before them—this follows on from the noble Baroness’s questions—details about the size and the composition of the force, what weapons they would have, the rules of engagement, and measurable indicators of what success looks like? It is important that it is not just a debate but a full debate.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

There will be as wide a debate as possible. Some of it will not be debated on the Floor of the House necessarily—for example, rules of engagement and so on. Having said that, let me reiterate what the Prime Minister stated last week, because it is important to make sure that I am accurate:

“If there were a decision to deploy under the agreement that was signed yesterday, I would put that matter to the House for a debate beforehand and for a vote on that deployment.”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/1/26; col. 254.]


The noble Baroness can read into that the answer to her question.

Defence Industrial Strategy

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Of course. That is a really important point and another aspect of the development of an industrial strategy. On small businesses, when we launched the defence industrial strategy on Monday, I deliberately went to Drone Evolution, a small company in Caerphilly, to highlight the importance of small businesses and the contribution that they make to the security of our country. I hope that that is of some reassurance to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister suggests that campaigns to boycott and target defence firms, particularly on university campuses, are based on misunderstandings. Does he acknowledge that the campaigns occur in the context of British arms sales to dubious—and worse—regimes around the world? There is Israel, of course, under the dark shadow of the indescribably awful situation in Gaza. There is also, notably, Saudi Arabia, which is infamous for its internal human rights abuses. Saudi Arabia is on track this year to beat its own awful record of executions; Reprieve reports 241 to 5 August. Then there is the slaughter that it is linked to in Yemen, as well as the abuse of women’s human rights. Yet, in the first three months of the Labour Government, £1.65 billion of arms exports to Saudi Arabia were approved. Does the Minister agree that there will continue to be resistance while such sales occur?

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Committee stage
Monday 24th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to this set of amendments, really to provide some balance, because I feel that we should hear both sides of the argument. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, in introducing these amendments, said that the commissioner should not be visiting without the Secretary of State being aware, and I entirely agree with that. Obviously, the Secretary of State is the person with political responsibility, who needs to know what is going on and whether the commissioner has identified a potential problem. However, not being aware is not the same as having seven days’ notice. There is a very large gap between those two things.

What we have just heard from the noble and gallant Lord about the commanding officer having the right to deny access is, I am aware, not directly in line with these amendments. However, on day one in Committee we talked about how the ombudsman, as structured, has not worked and has not had sufficient powers. We have to be careful to make sure that we are not putting a commissioner in the same position here. We have to be realistic: there may be a systemic issue, such as those we talked about on the previous day in Committee, and a concern about the treatment of female service people. We might hope that a commander would always want that issue to be exposed and understood, but we cannot guarantee that, and it is really important that we do not disempower the commissioner with changes to this Bill before they are even created and put in place.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, back to her place today; I know she was busy elsewhere in the House of Lords on our first day. It is welcome to see her here. Both she and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, asked about the opportunity to discuss the points that have been made, and we can of course meet between Committee and Report to do so. I can promise the meeting, but I cannot promise the outcome. To be frank, as noble Lords will know, that is how we in this House conduct business, improve legislation and achieve the objective that we all want: the commissioner being effective and having the appropriate powers to do the task they undertake.

As noble Lords know, I like to make some general remarks before making formal points; I hope that is helpful to the Committee. I understand the noble Baroness’s point about the balance between the powers of the Secretary of State and of the commissioner, and I will say something about that. We have tried very hard to balance those powers. I also hear the point made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about the importance of national security. There may be elements of a particular base that one would expect the commissioner to be precluded from visiting for national security reasons, even if it is not the whole base; there is also the role of the commanding officer to consider.

On the question of intention, if we take the example of a normal decision of the commissioner to visit a base, the noble Baroness and the noble and gallant Lord will see that there is a requirement in the Bill for the commissioner to notify the Secretary of State that they are visiting a particular base:

“If the Commissioner proposes to exercise the power under subsection (1), the Commissioner must give the Secretary of State notice of the proposal within such period before exercising the power as the Commissioner considers appropriate”.


The noble Baroness’s amendment would require that that happen at least seven days before the commissioner intends to exercise the power. The expectation would be that the Secretary of State would then tell the commanding officer that such a visit was to take place.

However, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, pointed out, under the Bill a confidential list will be drawn up saying where the Secretary of State believes it inappropriate for the commissioner to visit because of national security reasons. That will be shared with the commissioner, although it will remain confidential. But we will take up the point made by the noble and gallant Lord about how that will work with a base only a small part of which may be subject to national security concerns.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much. I did not have any written notes, so I shall do my best to continue seamlessly.

I think I was commenting on the way in which the public and Parliament know what the commissioner is doing, and there are a couple of elements in this amendment that are particularly relevant. The general point is that, if the commissioner is holding an inquiry on a particular subject, that may indeed take quite a significant period of time. There are issues that are being resolved that do not necessarily deserve a stand-alone report on a particular subject—but do we have a sense of what issues are being addressed and how the commissioner is working? In particular, we can look at proposed new Section 340OA(1)(c) in this amendment, on

“the resources used by the Commissioner in fulfilling its functions, and any further resources required”.

It is important that Parliament and the public have a sense that the commissioner has a vehicle by which they can say, “X number of extra issues have been raised with me, but I only have the resources to do this number of things”.

So it is useful at this stage perhaps to regard this as a probing amendment. I am very interested in whether the Minister can comment on Clause 4(3) on page 5, which I referred to. It talks about an investigation and a report, but how are we going to know what the commissioner is doing in a general sense and get a general picture of their work? How do Parliament and the public know that? I think that is what this amendment seeks to address.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Minto, for introducing these amendments. I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, here and note her apologies but also her sterling efforts to get here despite the broken rail. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for stepping in.

The noble Earl is right to point out the challenges on recruitment and retention, and the Government are taking a number of steps to try to deal with those outside the remit of the Bill. We can go through all those, on pay, how the childcare arrangements have changed and the change to the recruiting system—there will be a new system from 2027 that will bring the three services together. All those sorts of changes are trying to improve the recruitment process. On the retention aspects of it, we hope and expect that the general welfare investigations and work that the commissioner does may help to address some of the other points that the noble Earl made with respect to their impact.

But I take the point from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup: of course the commissioner can look at recruitment and retention if she or he believes them to be of a general welfare concern. Whether they do or not is an open debate, but we are taking other measures outside this Bill to deal with that issue, and we hope that we can address that in the way we want.

Defence Programmes Developments

Debate between Lord Coaker and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for raising the point about the industrial dispute affecting the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The only thing I can say is that discussions are ongoing. We obviously hope it can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction in due course.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Statement says that “difficult decisions” are required. Should those difficult decisions—or at least, difficult considerations—not include giving serious consideration as to whether we should continue a nuclear weapons programme? Philip Stephens, a contributing editor at the Financial Times wrote in a piece this week that the defence review, as currently constituted, is

“a necessary start, but an inadequate one”

to considering our defence policy. Stephens says in that article:

“A brave government would also ask whether it is wise to spend so many billions on a nuclear system maintained by the US”.


Is this a brave Government?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We are certainly a brave Government, but it has been a consistent policy of whatever Government have been in power to support the nuclear deterrent. The nuclear deterrent will continue; we will renew the nuclear deterrent. I just say to the noble Baroness, who is quite entitled to the opinion she holds, that I think it incumbent upon us to do that, given the threats we are seeing from President Putin—the irresponsible threats at the present time raise the prospect of it. Let us be clear about this: we support the nuclear deterrent, and we support its renewal. That is an important part of our defence.