Major Defence Contracts

Lord Dobbs Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I will give a very quick answer. I can tell my noble friend that the Treasury of course understands, and that is why the Government have agreed to spend more money on defence: £3 billion more next year and a pathway to 2.5 % to be announced in the spring. That is a Treasury and a Government who recognise we need to spend more on defence, and we will do.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

I welcome many of the remarks the Minister has made this afternoon, but is there not a big problem with the way we are conducting these discussions? All the time it looks as if we are discussing percentages between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence, when in fact the strategic health of the world has changed for the worse. We need to involve the public more, to get them to understand why we need to spend more on defence. The Minister has made some very forthright remarks this afternoon, many of which I welcome, but do we not need to broaden out this argument and make it not just among ourselves but out there in the public field?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Again, the noble Lord makes a really important point and I agree: it is something that I have said from this Dispatch Box. The debate about the peace and security of our world, the defence of the freedom and democracy of our country, is something that is important and that we need to talk to the British public about. I think the British public are becoming increasingly concerned about peace and security and the threats to our country; that is why the defence review will look at homeland security, threats to undersea cables and all of those sorts of things. But let me say this: I say quite clearly from this Dispatch Box that the geopolitics of the globe is changing in a way that many of us perhaps did not expect. I think the British public understand that and certainly we in Parliament, across this House, understand it. We will have to address these points in a way we have not before. Of course, people want money spent on schools and hospitals, and all those things, and that will have to take precedence as well, but alongside that there can be nothing more important than the defence and security of the values we and our allies across the globe stand for.