Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

I am pleased to add my name to this suite of amendments that cover a broad area. On Amendment 48, I am sure that any of us who have served as Ministers or council leaders will have appointed loads of people to different bodies over the years. One thing I have noticed in recent times is that a cohort has emerged of people who apply for a lot of different bodies, whether or not they have qualifications for or experience in any of them.

I understand that people are not necessarily expected to do things for nothing, or to be paying out money, and I would be more than content for people to get perfectly fair and reasonable expenses, whether that is for travel or whatever is required. I have no issue with that, but once you move from that level to somebody who, perhaps, almost has a career in sitting on public bodies, that changes the entire ethos and atmosphere around the establishment of these boards.

Therefore, I have not been convinced by what is in the Bill as drafted. Unless there is a complete absence of people applying, or unless there is an obvious shortage of people who are willing to sit on these boards, I cannot understand why we would want to engage in expense to do this. Noble and gallant Lords have far more experience than I have, but if you have an organisation that is working and staffed, what incentive are you giving those who do the grunt work on the ground if board members are being paid? I just think it upsets the balance.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, mentioned national resilience and, of course, the Reserve Forces—whether it is a weather catastrophe or something else—will inevitably be part of that. We all know that the Minister could sell snow to the Eskimos if he was put to it, but we have a situation where in the press, even yesterday, there were reports of our training budgets for soldiers apparently being reduced for public expenditure reasons.

We can imagine how, if you were sitting in the Kremlin, you would be looking at that. It sounds so preposterous. The Minister’s right honourable colleague in the other place, the Environment Secretary, is urging us all to stock up on baked beans and candles and to be prepared for an emergency, and in the same breath we are apparently reducing basic training. You are preparing the country for an emergency, urging people to stock up on basics—what is the connection between these two things? I cannot make it out; it seems completely counterintuitive. The Minister knows that I tried to get a PNQ yesterday on that subject but the Falklands won out, quite properly. Still, it is a serious question.

The rhetoric coming from the Government, and from successive Prime Ministers, is that the defence of the nation is the number one priority of government. I do not necessarily want to bring this into it but I gently remind the Minister, if we are trying to save £30 million on training, that we are not trying to save any of the billions that we are spending on the asylum industry, which is just making a mockery of our country. We have to get serious here about what our priorities as a nation really are. This is sending out the wrong message.

With regard to the lords-lieutenant, I remember back home seeing our lord-lieutenant with a cadet, and the cadet was as proud as punch. This was a wonderful opportunity for a young person to take that role. You could see the enthusiasm; that young person was committed to serving as a cadet and it gave that person a wonderful opportunity of a career path moving forward. We would potentially take that away—for what? I do not know.

I ask the Minister seriously to consider that. I hope that, between now and Report, he will talk about these things with the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and colleagues. I am sure that his door will be open. It would be most helpful to the House if that were to happen. I doubt that there is a huge amount of difference between all of us. We all want to see the same thing. I accept that you cannot go for ever without looking at change and so on; it is part of life.

On the issue of the report, we all know how local government works. If you are doing an in-house report, people will say to you in the corridor, “Maybe you should be a wee bit careful about that”, or, “Go a bit easier”. We want an accurate, independent report without any strings attached and without any ability to be pressurised financially or in any other way. I would have thought that that is fairly basic. We are not asking for anything that is not sensible or reasonable. This suite of amendments goes a long way to correcting some of the flaws. The drafting may need to be changed—fair enough—but I hope that, in the discussions between now and Report, some of these anomalies can be resolved.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments to which I have attached my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, pointed out, this is a reasonable set of amendments. Again, they speak to issues around the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations; in many ways, they could have been part of a previous group because they are trying to deal with issues associated with Clause 38.

We have already heard articulately this evening that, at the moment, we have reserves, cadet forces and councils that are not paid. Why have His Majesty’s Government thought it necessary or appropriate to bring forward the suggestion of non-executive directors being paid and even, potentially, having pensionable incomes? Is there a reason for it that is eluding the Chamber? At the moment, why that would be necessary or desirable does not seem clear.

On the role of the lords-lieutenant, as other noble Lords have pointed out, it seems wholly inappropriate that that should be consigned to secondary legislation. If it is the case that the Palace and the Association of Lord-Lieutenants have not been consulted, what does the Minister propose to do to rectify that? Pending any consultation, would it not be appropriate to consider removing those parts of the Bill?

On Amendment 52, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, just pointed out, if we want an independent report, we need clarity that it is going to be produced by people independent of the MoD so that they cannot be subject to any sort of informal pressure to produce a report containing what the MoD or Ministers want to hear. This is a suite of reasonable amendments. Can the Minister give us some suggestion of areas in which the Government might be willing to move?

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Empey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, before we move on—because I suspect that this is not going to detain us too long—I would like to tease out from the Government Front Bench a couple of things.

As I said in my earlier remarks, we are going through something of a sea-change, rather too late in the day, in how we look at our reserves, our responsiveness and our state of alert in this country. In that respect, we understand that it is easier for larger companies to let people go for training because they have more people, but it is the smaller companies on which we should spend a little bit more time in thinking how we can better assist them. With that in mind, in both cases—those of larger and smaller companies—what are we doing to promote the idea that it is a good thing for them to release their employees to take part in some activities involving the military? Are we actively doing that?

Secondly, on people being released from other duties, it suddenly struck me that it seems rather ridiculous that people in the reserves are not exempt from jury service; I think I am right in that. This means that, particularly if you are a small employer, you might have to let somebody go for not only their reserve training but jury service. That takes a huge whack out of somebody’s time. However we monitor these things, it is almost impossible to ensure that, ultimately, people are not being penalised in their careers for taking time off. I would like to know what the Government are doing to monitor this on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that people who are actively involved in the reserves are not being penalised further down the line.

There seems to be something of a disconnect in our thinking here. On the one hand, as I said earlier, there is talk of mobilising many more veterans—something like 69,000—in an exercise next year, just at the same time as we are telling our Reserve Forces that they cannot have money for training and equipment. What is the Government’s thinking on that? If we are going to mobilise these people, is it going to be a paper exercise or are we actually going to invite them to turn up? Are they going to be given equipment? What is the current thinking here—or is it just a catchy headline?

We have debated the whole issue of preparedness in this country and will continue to do so going forward, for obvious reasons—of that I am absolutely sure. The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned a number of issues, with which I concur. I am broadly supportive of many of the amendments that he has tabled and which we are debating this afternoon, some of which are probably probing. He talked about Australia and the difference in its approach to these matters, as compared to ours. We have lessons to learn from Australia, but why do we not also take into account what they have been doing so successfully in Switzerland for decades now, whereby almost anyone of working age and beyond is required to do service in the reserves at weekends? It is a very bonding exercise. You can be somebody’s boss in the week and that person can be your radio operator at the weekend. It engenders in a country a sense of purpose, unity and preparedness, which is what this must all be about.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I will make just a brief point. The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned the training issues. I have raised these with the Minister and will come back to them.

In dealing with the employment issues, we have discussed people being released, but, having had the responsibility for fair employment matters, what about somebody being employed if an employer happens to know that that person is a reservist? The employer could say, “I don’t want to employ that man or woman because they will be a nuisance to me and I will have to let them go on release”; that would be one step before you get to the point of being an actual employee. The question is: is a person to be discriminated against on the basis of being a reservist by a future employer who happens to know that that person is a reservist, whether their picture appears in the local paper, through word of mouth or whatever? There is an issue there to be addressed.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, to address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Empey, we are going to come on to the issue of protections for employees in the next group.

At the moment, I wish to speak in support of my noble friend Lord Harlech on the need to have certainty for employers. I declare my interest as an employer in a small charity, Cerebral Palsy Scotland, and as the mother of a serving reservist. She is about to go on her captain’s course—tomorrow, I think—so she has been negotiating time off with her employer.

To me, this group of amendments goes to the heart of something that bothers me every time we talk about reservists and employers. The MoD always seems to look at this from its point of view. We get things such as the defence employer recognition scheme, demonstrating to us, “Look at all of these wonderful companies that have signed up”. That is fine if you are a silver or a gold large company, but there are not enough of them. The question asked by my noble friend Lord Swire about what we are doing to highlight the benefits of employing reservists to employers was well made; it is something that we do not do well enough.

Future Capability of the Armed Forces

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Swire, in welcoming the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, has been recycled; the value of that is before us this afternoon. We have talked repeatedly about percentages of GDP to be spent on defence. I do not like the concept of percentages of GDP. The amount of money you need to spend is what you need to spend, and some artificial percentage does not make much sense. We need to re-evaluate that.

I was fortunate enough to be present when President Zelensky came into this building in March. I attended the meeting in Committee Room 14; many noble Lords will have been there. He had a big screen and a laptop, and he was able to show us in real time what was happening on his own battle-front: what was coming in and what was going out. There were four other laptops in Ukraine that were doing the same thing. Most of us went to that meeting on the understanding and acceptance that he presumably wanted more money or more ammunition. No—he was selling at that meeting, not begging. With his colleagues, he has developed a wartime economy. He has been agile and innovative, not simply for commercial reasons but out of sheer necessity to survive.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, started his lecture last night by mentioning that we are not engaging in a meaningful conversation with the general public on what confronts us. This is not a political thing; the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, opened the debate with that point. This goes back 40 years, to the end of the Cold War. We were all very happy, whether we were Ministers or whatever, to spend the money on things that we felt were important—non-defence matters such as education, welfare or health. We were all happy to do that and all allowed it to happen, so we are not throwing stones here, but we need to recycle—in our own minds, and in the minds of the general public—the issues that confront us now.

I do not believe that Putin’s tanks will roll up Whitehall or that his submarines will come up the Thames—although most of us would hardly notice if they did. The fact is that we do not have the right mindsets. We need to engage with the public to educate people on what we are confronted with: the damage that can be done to our infrastructure, such as the undersea cables on which so much of our wealth and commerce is dependent. Hardly a day goes by when we do not have a photograph in the paper of some ship or other that has been decommissioned or is laid up in a port somewhere. It is not good enough. We have to start a conversation, and I hope the new Prime Minister will do that, because we have to get the people onside. Unfortunately, that means difficult choices. We will have to rethink the post-Cold War spending profile and begin to get our heads around the fact that we face an enemy driven not by logic but by ideology.

Military in the Gulf

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Empey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to locate a permanent military presence in the Gulf to protect allies and ensure international freedom of navigation.

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

My Lords, I start by paying tribute to the three members of the Royal Navy who died during a helicopter training exercise in the early hours of Wednesday near Sourton in Devon. The families have requested a period of grace before further details are released, but I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House are with their families and friends at this terrible time. This tragic news comes after the Defence Secretary sadly announced on Monday the death of Lance Corporal Freeman during a joint training exercise in Iraq. I am sure that Members of the House will want to extend their deepest sympathies to his loved ones and those of the American service person who died in the same incident.

The UK maintains a network of bases across the region. They include the United Kingdom Naval Support Facility in Bahrain and Donnelly Lines at Al Minhad Air Base in the UAE, while the UK Joint Logistics Support Base at Port Duqm in Oman opened in 2018, a port that is large enough to accommodate Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. This ongoing commitment to the region is demonstrated by our response to the current Strait of Hormuz challenge, where the UK and France are leading planning for a multinational military mission.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

I join the Minister in expressing condolences to the families of the service personnel who have been killed in recent accidents. It draws the attention of the whole House to the risks that our service personnel run every single day of their lives.

Is it not the case that the events that overtook us at the beginning of this year, with the beginning of the Iranian war, demonstrate that even though we may have bases, largely there are certainly no vessels within them? We were not capable of providing protection to our allies in that area; indeed, we were not even capable of properly protecting our own bases in Cyprus. Is this not illustrative of a long-term, decades-long decline in our capabilities? What does the Minister believe will be the long-term consequences for our standing in that region when it was clear that we were unable to come to the aid of our very long-standing, close allies there?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. On the regional contact we have, as well as the other contacts from the Foreign Office, the Prime Minister and others, I have met virtually every single week the ambassadors and/or the defence attachés of the various Middle East countries in the Ministry of Defence to discuss what they require. As a consequence of their answers, we have provided further fighter jets, drone capabilities, radar and anti-air defensive capabilities, so we have done a significant amount of work already. There are 1,000 British service personnel across the region. There have been one of two issue that have arisen, but it is important to recognise the important military support we have given to the region, and they have been very appreciative of that.

Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Empey Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McCabe, on his maiden speech. If a Glaswegian can become a Brummie, everything is possible. I also put on record my thanks to the Minister for his efforts in ensuring that the armaments business throughout the United Kingdom is regionally recognised. He and his colleagues did a lot in recent months to help ensure that companies such as Harland & Wolff in Belfast and others in the armaments sector were allowed to survive. I am pleased to say that with the involvement of the Spanish company Navantia, Harland is now investing heavily in preparing for the solid support vessels, and I put on record my thanks to the Minister for his work in that department.

In a very un-Scottish introduction, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, began his introduction with his conclusion—I think many Scottish Presbyterian ministers would find that a bit challenging in the past. He did, however, make the point that we of course do not want to see our country in a constant state of war readiness, and that we can sometimes talk ourselves into that problem—but equally, we cannot ignore what is going on.

The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, pointed out that the post-war international rules-based order is now largely ignored by all major countries, including the United States. It pays absolutely no attention to it whatever; indeed, it holds it in contempt, in many cases. In these circumstances, we need a holistic defence policy.

The most successful defence policy will ensure peace. The best armaments are those which are never used. This is a conundrum and my concern is that our society is not necessarily grasping that. The noble Lord, Lord Bailey, made a point about how the country deports itself internationally: we are not regarded by the Russian state as a serious threat; it holds us in contempt. We cannot even control our own borders. We are held to ransom by gangsters and thugs.

In those circumstances, I agree with the point about society that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, made in his introduction. We have to have this conversation and get our younger people to realise the threats. Those of us who grew up in the post-war generation have lived a life of luxury, largely of peace. While my part of the country has at least seen how things can go wrong, the vast majority—thank God—have not. Let us keep it that way, but the Government and Parliament have to concentrate on ensuring that society as a whole is part of this. We have to discuss it. We have to talk about it through cadets or in schools; it has to start at the ground and work up. That would be our best defence.

UK Weapons Systems

Lord Empey Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Empey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have complete control over the use of all UK weapons systems without needing to consult, or seek approval from, other governments or third parties.

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

His Majesty’s Government have complete control over the operational use of all the United Kingdom’s weapons systems, without needing to consult or gain approval from other Governments or third parties. This includes the nuclear deterrent.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I expected the Minister to say that he had operational control over all weapons systems, but all weapons systems require maintenance, and require to be renewed. It is my understanding that not all of that process takes place in the United Kingdom. Therefore, third parties or other Governments must have an influence over the maintenance of our weapons. Therefore, the question is: how independent is “independent”?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Well, “independent” means what it says. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the House, that we have complete operational use in terms of independence. We can use all our weapons systems in the way that His Majesty’s Government choose to. Of course there are arrangements about how you maintain that and what you do, but independence means independence and we work to ensure that we maintain all our capabilities to the standard that the noble Lord and this House would expect.

Ukraine: UK Policy

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, in his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, pointed to some truths. First, we as a country and Europe in general have been saying things that we cannot deliver. The fact is that we have run our defence down over decades and we have now been found out, and in the most brutal way possible.

In my opinion, the reason why problems have arisen in Ukraine is that red lines were drawn in Syria to which President Obama did not adhere. Putin took a message from that, dug himself in with a warm-water port in the Mediterranean and has moved on from there, because he knew that our bark was worse than our bite. American military intelligence would have been able to foresee the tanks lining up in Belarus for the invasion. If President Biden had acted at that stage, the war could probably have been prevented.

There is no historical reason why the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation should be enemies. Many British merchant seamen lost their lives in World War II as they resupplied the Russians during the fight against the Nazis. Sadly, Russia has become an aggressive and territorially acquisitive country, led by thugs who think nothing of eliminating their internal critics, whether poisoning residents in this country—which nobody seems to mention any more—or throwing their opponents out of high-rise buildings in Moscow. They are interfering and stirring up trouble in the Balkans and in Africa. They are interfering in eastern Europe, part of which they see as a relic of the former Soviet Empire.

I understand the argument, “Is NATO coming closer?” Then what are we going to do about Finland and Sweden? They are now on the front line. NATO is not threatening Russia in Africa or the Balkans, so we have to get away from this idea that these people are some kind of victims. They are not. But I accept that diplomacy has failed: we have been talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

There is one big lesson from this, which the noble Lord, Lord Banner, mentioned. The big lesson of the last three years of war is: if you have nuclear weapons, hold on to them; if you do not, acquire them. That is the message. Had Ukraine retained its nuclear weapons and territory after the collapse of the USSR, there would perhaps have been no invasion in 2022. This lesson has been learned by North Korea, after they saw what happened to Gaddafi, and it is now informing Iran’s thinking.

While I welcome President Trump’s desire to see an end to the fighting, I do not agree with the recent public treatment of President Zelensky. I fear that Donald Trump is being deceived. I do not believe that even a token pause in the fighting will be anything other than a pause in the Russian campaign to acquire the territory of its neighbours. For instance, as far as Russia is concerned, Ukraine does not exist. That is the starting point. We are not natural enemies, but sadly there is a regime in that country that does not recognise any standards with which your Lordships or I would identify.

It is fearfully clear that Ukraine does not have the military capability to push Russia back. It did not get the support that it needed at the very start. There were mixed messages and there still are, so I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on that. However, Ukraine should not be forced to recognise its territory as part of Russia. It does not have the military capability, as I said, but annexation should not be rewarded by recognition, and nor should sanctions be removed from Russia. Ending the fighting is one thing, but giving recognition and reward is another.

Ukraine

Lord Empey Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, on his maiden speech. I hope he enjoyed listening to himself—certainly, we enjoyed listening to him. He was of course a Northern Ireland Minister at one point and I share the recollection from the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, of a trade trip he led to Washington some years ago which I had the pleasure of participating in. I have no doubt that we will hear interesting contributions from him in the days and months ahead.

There is a risk of a self-congratulatory mood around the House today because, by and large, with some tweaks here and there, we all share a general approach of support for Ukraine. The tragedy is that we are in this mess because of failures some years ago. We did nothing when Crimea was invaded; we carried on with business as usual and our German colleagues made themselves almost wholly dependent on Russian gas. We have seen where that has led us.

There is another thing that Putin is banking on. He is looking back to the 1930s: “Well, we only went into the Rhineland—our back yard”. We are repeating the same thing all over again. He has judged, pretty accurately, that, when push comes to shove, many of our colleagues do not have the bottle or appetite for this. The war of attrition of course suits him. Historically, Russia has been a giant sponge—a vast geographical area that absorbs armies. One after the other has tried and failed. Yes, the Ukrainians have punched through the border and occupy a piece of land; that is fine from their point of view, but Russia is a vast nation and Putin controls all the high ground of propaganda and so on, so it is hard to judge what the impact will be.

As for the western response, yes, there have been weapons but, as other speakers, including the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, have pointed out, they have come late and with limitations. There have been delays. At the end of the day, how long can we ask an invaded population to be in the trenches and see their country destroyed around them when they are doing a job for all of us in the democratic world? We have to recalibrate what we are doing.

We have made this mistake even more recently. We had the Arab spring not that long ago—and what did we do there? There were speeches from this building encouraging the Syrians to resist, but we did not lift a finger when the red line of chemical weapons was crossed. Putin has moved into that country and has a warm-water port; he has taken over the whole place, destroyed the country and got Assad back into office. Now we are trying to pave the way to reintegrate Assad into the western world. The fact is that our eyes are bigger than our belly. We say the right things but, if you are not prepared to put boots on the ground, shut up and stay out of it, because these things will never be settled by meetings in committee rooms in Whitehall or elsewhere.

There has to be a reinvigoration of the political long-term objectives because, the way things are going, we are allowing the Ukrainians to be ground down. Allowing Russia get into a grinding war is the worst thing we could possibly have done. It does not care how many people it loses, by and large. There will be no political repercussions. It is not using the elites around Moscow and St Petersburg, but impoverished people from regions miles away who have absolutely no political influence over Putin whatever.

We now have the potential arrival, in some form or other, of North Koreans. Whether they will replace troops or will be used to try to flush out the Ukrainians from the Kursk region or whatever, they will free up Russian forces for the front line. This is the biggest single escalation since the war commenced its next phase in February 2022. What are we going to do about it? What is NATO going to do about it? The failure came at the very outset when people could see the tanks building up north of Kyiv. The President of the United States could have rung up Putin and said, “If one of your tanks accidentally crosses that border, I will destroy it”. The defensive posture of NATO has been challenged and called out, and we have fallen at the first fence. So we have to rethink things, be much more vigorous and make our minds up. Do we want to take this on or not? We are using the poor people of Ukraine to be crushed and destroyed. That would be a worse sin.

King’s Speech

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate our new Ministers on their appointments, but I also congratulate their immediate predecessors. We have been treated this morning to the menu in Annabel’s kitchen—the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie’s—but she cooked pretty good when she was on the other side of the House, so we have to thank her for her work.

They say that there is not a lot new under the sun. Well, I was just looking up what was happening in June 2010, when the previous Government came into office and launched their review under the guidance of the then Defence Secretary, Dr Fox. The release at the time said that this review was

“to deliver and support the sort of foreign policy this country needed”.

Dr Fox said that

“we would have to confront the harsh facts of the economic climate in which we operate”.

It went on to say that the SDR

“will make a clean break from the military and political mindset of Cold War politics”.

Really? Looking at what is happening in Ukraine, far from the Cold War, we are back to the Somme. Therefore, I think we really need a root-and-branch review of this. It is good news that our colleague here, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, is leading that, but we also have to bear in mind that the new Chief of the Defence Staff told us that we needed to be prepared for war in three years, though he said that there is no inevitability.

I will focus on what the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, said at the beginning of her remarks about this mythical 2.5% or 2% or whatever. Who says that 2.5% is going to deliver? If you are going to do a strategic review, you do a strategic review. But if the envelope is already sitting there with your boundaries before you even start, it is not a strategic review. The question therefore is: what do we need in the modern world to defend ourselves? If we are starting—to coin a phrase—with the bat of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, being broken in the pavilion before he gets on to the pitch, that would be the wrong direction of travel. I think we need to do it strategically, and to come back and tell people what it means. That may not be palatable—we all want to see certain elements of welfare improve, to see people looked after in health and education—but everybody agrees, and this Government and the previous Government agreed, that the key priority for every Government is the protection of their people, their way of life and our values. I hope that the review by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, will not be constrained simply by arithmetic. Let us see what it is. If the Government, Parliament and all of us decide not to take the advice and have a different mechanism for arithmetic, that is fine. But let us at least get it out there and open in public.

I also wanted to raise, and mentioned to the Minister in advance, one local issue—I suppose all politics is local. My hometown, Belfast, has the Harland & Wolff shipyard. It is not the business side of that arrangement that I want to focus on but the infrastructure side. The only other alternative that we depend on for a lot of our repairs is at Rosyth, in Fife. If that is overwhelmed with demand or damaged by an enemy, where do we go?

I ask the Minister to let us know that the Government are focused on the fact that Harland has a strategic asset and piece of infrastructure that is necessary to protect our country in the future, and that we are not going to be sidetracked by short-term business considerations. I wanted to make that point because not only are we concerned, obviously, about the jobs and the business, but the type of infrastructure in place there cannot instantly be replaced in any other location. We wish the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, well. I have little doubt that if the review can be done in the time available, that itself will be a bit of a breakthrough, but we simply do not have the time left.

809 Naval Air Squadron

Lord Empey Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right; I did say up to 12. The whole point of this is that the forces we have need to be flexible and interchangeable. By the end of 2025, we will have two squadrons in full operation. We will have 48 aircraft by the end of 2025, and I am assured that there will be up to 12 aircraft in each squadron which are capable at any one time. I am absolutely certain that there will be a lot more than two in each.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, is my noble friend happy that we have chosen a situation where there is only one aircraft in the world that can fly off our carriers? It is a very expensive aircraft which is in short supply. Is it not inevitable that we will have to modify these aircraft carriers so that they can fly off catapult-launched aircraft?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has greater knowledge than I have in this area. As far as the Lightning is concerned, we are fully committed to the 138, as we originally set out. We will have 48 by the end of 2025 and another 27 by the early 2030s. As far as flexibility on the aircraft is concerned, I shall have to find out the full detail and write.