Defence and Security

Lord Fowler Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments. She is right: how money is spent is so important. That is why I made the comment about the strategic defence review. I think the Prime Minister is in flight at the moment on his way to Washington; if he has not arrived, he will be arriving shortly. He has been very clear in his comments over the last few days about Ukraine and how the sovereignty of Ukraine is really important. I am sure that will form part of his discussions with President Trump.

[Lord Fowler (CB)]

My Lords, I will raise two brief but important points. I accept entirely that we should make savings to pay for the resources we are giving to defence, and I entirely support the strongest possible support for Ukraine. However, I do not understand why all the savings are concentrated on overseas aid. Out of the whole government budget, why are we concentrating just on overseas aid? Given all the things that we have said on the importance of overseas aid —on both sides of the House; I can see noble Lords here who have spoken on this—it does not seem to be in proportion. We are in danger of affecting the poorest people in some of the poorest nations in the world, very much to their detriment.

Britain has—or had—a very high reputation in this area. My concern is: will this new concentration on cutting overseas aid alone not take away from that reputation? Above all, will it not encourage other nations, which have so far not been very happy on overseas aid, health aid or anything of that sort, to follow suit? That is the question that I think the noble Baroness needs to answer.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments and his support for the additional funding. I think our reputation is enhanced because we are, by having additional spending on defence, standing up to Russian aggression and making that very clear. They are difficult choices; I do not shy away from that at all. That is why we are saying how we will manage the cuts in ODA at this time. It is not a permanent cut; the legislation remains in place and we wish to return to that.

There is a trade-off between diplomacy, aid—I do not always like to use the term “aid”, because in many cases it is not aid but support—development and defence. At this time, the threat is such and the moment is such—it is a generational shift—that we are focusing on the defence budget. We will be informed on how that is used by the strategic defence review. As I have said to noble Lords already, we will also look at the areas that will be protected in the ODA budget. The work of the Government goes on in working with those countries to ensure that we become a force for good and take a leadership role in those areas.