Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It is an important challenge and an important question put by the noble and gallant Lord. The starting point is to speak up and speak out, in a way that sometimes does not happen. For example, there is very real resilience among the population in many respects, but we need to explain to people, through government, devolved Governments and local government, the very real threats and challenges that they face now. The point that members of the public, more generally, need to understand is that it is not the traditional warfare, necessarily, that is the threat we are currently facing but the cyber attacks that we have already seen many examples of in our country, the threats to underwater cables and the threat to data. Indeed, it is why the carrier strike group was in the Indo-Pacific recently, protecting the trade routes on which this country’s economy and prosperity also depend. We need to do more on that, because, as the noble and gallant Lord says, building resilience among the population is something that needs to be done. I have confidence in the British people that if that is explained to them, they will stand up for it.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. The Minister is saying all the right things; he is talking about how urgent it is, how it must be the whole of society and the whole of government, but he did not answer the question put at the beginning by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, on when this national conversation is going to start. Could he give us a clearer indication of the Government’s timescale on that, and an indication, for example, of when the defence readiness bill—proposed in the security review—is going to come forward, and whether it will include a wider definition so that it looks at all the hazards we face, including climate change, criminal cyber gangs as well as hazards from overseas states?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I am sure that when it comes forward, a defence readiness bill will include many of the things that my noble friend has pointed to. Defence in that sense, as he says, is more than just military equipment and troops; it is about climate change and many of the other things that he mentioned. The conversation has already started. We have started having conferences and conversations with different parts of industry. What I am saying to the Chamber, to my noble friend and to all those who spend so much time working on this, as I know he does, is that we need to accelerate and expand that, and to do that more than we are doing at present. A conference here and a conference there, while worth while and important, are not at the level of the sort of national conversation that needs to take place regarding our country. That is the point that I am trying to make. We have an Armed Forces Bill next year, but we are exploring defence readiness legislation—we look forward to seeing whether we can deliver that in this Parliament.