Future Defence Capability

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My understanding is that discussions have taken place between ourselves and NATO and SACEUR about the capabilities that they would expect from us. We are currently looking at both the cost and our ability to provide the capabilities. It is my understanding that those negotiations are still under way. If that is incorrect, I will write to the noble and gallant Lord.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, in the context of additional defence funding, what is now the Government’s dominant policy consideration about how that funding should be spent? Is it to make good our deterrent capability against Russia, or to make good the potential deficit caused by the abandonment of European security guarantees by the United States of America?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his question. The fundamental thrust of the Government’s policy is the “NATO first” policy, which obviously deals with the threat from Russia but also our security. We have seen that not only our own country but many countries across Europe are now stepping up their defence spending to provide the security assistance that may be needed, in the short term with respect to Ukraine and in the longer term across the whole of Europe. The important point is that the “NATO first” policy does not mean “NATO only”; it means that we will also accept the responsibilities we have elsewhere. The defence review seeks to balance that and see what capabilities we will need to do so.

Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this debate. I am sorry that I have missed some of it. I declare a relevant interest in the register as an adviser to a defence-related tech company called Thales UK.

I start by agreeing with the view of many that it is a shame it was not felt appropriate to hold this debate in the Chamber. I say this because I think that more recent events give the report a relevance far beyond the relatively narrow focus of its original purpose. In my view, for example, it has a far wider and compelling relevance to the use of information by Governments in the age of artificial intelligence. For my part, I will not focus on any of the specific recommendations of the report, as I have great confidence that others have covered that ground. Rather, I want to spend my allotted time on just one issue: why did we name the report A Wake-up Call?

Many noble Lords will be familiar with the works of the Israeli academic Yuval Noah Harari, the author of the best-selling books, Sapiens and Homo Deus. His most recent book, Nexus, which my son bought me for Christmas at my direction, is a compelling history of information networks from the stone age to present times. In very simple terms, just of one of Harari’s many insights is his belief that there exist two very different views of how information is used. One is a somewhat naive view of information that sees it as the asset by which truth is established and from which wisdom thereafter flows, so the greater the amount of information that can be gathered and assessed, the closer we come to truth and therefore wisdom. Harari does not share this naive or simple view. Rather, he believes that the end use of information, specifically in respect of how nations are governed, is a far more dangerous trade-off between truth and order. More specifically, he argues that Governments, since they are the most powerful institutions in developed societies, have the greatest interest in distorting the truth or at least in hiding the most inconvenient facts. Indeed, he argues that allowing Governments to supervise the truth is like appointing the fox to guard the chicken house.

I would argue that, certainly for at least the past 15 years, successive British Governments have distorted the truth about the state of our Armed Forces. As Chief of the Defence Staff, I bore close witness to this and to some extent always understood why a slightly varnished version of the truth was necessary to avoid public alarm. I could perhaps understand how successive defence reviews rather committed to the delusion that all was well. I could appreciate why inconvenient facts about our performance in NATO, the real costs of the nuclear enterprise, the hollowing out of war-fighting resilience, the state of our Reserve Forces, the lack of a continuum of deterrent capability which permitted the control of escalation and countless other such issues were all being hidden. Indeed, since coming to this place, I have also occasionally marvelled at how at the Dispatch Box dissembling on defence issues has seemed the accepted order of the day.

However, at least two people have seen through these distortions and delusions. One is President Putin, who reached his own conclusions about NATO’s true deterrent capability, a capability that in his eyes lacked credibility and which he was, and seemingly remains, fully prepared to put to the test. The other is President Trump, who recognised that the United States of America was being taken for a wholly unfair ride by the European members of NATO and that it was well past the time when Europe needed to pay for its own security. It is for these reasons that the committee chose the title it did. The UK, Europe and NATO all need to wake up to some remarkably harsh realities.

I am left hoping two things. The first hope is that we have not woken up too late. My fear here is that we already have. In this context, we must be very wary of who benefits from a ceasefire. My view is that it is the side that wins thereafter the race to rearm. My second hope is that, when it comes to our national security, we never, ever, fall so deeply asleep again. The sole issue that I ask the Minister to give assurances on is that, if UK forces are committed to an operational role in Ukraine, it is only in the context of the appropriate command and control, the correct equipment and materiel and the proper security safeguards. Finally, in closing, I wish this Government nothing but good fortune in trying to navigate their way out of this truly awful mess.

Russian Maritime Activity and UK Response

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend will know that, for any ship posing a threat to this country, there will be an appropriate maritime response from our military, primarily through our maritime capabilities. He raised a really important point. So far, we have sanctioned 93 vessels, which means that they are unable to access some of the normal arrangements that ships have, including access to financial markets. As a result, some ships—I think there are two, but there may be others—have had to remain in port. The sanctioning of those ships is an important way forward. We are well aware of the various activities taking place, and where we suspect it and can prove it, we will take action.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for sharing the Statement. In the context of tactical action, it is not a bad tactical response. Having read it only just before today’s sitting, I think it aspires to be an element of strategic messaging—but, as that, it is close to hopeless. It aspires to be a strong message to Putin, to reassure the British public and to demonstrate the UK’s leadership role in NATO. However, it is a statement of reassurance based on a complete delusion about the true state of our military capability. In truth, it feels as if we are on a frustratingly slow-moving SDR, in the context of a complete vacillation regarding funding, and at a point when—this will hurt, though I am not blaming the Minister, whom I personally like, tremendously—our reputation in NATO is at an all-time low.

Let me give the detail on that. The experts will know that NATO has a process of setting military capability targets, which go to the NATO nations to be politically agreed on, and they then become binding on nations. There are now, thankfully, 32 members of NATO. Where do we figure in the delivery table of those 32 nations? I will tell the House: 32nd. We are brilliant at writing papers and we can talk wonderfully within NATO, but on the delivery of military capability, we are bottom of the league. Does the Minister agree that our messaging, both domestically and internationally, will be completely without substance until we fund defence appropriately and in accordance with our international commitments?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do not know what the noble and gallant Lord would say to me if he disliked me.

Having said that, he raised a number of really important points. He heard what I said about funding in response to the noble Baronesses, and we are looking to set out the pathway to that. Others will have heard his call for more resources. There are issues around what capabilities we have and how we take them forward; we have heard demands not only to provide traditional capabilities but to be prepared for the changing threats we face and to establish how we develop the capability to deal with them.

My reading of the view that other countries have of us does not entirely accord with that of the noble and gallant Lord. In many respects, the NATO countries that I have met, notwithstanding the debates about capabilities, often look to the UK to see what we think about what we should do and for leadership.

I have already outlined the NATO response to what is happening in the Baltic with Baltic Sentry. That is a group of allies from NATO: eight countries coming together to provide maritime capability and do other things, and we are providing the reconnaissance for some of that. That is a NATO project, a NATO alliance acting together to deliver security. Of course, the whole point of NATO is that each country comes together to do that. We are looking at the capabilities that the noble and gallant Lord mentioned, but also as part of that, we have the JEF, which is a complementary part of NATO specifically looking at the Northern region, and the UK set that up; the UK is the lead for that. The Nordic Warden campaign that has been set up is run from London, based at Northwood, and the JEF countries are looking to us to provide that leadership, because we are the only country that has the necessary artificial intelligence which allows us to track some of the vessels that we may be concerned about.

Yes, there are issues, and the noble and gallant Lord laid them out very articulately. I just say to him that we are developing abilities, and I would say that, in my view, our role and status within NATO, and the view that many other countries have of us, are perhaps higher than the noble and gallant Lord set out in his remarks. Certainly, that is what people say to me when they say, “Where is the UK on this, because we want to see them there with us?”

Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. We have been very clear about NATO. Irrespective of the outcome of the American presidential election, European countries would have had to spend more on defence. As a first step towards that, all NATO countries need to meet the 2% target, which 23 out of 32 currently do. Our next step is to reach 2.5% and to set a pathway towards that. That will result in billions of pounds of this country’s money, as well as multi-billions of pounds across Europe, being spent on defence. That is the first step we need to take.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, arguably, one of the most difficult tasks of government is to determine the level of expenditure and therefore capability needed to reduce external threats to the country to an acceptable level of risk or tolerance. Therefore, how can it be right or logical to predetermine that 2.5% of GDP is the appropriate level of expenditure needed to achieve tolerable security? Does the Minister not agree that it is more sensible to remain open-minded as to what the level of resources required will be until after the SDSR has reported and the true risks to the nation are better understood?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord his question. He will know that one of the parameters of my noble friend Lord Robertson’s defence review is to look at the threats and at the capabilities needed within the envelope of 2.5%. Any country would have to determine what it believes it can afford and is necessary. The defence review will come forward with the threat assessment, and then it will be for the Government to determine, with the defence panel, how we meet those threats going forward.

Defence Programmes Developments

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

I draw Members’ attention to my relevant registered interest as a member of the Thales advisory board. I offer some sympathy to the Government regarding their defence inheritance, which must appear to be an appalling mismatch between requirements and resources.

When I was in the MoD, when we needed to save money, it often had to be found where savings could be made—that is, in money that was uncommitted—as opposed to where savings should be found, often on money that was committed on historic mistakes. Can the Minister therefore confirm that the process applied has been truly rigorous in respect of operational priorities? Within those priorities, the Minister mentioned the deletion of Watchkeeper. Did its deletion recognise the potential associated sensitivities to defence export sales in the Middle East, including sensitivities that involve GCAP?

Secondly, the Statement mentions a

“fully fledged national armaments director”.

Can the Minister perhaps offer the House some insight into what is the defining element of this fully fledged national armaments director? Particularly, what will define his relationship with the defence industrial primes? Will it be a relationship that ensures that, going forward, defence capabilities are principally bought in the context of benefit to the taxpayer and defence as opposed to shareholders of defence industrial primes?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

First, we recognised the sensitivities around the deletion of Watchkeeper and they were a consideration. In terms of operations, the decisions around decommissioning were made in a way that would not compromise operations. The chiefs were clear to us that operations would not be compromised by any of the decommissioning taking place.

The point about the national armaments director is an extremely important one. The national armaments director is to give greater strength to the idea that we need to rebuild our arms industry and ensure that the stockpiles we have are of sufficient size to meet the threats of the future. In doing that, the relationship with the defence industry—whether the primes or the smaller companies—will be important. The important point is that it is not to be something that is in the interests of the shareholders but something that we need to discuss, which is that it is to be in the national interest and in the interests of our international alliances. That is what is important to us all. We have to have an armaments director which drives forward an arms industry which gives us the weapons and stockpiles we need.

In answer to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, I have not seen the Financial Times article with respect to the European defence industrial strategy, but that is certainly something we have been discussing with our European friends.

Strategic Defence Review

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, when I spoke in the foreign policy and defence debate on the gracious Speech a few weeks ago, I welcomed the Government’s intention to hold a strategic defence review and to do so quickly. I remarked on the nature of the three defence reviews of which I had the most intimate knowledge—those of 2010, 2015 and 2020—and offered that those three reviews had three things in common.

First, they all had a superficially compelling narrative, one that gave a fairly sobering analysis of the increasing risks to the stability of the world order and the growing diversity of both the defence and security challenges to that order. The second thing was the reality of government austerity. All three reviews were ultimately the product of financial, rather than geostrategic, reality. The third thing, therefore, was that all three reviews delivered a delusion that various alchemies—modernisation, efficiency, technological superiority and fusion doctrine—somehow facilitated an ability to take acceptable risk because, in the end, everything would turn out all right and be okay.

The result of these serial delusions has now been exposed. The International Relations and Defence Committee’s recent report on the lessons for UK defence from Ukraine, brutally but fairly, lays bare the somewhat alarming state of not just our Armed Forces but the machinery of government, the defence industry and wider society’s ability to deter or sustain a conventional war at scale.

The defence review currently under way cannot, therefore, come quickly enough, but it needs to be a review quite unlike its most recent forerunners. It cannot be a cost-capped exercise in public and self-delusion; rather, it must be an honest exercise in self-scrutiny and geopolitical reality. I realise that, ultimately, money will have to be a factor. As long as the review has integrity, it does not necessarily lead to an uncomfortable outcome. Indeed, it might be quite a liberating exercise. To me, the outcome of the review should be a justified choice from which all else flows.

The choice is the strategic one of what role we, the United Kingdom, want to play in the world over the next 10 to 20 years. I do not think that this is a simplistic choice between doing everything or nothing. The nation would not understand or tolerate a wholly extreme departure from our current aspirations. Rather, it is a more nuanced choice between two more subtle options—but it is a very distinct choice.

The context is the increasingly darkening world in which we no longer have a monopoly on the ownership of truth. It is a world in which China, Russia, North Korea and Iran are increasingly mutually self-supporting and in which many of the countries of the poorly defined global South are, at best, undecided as to whom they favour.

One choice is to double down on what we have traditionally aspired to be as a nation—a global leader. It would involve us in a meaningful leadership role in NATO, necessitate a significant investment in restoring conventional deterrence in Europe, require a significant investment in resilience, necessitate the recreation of the mechanisms for generating reserves, involve continued or even greater investment in cyberspace and emerging technologies, and involve us in some more demanding global roles of which AUKUS and GCAP are perhaps the capability forerunners. This would be the more expensive option and would bring its own forms of risk and benefit on the global stage.

A second option is more modest but, some may argue, more rational. It would involve coming to terms with a reduced global ambition and accepting that there are limits to where we envisage projecting force. It would focus on the regional threat from Russia and, more specifically, it might choose to exploit the mutual synergies and interests we enjoy with the nations of the Joint Expeditionary Force. Our maritime and air forces could form the core of a meaningful contribution to the security of the north Atlantic and northern Europe. It might recognise that expeditionary land forces, at scale, looks a highly questionable ambition for a nation that cannot man an army of 72,000 and that has no current mechanisms to mobilise a reserve.

But we do have the ability to exploit space and cyber special force operations, and we retain a practised understanding of high-level command and control. This more modest option would also need to recognise our deficiencies in layered anti-missile defence and offensive missile capability. The latter may provide the necessary escalatory gearing to restore credibility to our strategic deterrent.

I do not want to give the impression that this second option necessarily generates any savings against the current or anticipated budget. It would, however, demand some markedly different capability choices. My point is that the capability choices would be the result of the decisions about our strategic ambition. I fear that, in the past, capability choices have predetermined the policy aspiration, which must be the wrong way around.

My plea is for a review of integrity, not one based on hope, boosterism or doctrinal alchemy. I would certainly be cautious of an alchemy based on the idea of an integrated force fighting an unfair war on the presumption of perpetual technological advantage. To me, such an outcome has some of the hallmarks of a delusion in waiting.

Ministry of Defence: Expenditure

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his important question. Whether it is aircraft carriers and planes, the number of soldiers, technology or other capabilities, you have to have the capability you need to meet the threat that you face. My noble friend is right to point that out. That is the fundamental principle that underlies the review of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and why he will be working closely with others. I say to all noble Lords that it is an open review and anyone is welcome to contribute to it.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that, at this moment, the Government should remain open-minded on all areas of discretionary defence spending that do not directly contribute to keeping Ukraine in the fight and restoring the credibility of deterrence in Europe?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Of course we should remain open to any capability that is necessary. The noble and gallant Lord makes a very important point. We are open to all these considerations and factors in the defence of Ukraine, but also in the wider security picture that we face across the globe. No doubt that will be something that the review takes forward. I would welcome the noble and gallant Lord’s contribution to that review, to make the very point that he has just made.

King’s Speech

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, it might be judged somewhat risky for a general to follow the valedictory speech of a Bishop. Be reassured: right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester is the cousin of the late Field Marshal Lord Peter Inge, who was a Green Howard, as is my noble friend Lord Dannatt and—you guessed it—as am I. It is truly remarkable that a single county regiment can claim three Members of this House and, incidentally, three Constables of the Tower at the Tower of London. We always knew that we had influence in very high places, and John has a special place in our hearts.

Bishop John has been a remarkable servant of this House and wider society. At Durham, he was a chemist as well as a thespian. He trained as a teacher at Keble, Oxford. Dangerously, he has a degree in systemic theology and is a doctor of philosophy. He was ordained at Chichester and became the chaplain at Harrow. He is one of the longest-serving diocesan bishops in the Church of England. He is affectionately known for his great sense of humour and his sartorial dress: a fascination with Edwardian frock coats, episcopal toppers and Panama hats—sometimes other people’s. He has a passion for people, cycling and international affairs.

As he said, he has served the House for the last 12 years, speaking on international development, the childcare system, hospices, schools, assisted suicide, migration, asylum and much else. A few short words cannot begin to do justice to a remarkable man, but I know that the House will join me in thanking him for his service and wishing him well for the future.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

I turn to what I want to say in this debate. My time is now short, so I will concentrate on one aspect of the gracious Speech: the Government’s welcome intention to conduct a defence review.

I will offer a view on what sort of a review this needs to be, because it needs to be very different from the last three. The SDSRs of 2010, 2015 and 2020 had a number of things in common. First, they had an elegant narrative regarding the state of the world, which was increasingly alarming in its portrayal of the growing diversity and intensity of danger, threat and instability in the world. Secondly, there was the reality of government austerity and the imperative to deliver national security to an ever more constrained budget; and, thirdly, to me they were all exercises in a delusionary reassurance to the nation.

Each of those SDSRs produced some form of alchemy that appeared to make an acceptable level of national security somehow affordable. In 2010, it was defence reform. In 2015, it was defence efficiency. In 2020, it was technological advantage. Somewhere in the mix was fusion doctrine.

I offer that all three reviews produced the common and indulgent delusion that our Armed Forces were fit for purpose and the country was safe. I bore witness to many defences of this delusion even in this House. I fear that those defences came close to a failure of honesty both to Parliament and to society—a failure that, to our collective shame, we were all party to. We asked our questions, made our speeches, felt that we had done our bit and sat down.

The result is now extremely concerning. The Armed Forces of this country are most definitely not fit for purpose; they are completely hollowed out and, even more concerning, the men and women of those Armed Forces are now voting with their feet. Just as concerning, government has no truly effective narrative with society that alerts it to the dangers that exist and the risks that we are running. It seems as though so long as we somehow spend 2.5% of GDP on defence, all will be well, and the only really substantive question is when we reach that figure.

I say this in such stark terms to make the point that we cannot afford another SDSR that is a protracted and largely academic exercise that is wholly constrained by issues of cost, reflects a 20-year vision on the size and shape of the Armed Forces, and employs delusional rhetoric to conceal the realities of clear and present danger. Rather, we need a review that is clear about the dangers that we face, our ambition to meet them, the true state of our military capabilities, and the realistic resources required.

However, the review must do something even more important: it must accelerate the actions needed to win a war that we are already in. If we move, and NATO moves, with sufficient pace, we can still win this war without having to fight it. Ukraine does not have that luxury.

If I were to offer three priorities for action, they would be, first, to do whatever is necessary to keep Ukraine in the fight. We must not delude ourselves that Ukraine can win in military terms, but they can help to buy time for the second imperative: the re-establishment of conventional deterrence in Europe. NATO has a strategic deficit in deterrent credibility. We must be a leader and exemplar to make good this deficit. Thirdly, for pity’s sake, we must invest in our people. It is our people, not shiny platforms, that are our strategic edge.

I could go on, but the sole point I wanted to make is one of principle. We are at a point in history when we need an SDSR that urgently balances ambition, capability and resources, and one that is focused primarily on the short-term imperative to defeat, hopefully by deterrence, those who seek to destroy the values we hold dear.

Artificial Intelligence in Weapon Systems Committee Report

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Friday 19th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Browne, whose companionship in the committee was but one of its many delights.

I start by drawing attention to my relevant interests in the register, particularly my advisory role with three companies, Thales, Tadaweb and Whitespace, all of which have some interest in the exploitation of AI for defence purposes.

It is great to see a few dedicated attendees of the Chamber still here late into Friday. My motivation to speak is probably as much to do with group loyalty as the likelihood of further value added, so I will keep my comments short and more focused on some contextual observations on the committee’s work, rather than in the pursuit of additional insights. There is not much more I want to stress and/or prioritise regarding the actual conclusions and recommendations of the report, and our chairman’s opening remarks were typically excellent and comprehensive. However, there are some issues of context that it is worth giving some prominence to. I will offer half a dozen, all of which represent not the committee’s view but a personal one.

The first comment is that the committee probably thought itself confronted by a prevailing sense of negativity about the risks of AI in general and autonomous weapons systems in particular. The negativity was not among the committee’s membership but rather among many of our expert witnesses, some of whom were technical doom-mongers, while others seemed to earn their living by turning what is ultimately a practical problem of battlefield management into an ethical challenge of Gordian complexity.

My second comment is specifically on the nature of the technical evidence that we heard, which, if not outright conflicted, was at least extremely diverse in its views on risk and timescale, particularly on the risks of killer robots achieving what you might call self-generated autonomy. The result was that, despite much evidence to the contrary, it was very difficult to wholly liberate ourselves from a sense of residual ignorance of some killer fact. I judge, therefore, that this is a topic that will as we go forward require persistent and dynamic stewardship.

My third observation relates to the Damascus road. I think that the committee experienced a conversion to an understanding of how, in stark contrast, for example, to financial services, the use of lethal force on the modern battlefield is already remarkably well regulated, at least by the armed forces of more civilised societies. In this context, I think that the committee achieved a more general understanding, confirmed by military professionals, that humans will nearly always be the deciding factor in the use of lethal force when any ethical or legal constraint is in play. Identifying the need to preserve the pre-eminence of human agency is perhaps the single most important element of the committee’s findings.

My fourth comment is that the committee’s deliberations played out in the context of the obscene brutality in Ukraine and Gaza. It was a constant concern not to deny our own people of, if you like, the benefits of ethical autonomy. There is so much beneficial advantage to be derived from AI in autonomy that we would be mad not to proceed with ways to exploit it, even if the requirements of regulations will undoubtedly constrain us in ways that patently will not trouble many of our potential enemies.

My fifth comment, it follows, is on our chosen title, Proceed with Caution. I forget whether this title was imposed by our chairman or more democratically agreed by the whole committee. I wholly accept that “proceed with reckless abandon” would not have survived the secretariat’s editorship, but, on a wholly personal level, I exhort the Minister to reassure us that the Government will not allow undue caution to inhibit progress. I fear that defence is currently impoverished, so it has to be both clever and technically ambitious.

I want to say something by way of wider context. The object of our study, AI in autonomous weapons systems, necessarily narrowed the focus of the committee’s attention on conflict above the threshold of formalised warfare. However, I think the whole committee was conscious of the ever-increasing scale of conflict in what is termed the grey zone, below the threshold of formalised warfare, where the mendacious use of AI to create alternate truth, undermine democracy and accelerate the decline of social integrity is far less regulated and far more existentially threatening to our way of life. This growing element of international conflict undoubtedly demands our urgent attention.

AUKUS

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, when the Foreign Secretary answered Questions on AUKUS the week before last, he was euphoric, absolutely unbounded, in his enthusiasm for the agreement. I happily agreed with him on the undoubted attractions of AUKUS. I fully understand the potential upsides, particularly to the defence industrial base, jobs and national advantage. I did not want to appear cynical, but I asked him whether there had been any slightly more cautionary voices in the relevant NSC discussion regarding AUKUS. I have to say that I felt the Foreign Secretary was politely dismissive of the risks that I raised, such as losing, or at least leaking, specially nuclear-qualified personnel to Australia and the risks of cost escalation in a programme that might rapidly become non-discretionary in nature. In opening this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Risby, spoke of sustained expenditure until at least 2040.

From the Library pack provided to inform this short debate, I also now see that, as well as the self-evident delivery risk in increasing the drumbeat of submarine production, there appears to be a significant liability for British submarines to conduct both operational tours and extended port visits to Australia throughout the long period involved in generating the Australian capability. I worry that this must surely place at risk the operational requirements, at least for what we call two-boat availability, for standing tasks in closer-to-home waters.

Therefore, I again ask the Minister: has there been any recognition or discussion of attendant risks to this agreement and how to mitigate them? Or does it now represent an irreversible commitment which might place further constraints on the future flexibility required to bring into balance defence policy aspiration and the MoD’s available funding?

One might be tempted to ask similar questions about the Global Combat Air Programme, GCAP, a parallel initiative with Japan and Italy. Let me be clear: I am a huge supporter of advanced technology but, equally, I am concerned that the continued addiction of our procurement processes to pursuing ever more exquisite capabilities risks a future defence capability programme that, because it is underfunded, is also completely unbalanced.