UK Defence Capability

Lord Lee of Trafford Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I welcome challenge on these issues from His Majesty’s Opposition, my noble friend Lord West and my noble friends because it is important the Government are challenged on all these issues. They relate to the defence and security of our country and the defence and security of our continent and beyond so it is quite right to hold the Government and the Ministers who speak for the Government to account on this. The noble Baroness quite rightly asked me about the defence investment plan. I cannot do any more than say to her that the Prime Minister has said that the defence investment plan will be published before 7 July, which is the Ankara summit, the next NATO summit. That is all I can say to her. We hope to be able to publish it well before that, but all I can say to her is that work is ongoing. It will lay out the investments for the future as well as the type of capability that we need. All I was saying to my noble friend Lord West and I say to others is that we have already increased the amount of defence spending and are already increasing available capabilities and taking action where a threat is made against us to defend our country, our people and the alliances to which we belong.

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, we still may sing “Rule Brittania”, but the reality is that our navy at present is, frankly, a national embarrassment. Obviously, we are glad that the “Prince of Wales” is now back in action, but will the Minister comment on newspaper reports that all our non-ballistic submarines are in dock and not available for current operations?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It has been well reported. I have said from this Dispatch Box, and the First Sea Lord has said it as well, that the availability of submarines is not where the Government would want it to be. That is why we are investing, for example, £4.5 billion in the dockyards in Plymouth. The dockyards in Plymouth need investment, the dockyards in Scotland need investment, and we are looking at that. We are also looking at original ways of seeing whether we can provide docking facilities to increase the availability of submarines by looking at various provisions that do not require building or rebuilding a whole new dock. The noble Lord is quite right to point out that we need to do better on the availability of submarines. Of course we do. We will not comment on exactly how, and the noble Lord would not expect me to, but of course availability needs to improve and we are looking at how we can do that.