Russian Ship “Yantar”

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. We are trying to do a whole range of different things. He will know that, as well as the measures that I have talked about against the “Yantar”, we have Operation Baltic Sentry—in the Baltic Sea, obviously—which is NATO monitoring, run from Northwood, to track what is going on there. We have Nordic Warden, which is a JEF operation as well, with maritime capabilities, alongside P-8s. There is a whole range of different things that are taking place. The defence investment plan will be published this year; let us see what is in that in terms of the increase in capability to deal with this threat.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I understand the difficulty of the Minister; I am not trying to stir things up, I assure him. But supposing a laser had brought down the aircraft by disabling the pilot, what would we consider that? Would we consider it an act of war?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

To be clear, I am not in any difficulty answering the question from the noble Lord, but I will not speculate at the Dispatch Box about what we would do if this or that happened. The noble Lord has much more experience in military matters than I do, so he will recognise how serious it would be if I misspoke in answer to his question. So I am not evading the question but, in the interest of the country, it is sometimes best to have these discussions in private.