Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the review—I read the whole document—and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. The country is very lucky to have his expertise and leadership.

While I, like many noble Lords, am all for increased defence spending, I still cannot get my head around why the ODA budget was the only place we could find some of the money. The matter has been debated at length, but it is really hard to get away from the fact that the optics remain very poor, and this is not going to go away. But that is old news now.

The new news is our new slogan—“NATO first”. It is pretty catchy, but I think it is a communications mistake. There are 32 NATO member countries and none of them—not a single one—is using a slogan like “NATO first”. Why is it just us? It sends completely the wrong message that we are deprioritising other theatres, such as the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Just a couple of years ago we were travelling the world talking about the “Indo-Pacific tilt” and now it is “NATO first”. Of course, NATO is a priority and Russia is a threat, but why could we not have just stuck to something like “UK first”? Nobody would have minded that at all. Anyway, even if we accept the new branding, my single biggest concern is that we have not produced a single defence industry unicorn in this country yet—a tech company with a valuation of at least $1 billion. Not a single one has come out of the UK.

We have had many from the US, several in Germany and even one from Portugal, but none here. Whenever we talk about increased defence spending, we end up fattening the primes—that is what we do, each and every time. We need hardware, not just software, which is not from the primes. We need money to go to the smaller, innovative firms, not the primes. The review by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, in 1998 struggled with procurement, even back then, and today’s review still does. We do pilots with SMEs, but they never go into production. The fact is that spending money on defence innovation leads to advances across the entire economy. If we had not invested in the mid-20th century in integrated circuits and semiconductors for defence, we would have none of the consumer technologies that we have today.

Finally, while it is wonderful to see a renewed focus on tech and innovation, you cannot run a world-class defence force from a base where the wifi does not work and the plumbing is leaking. Let us please bring our bases into the 21st century. I have been to maybe a dozen across the country in the past 18 months, and almost all of them need help; from canteens to restrooms to social areas, we need a giant base renovation programme. I would love to hear the Minister’s views on that, and I am sure that he would agree that our soldiers deserve to come home to bases that reflect the pride that we have in them.

Unidentified Flying Objects

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Sarfraz]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, published on 25 June; and what data they hold on unidentified flying object sightings in the United Kingdom.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

My Lords, the Ministry of Defence notes the content of the report. The department holds no reports on unidentified aerial phenomena but constantly monitors UK airspace to identify and respond to any credible threat to its integrity, and is confident in the existing measures in place to protect it.

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, for decades, people who have been concerned with UFOs have been dismissed as fantasists, but now the US Director of National Intelligence, who oversees 17 intelligence agencies, has published a report saying that the data on UFOs is inconclusive. The report offers several possible explanations and does not rule out that these could be military aircraft with very advanced capabilities or even extraterrestrial phenomena. Either way, can the Minister reassure members of the public that the Ministry of Defence takes reports of unidentified flying objects in our airspace very seriously? Will she consider publishing a detailed assessment of the data that we hold?

Carrier Strike Group Deployment

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Wednesday 28th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I was just trying to race through the potted history of all this. As the noble Lord, Lord West, carefully and eloquently outlined, we all have an understanding of what this is about, and we all regard it as being positive. The key to this is that we recognise we are living in a world where we work more strongly with alliances and partnerships.

As the carrier strike group heads off in May, it will be the start of a series of important messages and an indication of a more persistent presence in the Indo-Pacific area. There are plans for how we achieve that, and there will be flexibility in how we take that forward.

The noble Lord may think some of the language is tub-thumping and perhaps Victorian in character. I think this is facing up to the realities of what 21st-century global opportunity is. There are opportunities, and that is one of the reasons for the carrier strike group deploying. It is also a realistic assessment of the new order of things in the Indo-Pacific area and a desire to work with our allies and partners in recognising and addressing that.

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, growing up, one of my fondest memories was visiting naval ships on good-will tours. Our carrier strike group will be visiting 40 countries. Due to Covid, I imagine we will have restrictions on visitor open days, but will my noble friend the Minister tell us whether we have thought of alternative, maybe even virtual, means to show the flag during this tour?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point. This entire deployment has been planned with a sharp eye on the possible implications of the pandemic. I reassure both my noble friend and the Chamber that we are deploying the carrier strike group mindful of the risks of Covid-19. We are working hard within the strike group itself and alongside nations that we hope to engage with during the deployment to ensure that we implement and understand the current safety measures and requirements, and can plan activity accordingly. But he makes a good point: what is plan B if, for any reason, the pandemic intervenes in an unwelcome fashion? We will look to ensure that we maximise engagement, as far as possible. We will be creative and innovative and, yes, use virtual means where appropriate.