Future Capability of the Armed Forces

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, a week ago in the Times, Andy Burnham wrote that

“increasing our national security … will be my first priority”.

It made me ask: does he really mean this? This Government have had loads of top priorities. The current Prime Minister has said:

“Growth is the number one priority”.


The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, told the House that the

“absolute priority for the Government”

is

“to have a water Bill”.—[Official Report, 6/1/26; col. 1046.]

The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, disagreed: she told this House that “making creative careers accessible” was the Government’s “key priority”. I have a whole dossier of number one priorities tossed out by government Ministers, all utterly meaningless.

I have to ask myself: does Andy Burnham mean what he says? Is he really going to give a cast-iron guarantee that service chiefs will get the equipment and resources to meet our NATO commitments? Is he really prepared to make the money available, and for domestic programmes to take the hit—and, if so, which ones? In the annual spending round, Ministers have to pit the claims of their department against the competing claims of other departments. If one department is always to get its way, you would no longer be evaluating its bid for more money. By the way, which departments win and which lose does not always depend on a rational evaluation. It also depends on who has the political weight in the Government and the Cabinet.

I hope Andy Burnham means what he says and will throw his weight in support of defence, but that will mean standing up to his Back-Benchers, which the current Prime Minister has failed to do, most notably on welfare reform. He needs to do it. We have had warning after warning from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, about this. We are highly vulnerable to Russia on the warpath, not just potential military attack but attacks on our domestic infrastructure that could bring down our energy networks, our banking and financial systems and the day-to-day life of the whole country.

Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister next week. We will eventually have the opportunity to question and challenge the new Government in this House. The House has great respect for the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, so I very much hope that the Defence Minister in this House in the new Government will still be the noble Lord.