Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord McCabe, on his excellent maiden speech. May I also say how wonderful it is to see the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, in his place again?

I agree with practically everything that the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, said in his speech. I think that his review is largely excellent—although I share, as must anyone who has studied it, the anxieties expressed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about the requirements for the urgency and clarity of the financial profile of how these very expensive matters will be dealt with. I also shared many of the points of the speech from my noble friend Lord De Mauley, on whose committee I am honoured to sit, and in particular his views about the Reserve Forces, which really are such a fantastic asset to this country and so grotesquely underused.

The publication of the strategic defence review sets out with great clarity the nature of the threats in one single place. As it makes plain, the truth is that we are already embroiled in a one-sided war, under constant threat and sometimes open attack from the Kremlin. Most people think that we are not yet at war with Russia—and of course we are not—but Russia is at war with us and the whole of western Europe. Indeed, we are subject in this country to daily attacks, via efforts to manipulate information and undermine social cohesion and political will, and they will become worse—and they are highly effective.

Trying to make the public aware of the very pressing dangers is almost impossible because, quite understandably, nobody really wants to hear it. This is one particular part of the defence review that is very important. We need a whole-society effort to counter all this and to boost our resilience and preparedness. I strongly agree with the noble Lord on that part of the report and also with a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said in his admirable speech. It is imperative for the Government to take funded action and ensure that Britain is seen to understand the threat. It is not enough for security experts to issue warnings on television or for newspapers to publish urgent editorials. The truth is—and the task is—that we have to permeate the public consciousness. Unless the public have some idea of the sense of urgency, the only way really to wake people up will be to establish either a Minister or ministry of civil defence, charged with training millions of people on how to respond to an attack.

The first priority is information. Right now, for instance, most people have no idea of what to do in the event of a cyberattack that knocks out the internet or the mobile phone network. The next step is to build up natural resilience. We saw during Covid how quickly people were to panic. Every home ought to have a back-up of food as standard, and every household should have information about the basic steps that they should take. In my judgment, the national resilience question ranks at the very forefront of the challenges facing this country now. After all, our communications networks are being hacked; our social media is flooded with disinformation; our free elections are targeted; our undersea cables are cut; our military bases are buzzed by drones; our infrastructure has been sabotaged; assassinations have been carried out on British soil; financial and media companies are regularly blacked out; and bombs have been placed on cargo flights. Resilience does not just apply to the civilian population; it also applies to the military of all three services and the many excellent civilians who support them.

I conclude with a question to our excellent Defence Minister in the Lords: what sort of sign does it give to those on the front line, in Estonia, where things could slip over into real trouble, that we, Britain, should reduce our contribution to that very admirable force that has done so much good there? What confidence can it give to our allies that Britain should reduce its contribution at a time of really grave need?