Drones: RAF Bases

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is obviously a matter of real importance, and the defence review is looking at what we should do with respect to air defence in the round, including defence of the homeland, as the noble Baroness asks.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, this is a question not just of defence sites but of much wider national resilience. We have seen the extensive use of drones in Ukraine against non-military targets. Can the Minister reassure the House that the Government will look at this problem in that much wider context? Quite clearly, we cannot mount air defence systems around every single part of our critical national infrastructure, and we have to ensure that we have some other method of protecting them against this new threat.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that important comment, and I will make sure that it is reflected upon within the Ministry of Defence. He makes a really important point about air defence—of course that is an important aspect of it—but there are other ways of protecting our sites and other ways of conducting warfare. Ukraine has shown us the importance of hybrid warfare, and that certainly is something that the defence review will look at. But I will take his very important comments back to the MoD.