Defence Spending

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will first have to tell me how long an elephant’s pregnancy is— I have absolutely no idea whether that is good news or bad news, and I do not know whether anybody else does.

The noble Baroness makes a serious point, challenging the Government on the defence investment plan. I say to this House and to the noble Baroness, who I know takes a keen interest and is very supportive of defence overall, that the defence investment plan will be published when we are in a position to have made the necessary choices to deliver the war-fighting readiness that we want and the capability to fight if we need to, now, in the middle term and in the long term. There are in-year choices that we are dealing with, and the chiefs are fully involved in the discussion and debate on how we take that forward.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, who I am pleased to see has just taken his place, said in answer to a previous Question in this House that any increase in the defence budget beyond 2.5% is a matter for the next Parliament and anything beyond 3% is a matter for the Parliament beyond that. Does the Minister realise that this is a wholly irresponsible attitude? If we are to achieve 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035 in a sensible, graduated manner that expands the defence industrial base in this country at a sensible pace, along with military capability, we need a plan for doing it now, and it needs to start today, not in 2030.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference 2026

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I strongly agree with the noble Lord’s analysis. The NPT is an essential cornerstone of global security. I suggest that in many ways it has been particularly successful. I was looking at the figures earlier on. In 1986, there were an estimated 70,300 nuclear warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and the most recent figure I could find was 12,241. Although there are challenges, as the noble Lord points out, we have managed in many ways to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to ensure that, as far as possible, the architecture of the post-war world remains the same. However, the noble Lord is right to point out the challenges, and this country, along with our allies and friends, will do all we can to ensure that the NPT remains successful and that all three pillars are pursued.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

I endorse the Minister’s comments about the tragic loss of Lance Corporal Hooley and express sympathy to the lance corporal’s family and friends. What analysis have the Government made of the likely impact on non-proliferation efforts of the wholly inadequate response of the international community to Russia’s violation of the Budapest memorandum through its annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its subsequent war of aggression in Ukraine?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his comments, and I should have thanked the noble Baroness for associating herself with the remarks that I made about the tragic death of our serviceman. The lesson I think we should learn as a country is that it is important for us to reassert and re-establish the principle of deterrence. Part of preventing war is actually preparing for war. The whole success of the deterrent is the fact that the nuclear deterrent is there—the theory of deterrence. I think what happened following the Budapest arrangements, the withdrawal of nuclear weapons there, is perhaps a lesson for us that sometimes a position of strength allows you to negotiate and pursue peace more effectively than in the alternative way.

Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: it is an important matter and a radical proposal, and it is to do with the new threats we face as a country. We cannot any longer simply carry on as we always have done, so the proposals in this strategic defence review are radical and serious, and we intend to deliver them. One way that we intend to do that is to start to talk to the population of this country about the need for us all to wake up to the threat we face. That will require many of the actions that the noble Lord pointed out, and we intend to come forward with proposals in due course.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, recent surveys suggest that there is weak to no openness among Generation Z to engage with defence or security issues. Going further on what the Minister has just said about talking to people, does he agree that any whole-of-society approach to defence must, as a precursor, require the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces more widely to reconnect with societal attitudes in this country, particularly among young people? If he does agree, can he say in more detail how the Government intend to go about this?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree very much with the noble and gallant Lord’s points. As he said, the reconnection between the military and the civilian population is crucial. The one positive thing I would say is that, just a few weeks ago, like many noble Lords, I was at the remembrance events, where up and down the country tens of thousands of young people were remembering the sacrifice made in the past. They were Scouts, Guides, cadets and Reserve Forces—all of those. That is not a solution to the problem, but it points the way forward. It is one thing we should celebrate, as well as looking at the challenges we still face. The noble and gallant Lord will also know that we look to extend and expand the reserve and cadet forces. That will take some doing, but we are determined to do it.

Ukraine

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, it is extraordinarily difficult for most people in this country to get an accurate feel for what is really happening in Ukraine. Where are we after three and a half years of intense combat? All estimates of territorial gains and casualties must of course be treated with caution, as there are no completely reliable or definitive sources, but conservative judgment suggests that the Russian offensive of 2025 netted something like an additional 0.4% of Ukrainian territory. Average Russian daily advances in sectors such as Kharkiv have been smaller than those that the British Army achieved at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and they have taken no objectives of strategic significance—although Pokrovsk now seems to be under serious threat. All of this at a cost of just under, or perhaps well over, 100,000 Russian dead. Total Russian casualties since March 2022 probably now number around 1 million. The number of dead is likely to be approaching a quarter of a million and, importantly, more than 5,000 officers have been killed, a significant proportion of whom were the lieutenants and captains who provide the critical tactical leadership in a Russian army that lacks a strong non-commissioned officer cadre.

It is just as hard to estimate Ukrainian losses, but military deaths since March 2022 may come close to 100,000. This is significantly fewer than the number of Russian casualties, but of course the Ukrainian population is commensurately smaller. I have not so far mentioned civilian deaths, the damage caused by indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children and the vast quantity of Russian military equipment that has so far been destroyed. The sum total of devastation and human misery is appalling, and it is little surprise that people want it to end.

I focus on the horrific statistics of the war because they carry another, different message: even if there is a ceasefire at or around the then existing battlefield positions, it will not be peace. Peace occurs when there is a political settlement that gives both sides sufficient stake in maintaining the post-conflict status quo rather than seeking to overturn it. That will not be the case with such a ceasefire. Ukraine cannot in the long term accept the loss of a significant part of its territory and citizens as a consequence of the naked aggression that has killed so many of its people and devastated the country. Putin will not accept a situation that so signally fails to achieve his strategic objective at such a horrendous cost.

At the least, the war would for a time move back into the grey zone. We will be faced with the modern equivalent of the inner German border of the Cold War running across Ukraine, with armed camps on either side. The Russians will certainly not demilitarise, and the inward investment so necessary to the reconstruction of Ukraine will not be made if there is inadequate capacity there to deter or defend against further Russian aggression. More widely, Russia’s attempts to destabilise and undermine NATO will continue, and it will rearm as rapidly as possible in order to threaten western security and attempt to isolate Ukraine. We will at best have an armed pause, not peace.

Meanwhile, the events of the past few years will have driven another nail into the coffin of nuclear non-proliferation, if they have not already sounded its death knell. Which state in possession of nuclear weapons would now be mad enough to give them up, having seen how the international community has treated the deal that Ukraine struck in Budapest in 1994? We must be clear-eyed about the likely future. It will be perilous. It will require strength and resolution if we are to avoid, or at least contain, the dangers it poses. NATO must continue to rebuild its deterrent posture. Members of the alliance, including the UK, must match their rhetoric on defence with the commensurate investment—and that investment must be made urgently, not at some indeterminate point in the future, which seems to be the current plan of His Majesty’s Government.

Those who advocate a rapid negotiated end to the fighting must recognise that it would not be the end of the war. Those who imagine that it would mean a return to business as usual must understand that the long-term context for European strategy has fundamentally changed because of the events of 2022. Facing the consequences squarely will be difficult and expensive; failing to do so would be catastrophic.

Undersea Cables: National Security Threat

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We certainly should develop one, and we are developing one. My noble friend is right to highlight that. We are undertaking a number of actions including surveillance aircraft from Lossiemouth, the ship “Proteus” looking at how it protects underwater assets, and the Royal Navy ship “Stirling Castle” looking at how it might operate drones from its deck to secure underwater pipelines, data cables and so on. We are doing a lot, but my noble friend is right to point out the importance of this.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, Ireland is a crucial hub for undersea infrastructure crossing the Atlantic, but it lacks the capabilities to defend against and be resilient to the destruction of that infrastructure. Moreover, its individual tailored partnership programme with NATO is coming increasingly under threat with recent political shifts in Irish leadership. What assessment have the Government made of the UK’s vulnerabilities to Ireland’s position, and what plans do they have for developing a resilience strategy in that regard in future?

Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the authors of this thoughtful review, and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, on his eloquent and powerful presentation of it today. The key arguments it makes are compelling, and the recommendations are, in the main, well judged. There are, of course, points of detail that are open to debate, and these will no doubt be the subject of further scrutiny as the Government develop their policy in response to the conclusions.

In the limited time available today, I want to focus on the issue that threatens to undermine the effectiveness of the whole review: the Government’s unwillingness to face up to the urgency of the financial consequences. The authors were, of course, constrained throughout by the financial assumptions they were given, but, even so, their analysis demonstrates clearly that we face a quantitative as well as qualitative challenge. NATO has since agreed that these can be addressed successfully only by its members committing 3.5% of GDP to defence, and the Prime Minister has agreed that the UK will meet this target by 2035. However, the Government’s current proposition is that defence spending will be increased to 2.5%, or perhaps 2.6% of GDP, by 2027, and anything in the eight years beyond that remains vague and uncertain. In an answer to me at the Dispatch Box just last week, the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, confirmed that an increase to 3% of GDP remains only an aspiration and a matter for the next Parliament and that any further increases are for the Parliament after next; that is, around 2034 and beyond.

This is wholly unrealistic for a number of reasons. The first, of course, is the urgency of the need. On current assumptions, only about 3% of the total defence funding for the remainder of this Parliament will be available to fund the crucial capabilities identified in the review. On that basis, many of the proposed improvements will not be made until well into the 2030s, including the remediation of some of our current, very serious vulnerabilities.

The second reason is the need to build up the scale of defence orders over a number of years, matching them to the necessary growth in industrial capacity. If this is not done, if industry is faced with a sudden cascade of orders in the 2030s, the consequence will be a dramatic increase in defence inflation, seriously undermining the value of any budget increases. We have already seen this damaging phenomenon as a consequence of the demands of the war in Ukraine.

Finally, there is the wider fiscal position. There are only three ways of paying for an increase in the defence budget: taxation, borrowing or a reallocation of public expenditure. Increases in taxation, which look inevitable, are likely to be consumed almost entirely in sustaining the viability of the economy overall. This is already challenging given the high and volatile cost of servicing the national debt, so the scope for further borrowing looks very limited.

That leaves a reappraisal of public expenditure. We were spending 4% of GDP on defence in the early 1990s. By 2024, that had reduced to 2.3%, although accounting changes over the interim period mean that it would be more like 2.1% in 1990s terms. By 2023, health and social security accounted for about 41% of total managed public expenditure, while defence took just 4.8%. That latter share would need to increase to about 7.2% to bring the defence budget up to 3.5% of GDP. This would equate to a 5% reduction in total health and social security spending. Considering the scale of the challenge and the difficulty of the various options, it is clear that the kind of restructuring I believe is necessary could not be carried out quickly, so the process needs to start soon if we are to be anywhere near 3.5% of GDP for defence by 2035. As yet, however, there is no sign of any urgency on any side of the political divide on addressing this crucial matter. This is surely the key issue for public policy and debate over the coming months because unless it is resolved, and resolved quickly, the excellent work that has gone into this review will be wasted and the country will be left ill prepared for the risks it will face in this complex and dangerous world.

Afghanistan

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. My understanding—and there are better lawyers in here than I—is that the Ministers would have believed themselves to be subject to the injunction and the super-injunction, and that would constrain what they would or would not be able to say. But now that we have gone to the High Court to say that we believe the time is right for that super-injunction to be lifted, and the court has agreed with us, we are able to debate and discuss the very points that my noble friend has raised. No doubt these are the questions that, over the coming days, weeks and months, I and others will be asked to account for—quite rightly.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, it has been stated again and again that the person responsible for the loss of data thought that the spreadsheet contained a small number of names, whereas it actually contained a very large number of names. Surely this is irrelevant. It is the fact that it was used on a non-departmental system, not the number of names, that constitutes the breach. This has been presented as an individual failing, but one cannot help but notice that it seems to have originated in the same part of the Ministry of Defence which contemporaneously was making some rather questionable judgments and decisions about the so-called Triples, which must raise questions in people’s minds about the overall degree of supervision and direction of that part of the Ministry of Defence. Can the Minister reassure the House that this is being looked at in that wider context?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for this important question, which the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goldie, also asked, as to how on earth this could have happened. First of all, it was really important to ascertain whether there was any criminal or malign intent. The previous Government were quite right to refer that to the police for investigation. As I have already said, the police found that there was no evidence of any criminal or malign intent. Alongside that, it was referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The answer to the noble and gallant Lord’s question is the whole of the statement that the Information Commissioner’s Office made yesterday about its investigation into what happened, and into the way in which the Ministry of Defence has changed many of the processes that it had in place and its management arrangements to ensure as far as possible that we would not see that again. The importance of that is the independence of the Information Commissioner’s Office looking at what the MoD was doing, rather than the MoD marking its own homework.

UK Weapons Systems

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I am going to either pass or fail this exam. As it stands, we have 41 F35Bs, and by March 2026 we should have 48. That is what is called the first procurement phase. The F35As will be brought within the second procurement phase, which will take the whole F35 programme from 48 to 75. That is an additional 27 aircraft, of which 12 will be F35As and 15 will be F35Bs. I will give a further answer in response to the noble Lord, Lord West, by saying that they will form part of an operational group. The F35As will go to that group, which will free up the F35Bs that are currently doing that training exercise with them. So the carrier and others will always have the full complement of F35Bs that they need.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the security of this country against major threats in high-intensity warfare is based on our membership of NATO, and that within NATO we rely upon many of our partners to provide crucial capabilities —not least, for example, a number of strategic capabilities that at the moment only the Americans provide? So, in terms of warfighting, to be too nice on the point of purely national capabilities does not make sense.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree with what the noble and gallant Lord has just said. It is an important point to make, and I should have made it to the noble Lord from the Liberal Benches: of course our alliances matter and are important. We have a shared interest in the geopolitical threats that we face, and the noble and gallant Lord is quite right to point that out. I say again, as I often do from this Dispatch Box, that the US is our prime ally. The US is our most important ally. It is the ally that we depend on to work with to guarantee our security in Europe and across the globe. We should celebrate the closeness of that relationship, as we should celebrate the closeness of our relationships with all our friends and allies in Europe and beyond.

80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the commemoration of VE Day this week was a particularly poignant one, since it was probably the last major landmark at which we will see significant numbers of veterans. When the last human link to the Second World War is gone, there is a danger that the trauma of that time will move from being a lived community experience to a dry historical fact. If we allow that to happen, the lessons of history become weakened, and we increase the risk of repeating past mistakes. Remembrance is thus crucial to our understanding of not just the past but the present, and the perils of the future. Much of this week has been about remembering the courses and conduct of the war. However, important though that is, we must go further.

One of my regrets about the centenary commemorations of the First World War is that they largely ended with the anniversary of November 1918, marking the end of the fighting. We would have done well to reflect much more than we did on the diplomatic and political failures of 1919 onwards, which set the conditions for the subsequent catastrophe that unfolded in the 1930s and 1940s.

The aftermath of the Second World War was very different. The effort that went into reconstructing societies, rebuilding political trust and creating an international order formed the context in which we have lived our lives ever since. That is the legacy of the Second World War generation, but that legacy is now at risk. Aggressive war is once more being waged in Europe. Meanwhile, the umbrella of American might under which we have sheltered for so long is looking, to say the least, somewhat leaky. We in Europe have for years neglected our own military power, relying on others to make up the deficit. Now we are being measured by events and found wanting, as we were in the 1930s.

NATO protected our societies through the long, testing years of the Cold War and it remains the best, indeed the only, credible instrument for ensuring our future security. But it is a different NATO from the one we have been used to. It is a NATO that must recognise the substantial shift of American power from Europe to the Indo-Pacific, a shift that will continue whoever occupies the White House. It is a NATO in which European members must shoulder a much greater share of the burden for their own security than they have done for many years.

There is growing acceptance of this truth, but we still fail to accept the consequences. The first is the need for us in Europe, particularly those with the larger economies, to spend much more on defence. By much more, I do not mean marginal increases but something in the order of twice what we currently spend. The second consequence is the need for a way of funding, developing, procuring and operating the strategic military capabilities for which we have for too long been over-reliant on the United States. It cannot be NATO, because not all members of the alliance are European. It cannot be the EU, because not all members of the EU are in NATO and not all European members of NATO are in the EU.

The Brussels-based think tank, Bruegel, recently published a paper proposing a different solution: a European defence mechanism. This would be a procurement agency that would in specified areas plan, fund and potentially own strategic enablers, which could then be committed to NATO. It would be achieved through an intergovernmental treaty along the lines of that which set up the European stability mechanism in response to Covid. Importantly, it would enable the UK to engage in the improvement of European defence capabilities as an equal partner, not as an adjunct to the EU—with all the limitations that come with such a status. This is the kind of innovative thinking we so desperately need in response to the serious challenges we face, and I commend it to the Minister.

This is a particularly appropriate moment to consider such matters. This week we commemorate the efforts and sacrifices of those who served this country, and European security more widely, throughout the Second World War. Yet there could surely be no better act of commemoration than safeguarding their legacy for future generations by ensuring the continued defence of the freedoms for which so many of them, like Sergeant Coaker, paid such a bitter price.

Future Defence Capability

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The Chagos deal is extremely important for our own security and that of the US. When the deal is finalised, it will be put before Parliament with the costings and then Parliament can debate it. The future of the base at Diego Garcia, which is crucial to us and our allies, is secured, and that is the important point of any deal that is finalised.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister said the ministry will put “NATO first”. NATO, through SACEUR, has defined the force structure it believes necessary if the alliance is to deter Russian aggression. It has also set out the contribution it wishes the UK to make to that force structure. What action has the Ministry of Defence taken to cost NATO’s request, and how does it compare to our currently available military capabilities?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My understanding is that discussions have taken place between ourselves and NATO and SACEUR about the capabilities that they would expect from us. We are currently looking at both the cost and our ability to provide the capabilities. It is my understanding that those negotiations are still under way. If that is incorrect, I will write to the noble and gallant Lord.