G7 Summit

Lord True Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

We are supporting families with the summer savings package, so that they can spend time together this August. We are banning social media for children to keep them safe, lifting half a million people out of poverty, boosting workers’ rights and renters’ rights, and bringing down NHS waiting lists at the highest rate for 17 years. This Government are focused on what really matters: serving the national interest and delivering for the British people. I commend this Statement to the House”.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Lord Privy Seal for being here to answer questions on this Statement. In these uncertain times, I wish her well for continuation in office—and the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms, who has run away but I hope will be back.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord True (Con)]

The Statement was made by someone who did not attend the summit and in the absence of the Prime Minister—a decent man forced from office by self-interested colleagues who owed their place in Parliament to him. As someone else once said at that same podium in Downing Street, “them’s the breaks”. Many unkind things were said back then about my right honourable friend Boris Johnson, not least in this House. It was “a good day”, one allegedly impartial former official deplorably gloated. I will not follow the road of rejoicing in another’s downfall. I place on record my thanks to Sir Keir Starmer for his service to our country, even if the results were not always quite as perfect as this Statement claimed. Indeed, can the Minister tell us why on earth he is going if everything is as amazing as the Statement says?

At the summit, Sir Keir maintained the unflinching support that he has given to Ukraine, so vigorously begun by the reviled Mr Johnson. We support that stand and will uphold the unity of this House on it. Conduct of foreign policy will now fall to the first Prime Minister since Lord Home to assume office without facing the electorate at the preceding general election. If we do not have a clue what he thinks, heaven help our allies. If he fails to make a dispassionate assessment of the poor choices that led to Sir Keir’s resignation, he risks repeating those mistakes and leaving us in a doom loop of lost opportunity. The same old Labour, with tax and spend policies that were out of date even in the 1970s, will deliver the same dismal outcomes.

We are told in the Statement that the Prime Minister made Britain safer and rebuilt Britain’s reputation around the world. Really? Endless delays to the defence investment plan have not made us safer. With continued instability in the Middle East, war in Europe and an increasingly reckless Russia, any further delay in the defence investment plan is unacceptable. Can the noble Baroness tell us today when it will be published?

The stunning resignations of the Defence Secretary and the Veterans Minister did not enhance our reputation in the world. Two principled men, actually the best of the Labour Party, laid bare a bitter truth—their view, not ours—that a Government overdosing on welfare spending were unable or unwilling to find money for defence. It is a shambles. What on earth will the Prime Minister tell NATO on 7 July?

Mr Carns in his statement was also devastating about the injustice of the legal pursuit of our Northern Ireland Army veterans and the folly of the so-called remedial order. That was being rushed forward so the Prime Minister could offer up our compliance with the ECHR at the so-called EU reset summit. That has now been delayed, so can the noble Baroness tell the House that that vindictive order will also be shelved?

We welcome good news in the Statement on foreign direct investment from France, India and Japan. We welcome the free trade agreement with India. This is the Britain we want, opening to the wider world. But foreign direct investment cannot offset the devastating impact of Labour’s domestic policies. If we want real growth, the next Prime Minister must change course.

Change in terms of security is needed too to Mr Miliband’s obsessive pursuit of net zero. Did the House notice the outcome of the election in Aberdeen South? Working people want our North Sea open. Working people want to exploit our own energy resources and the jobs the oil and gas industry brings. We have heard it here from the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, and others. We have heard it from the secretary-general of Unite. For once, they and we are united in a common-sense cause: we must open the North Sea.

Speaking of common sense, I think the noble Baroness knows how pleased we are that this House stopped the disastrous Chagos deal. Did the Prime Minister try to resurrect this in any way at the summit, or is this turkey now dead?

We hope progress in the US-Iran talks will end barriers to free navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. We all want peace in the Middle East, but we must not soften our stance on the murderous regime in Tehran. We have been far too slow to take action on the IRGC, although I welcome steps now being undertaken. Will the noble Baroness confirm that we will remain in lockstep with our US allies in ensuring Iran never has a nuclear weapon? Can she tell us when the Franco-British action in the Gulf and the strait will begin?

We agree that more should be done to ensure civilian aid gets through in Gaza and indeed Lebanon; it must flow more smoothly. But we are also clear in our view that Israel had and has a right to defend itself. Was I alone in thinking it truly astonishing that, in 360 words on the Middle East in this Statement, there was not a single word of condemnation of terrorist Hezbollah and terrorist Hamas? Instead, the Deputy Prime Minister said that Israel must tone down what he called “inflammatory language”. What are they supposed to say of the butchers of Jewish babies?

On illegal immigration, the Deputy Prime Minister promised to build on our 2018 Sandhurst agreement with France, and we welcome that. In contrast, this Government’s so-called one-in, one-out policy had to be rewritten after illegal migrants once removed returned to the UK. Can the noble Baroness tell us how many criminal gangs have been smashed?

Finally, the Statement referred with regret to the 10th anniversary of Brexit. Some people, it seems, will never accept the verdict of the British people or own that the fast first Covid vaccine, the free trade deal with India we have just heard about, the summer holidays VAT measure and so much else would never have been possible without that vote. I must test the tolerance of the House by declaring I voted for our freedom to choose our own destiny 10 years ago, and I would do so again. We need to look to the future, not plunge back to past battles. I wish the next Prime Minister well, but it is not a change of Prime Minister that this country needs, it is a change of Government.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Lord Privy Seal for allowing this Statement to be repeated in your Lordships’ House. Self-evidently, I am standing in for the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and it is a great—and unusual—pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord True. It is, in fact, somewhat appropriate that a stand-in should be making this speech, as the original speech was also made by a stand-in in the other place. As a result, this Statement is unusually suffused with praise for Sir Keir. With respect, I will avoid those sections and try to pick the bones out of the bits that actually refer to the G7 meeting.

Starting with Ukraine, all of us join in the condemnation of the hit on the 11th-century Pechersk Lavra, but the greater cost is the hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries sustained by the Ukrainian people since the full invasion started. What this hit on the church underlines, however, is the very poor guidance of many Russian ballistic missiles. Hundreds of missiles are being projected in the direction of Ukraine, with no sense of limiting civilian casualties. The Statement is, however, right to characterise the battlefield as one where the fortunes seem to be turning. The Ukrainian mastery of drone warfare has established a 25 kilometre-plus wide kill zone, through which the Russians are finding progress has been halted in a very deadly way. But when I met the Ukrainian parliamentarians last month, they were at pains to spell out the danger they face from ballistic missiles and the need for more anti-ballistic defence. Russia has thousands of missiles that have yet to be fired. Europe has responded to some extent to that plea for help, but following the Iran conflict, defence systems are at a premium. It was clear from my visit 10 days ago to the factory in the USA where Patriot missiles are manufactured that the global shortage of such defensive weapons will be only very slowly filled—too slow for the Ukrainian people.

That is why anything we do in Europe to work together to design and manufacture alternative defence systems is really important. In the short term, it would help Ukraine; in the medium term, it would help the Baltic states and the rest of Europe. Can the Lord Privy Seal tell your Lordships’ House what progress has been made in sourcing European anti-ballistic weapons? She may need to write to me with that answer.

Sanctions also remain important. Given the seeming changes to the Middle East, when will the Government hurry up and apply sanctions to Russian-refined jet fuel? Also, did the Government raise at the G7 the proposal of using frozen Russian assets around the world to support Ukraine? If not, why not?

Turning to the Middle East, the Statement offers no new information. The key question is how any international coalition with the French can possibly operate safely when we are only a Truth Social posting away from a deadly flare-up. What is the government thinking on that? I am sure fellow Peers will have noted comments from the Iranians about tolls through the Strait of Hormuz. That was to be expected, but President Trump has been publicly musing on levying fees to protect tankers. Both options are equally unacceptable and have been reinforced overnight. Can the Minister assure your Lordships that the US ambassador has been made aware that we do not support any such protection racket as that proposed by President Trump?

It is clear that the situations in Lebanon and Gaza remain unacceptable to the people living there, and destabilising to any possible settlement with Iran. The Statement says that bringing all partners together is the Government’s aim. Can the Minister please update your Lordships House on any actions that have been taken to bring people together in the last few months?

It is disappointing but typical that the terrible conflict in Sudan seems to have been ignored again.

On illegal migration, I would only note that, were we once again to have full access to all the policing and immigration data we used to have before Brexit, the number of boats would more likely fall to their low level before we left the European Union.

That swiftly moves us on to the final part of the Statement, on growth and investment. Speaking nine months ago, before he was burdened with any realistic chance of leadership, Andy Burnham openly referred to Brexit as a disaster and blamed it for making aspirations harder to achieve in Britain. He revealed his wish to see the UK rejoin at some point, but it was reported that he remained pragmatic about how long this would take.

Once Andy Burnham moves his bandwagon into No. 10 Downing Street and opens the books, he will see the full extent of the damage done to the life chances of ordinary people thanks to Brexit. At that point, I suggest his truly pragmatic action would be to accelerate things. I invite him to adopt the Liberal Democrats’ plan for the UK to join the customs union and re-enter the single market. We would be very willing to help him if he wishes to do that. Instead of urgency, however, everything is on hold. Yesterday’s events have caused the UK-EU summit planned for 22 July to be postponed. Does the Lord Privy Seal share my disappointment that even the partial progress expected from that summit is now delayed? Does she agree that the sooner we act to get closer to our real allies in the EU, the better the chances for growth and the more secure the United Kingdom will be?