King’s Speech

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, when I read in the Times last week that the Prime Minister was going to announce an £18 billion increase in defence expenditure, I thought, “At last, the Government are going to put their money where their mouth is”. But, of course, I was disappointed. Once again, we are going to have to rely on words, which basically means that Britain’s reputation as a military power continues to go down the plughole. Not even the powerful and patriotic rhetoric of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, can do anything about that.

The figures speak for themselves. NATO data shows that, on a proportional basis, the United Kingdom was the 12th biggest spender last year, having been the third biggest in 2021. At present, we are spending 2.4% of GDP on defence, which is way below the target that we have set ourselves. Given how much the nuclear element takes up, the proportion going on conventional forces is little over 1%.

This not only means—as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, so forcefully put it—being unprepared for war and finding it difficult to deal with the cyber and other espionage threats that already assail us, but makes a mockery of the Government’s ambition to play a leading role in foreign policy and security deliberations with our European allies. It explains, too, our pitiful lack of resources in the Middle East when the US and Israel attacked Iran. Of course, it also explains President Trump’s contempt for what we have to offer.

I do not blame this Government alone for the predicament we are in. It is the culmination of a long retreat. In 1998, the former United States ambassador to London, Ray Seitz, whom I hope others as well as I remember with affection and admiration, warned that “the British miniaturisation of its own Armed Forces” would lead to a reduction in British influence in Washington. Not only in Washington: the same applies in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and all over the world. By miniaturising our military, we are throwing away an invaluable diplomatic card. This Government are not the only ones to blame for us being where we are, but they are to blame for not doing anything to reverse the process.

The Government’s failure to rebuild our defence preparedness is not the only way that they are failing to provide for this country’s security; the failure fully to exploit our North Sea oil and gas reserves is another. Many noble Lords have spoken about this during the course of the week-long debate on the gracious Speech, so I will not labour the point. However, I will say that, whatever the security benefits of green energy and renewables in the long run, we shall need fossil fuels for a long time to come and it is in the interests of our own security that as much as possible of those fuels should come from our own resources in the North Sea.

Wood Mackenzie has estimated that, by 2035, we will be importing 60% of our LNG needs from the United States, versus 10% in 2026. I hate to say it but, when one sees how casually President Trump interrupts or impedes trade flows or takes other actions when an ally displeases him for some reason, how can we regard that as secure, quite apart from all the other dangers that threaten the international trade in oil and gas?