Defence Policy: Deterrence

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Trefgarne is right to pose his vital Question. It gets to the heart of what a defence capability is, as he, the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, so clearly described.

On defence capability, it is not enough to want one, it is certainly not enough to talk about one, and there is no point in having one unless it deters. I say to your Lordships that, for me, this all came into sharp relief when Scotland was confronted by the independence referendum in 2014. One of the strongest arguments for staying within the United Kingdom was defence and security, and the attempt by those seeking independence to explain what the defence capability of an independent Scotland would be was risible: no nuclear deterrent, a tiny presence of maritime assets with no strategic purpose, a very small military infantry with negligible assets and a virtually non-existent air capability. As for cyber and space, that was far too far in the future to be worrying about.

The question that such a depleted resource begged was: what is the point of having it? It did not deter, it offered no meaningful contribution to our allies and it was of little interest to NATO. However, this usefully demonstrated that you would actually be better off not having a capability, spending the money on something else and hoping that better-resourced friends would come to your aid if necessary. That is of course not where any of us would want to be and, thankfully, not where the majority of voters in the referendum wanted to be, so independence was rejected.

In fairness to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I thought then and still think now that the UK has a strong defence capability. Our continuous at-sea deterrent is at the disposal of NATO, one of only two nuclear powers offering that support. We have invested in the Navy, have modernised equipment for the Army and are actively progressing a successor to Typhoon. Importantly, we have also invested in the new domains of cyber and space. I have to say that I become angry when politicians of whatever stripe diminish that strength, and it is certainly unhelpful for a government Minister to call our capability into question. In fairness to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, I have never been aware of him doing that.

Underpinning that capability by maintaining investment, demonstrating credibility and ensuring that our deterrent posture is clear requires both vigilance and action by the Government. That is why their attitude to defence, as confirmed by yesterday’s Budget, has got us to a very undesirable position. To talk incessantly about lifting defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP, to tell everyone in sight that that is your political resolve, to raise a reasonable expectation that you will flesh out the timeline and the trajectory in the Autumn Statement and then to lapse into a deafening silence is deeply damaging on all fronts. By placing a question mark over both the timing and the level of strategic resource for defence, the Government are undermining credibility, and that immediately impacts on our ability to deter. Our allies need to know that they can trust us and that we are solid. Our adversaries need to see that investment and know that we shall not hesitate to deploy our capability when the need arises.

Later today we shall discuss more specifically the 2.5% of GDP in the debate of my noble friend Lord Trenchard, but in my opinion yesterday’s Budget was not good news for defence. It has diminished our stature, impugned our credibility and weakened our deterrence posture. I urge the Minister to use his wisdom and considerable clout to get the Government to review the position.