Defence Spending and Resilience

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree with all that. The campaign certainly needs to be sustained and it needs to take place over a significant period of time. We need to involve all the community, and schools in particular. Discussions are under way with local forums, with local education bodies, with schools themselves and with teacher representatives, to try to understand what the best way is of doing that. The Government have been doing many of the things my noble friend has asked for for a considerable period of time. One of the things I am determined to do, as he will know from our conversations, is to try to speed it up a little bit. We will all have our individual examples. Many people here will perhaps know that I like to have my hair cut now and again. When I was having my hair cut, the local barbers engaged in a conversation with me about what they should do in terms of crisis, because they had heard about it on the radio. I thought that was a pretty good start, actually.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, cadets and our reservists have a crucial role to play in this national conversation on defence and resilience, because they are, after all, the Armed Forces’ local presence throughout the entirety of the United Kingdom. In the light of that, and so that the reserve forces and cadets associations can continue their incredible work without distraction, will the Minister confirm that the Government will drop their policy of reorganisation of the RFCAs?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

No, I cannot confirm that. But I can confirm, as the noble Baroness knows and understands, that between Committee and Report I spent a significant amount of time talking to various bodies and Peers about the reorganisation that the Government are proposing and, alongside that, the protection of many of the things that the House raised, such as: regional representation on the national body; the role of lords-lieutenant and others being in the Bill; voting rights for the regional representatives on the new national body; making sure there are significant numbers of them on the national panel; and ensuring that three or so members from England will be on that body, and also from each of the devolved Administrations. I was asked time and again, “Could there be a representative from Scotland? Could there be a representative from Northern Ireland? Could there be a representative from Wales?” To each of those I voted yes. Although I cannot answer in the affirmative to the noble Baroness’s question, she will understand that I spent hours trying to get into in the Bill many of the things that she and others demanded to protect many things that noble Lords regard as important under the current structure.