Defence Readiness Bill

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, it is customary to say what a pleasure it is to follow the previous speaker, and I do so with genuine enthusiasm. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has chaired the National Preparedness Commission with great vigour, and it has produced a great deal of extraordinarily detailed and high-quality work. Much of it, it seems to me, is oven-ready for government to take on. We have a good start there, but, as the noble Lord’s own speech has pointed out, there is still an awful lot of work to do, and I have one or two questions for the Government as well.

On Tuesday, there will be the Second Reading of the cyber security and resilience Bill, which is an important and necessary part of wider resilience. One might say that we have waited quite a long time for that. It does not, however, answer the question of what we mean when we talk about the whole of government, or for that matter, more ambitiously, the whole of society, which is phraseology about resilience that has taken hold in the last couple of years. There is a great question mark around what it really means.

If we are going to make it mean something, it seems to me that the whole of society implies a general strengthening of the sinews of society, a lot of it physical as well as digital, and much wider participation, beyond government, with organisations and individuals involved in the development of the security itself and its maintenance. This is not virgin territory. There are models, which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has mentioned, notably in Scandinavian countries, where, among several of them, there is a form of national service of various kinds and household preparation for emergencies, including emergencies of a kind that do not necessarily involve conflict. There is extensive shelter provision in some countries. The most obvious example of that is to be found in Finland, where life for a wide segment of society can, in extremis, be maintained underground. The roots of such extensive provision lie in that country’s geography and history.

I am not sure that this country would go for that. Our historical experience has been different, where our planning has largely focused on the continuity of government and essential services. However, in adopting whatever model we do, there is still much—I really do mean much—that we could learn from the Scandinavian approach. My questions for the Government are the following. What model are we going for? Do we use the phrase “whole of society”, and, when we use it, what do we mean by it? Do we have anything in our mind's eye when we use the phrase?

As far as I can see, we have not done a great deal so far under the heading of resilience, beyond the sort of work that the preparedness commission has been doing, with the aim of any particular model emerging. I do not mean by that to say that we have been idle. That is not the case; as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, has cited, climate work has been done, and there are other examples. But none of that has been drawn together or, as far as I can see, yet taken any legal form, nor do we have any settled machinery of government to take implementation forward.

The role and organisation of the Cabinet Office and its relationship to COBRA has in recent years been altered and then changed back, while yet other forms of resilience are going to be located elsewhere. To my surprise, it is DSIT that has found itself not just promoting science, technology and innovation but responsible for ensuring secure structures for cyber in government. Dotting responsibility for security around government seems pretty odd, when it has previously had a home in the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office is a welcome antidote to one of the other problems that we face in the structure of our Government, which is the shortcomings that arise from the “lead government department” model.

The strategic defence review specifically mentioned the need to increase the protection of our vulnerable critical national infrastructure and called for a defence readiness Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, mentioned. We need to enable the mobilisation of our reserves and our industry to war-readiness levels, but there is a problem about delay. Mr Luke Pollard, in another place, has said that the Bill will come only towards the end of this parliamentary Session, and the way he put it rather suggested to my ears that it might not come even then. I hope we can have some reassurance from the Minister. After all, NATO’s assessment is that, by 2030, Russia may decide to step up its existing level of aggression in Europe to something that is truly frightening.

We need to be ready, but we are cutting it fine with all our preparations, are we not? I would say too fine. The Government talk about a national dialogue on defence, and I think this House agrees strongly with that, but they need to start ASAP. To make sense and to be clear and honest with the electorate about what they may be involved in, that needs to include aspects that come under the heading of resilience. That should include questions such as whether there is going to be some kind of national service.

I come back to my questions. What are the Government going to propose to the country by way of a whole-of-society approach? What is going to be asked of us? A significant chunk of the picture still seems to be missing. In his reply, could the Minister begin to fill in some of the detail?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

I certainly never resort to rhetoric, so the noble Baroness has my assurance on that. I thank my noble friend Lord Harris for introducing such an important debate, and everyone who has contributed to it. The MoD is developing this work, and I will say a bit more about that, but the overall responsibility across the whole of government is with the Cabinet Office. I know noble Lords understand that, but it is important to lay down again that the co-ordinating function is for the Cabinet Office. Notwithstanding that, the Ministry of Defence has a crucial role and will do what it can to accelerate the progress that many have mentioned.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and other contributors to the debate that the defence readiness Bill will be introduced in this Parliament. I cannot go any further than that. I cannot remember who it was, but somebody said it would be introduced in the next Parliament. The Government’s intention is to introduce it in this Parliament, which is as far as I can go.

In terms of the scope of the Bill, which goes to the heart of the question and is the point of the debate introduced by my noble friend Lord Harris, what the defence readiness Bill should contain is under discussion, so there are talks going on about what the scope should be. Many of the other points that have been raised are the responsibility of other government departments. At the same time, other pieces of legislation which deal with some of this are being looked at. One example that has just come to mind for me is the Civil Contingencies Act, but there are all sorts of other pieces of legislation which are important as well.

I also draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that NATO has seven resilience requirements and, as part of NATO, we and all the members accept them. They deal with many of the points that have been raised: continuity of government, energy supplies, dealing with uncontrolled movement of people, food and water resources, mass casualties, civil communications systems and civil transportation schemes. All of those deal with some of the infrastructure problems and challenges that the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, mentioned. They are part of a readiness programme which all member states in NATO will be looking at.

My noble friend Lord Harris and others mentioned the important point about the changing nature of warfare and the importance of understanding that war is about cyber, climate and information and all the things we have talked about. We need to address those as well in any plan that we bring forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, asked when the Bill would be introduced. I answered that. She asked me to define “the whole of society”. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, did it quite well. We can tie ourselves in knots about what the whole of society means but we all know that what we are talking about is everybody’s responsibility. Every part of society has a part to play, whether it be business, industry, government agencies, voluntary organisations, the military, individuals or groups of people—the list goes on—the devolved Administrations, local authorities and local resilience forums. All those have to be involved in bringing a plan together and in any conversation. The challenge is how you do that in a constructive and co-ordinated way that is not fragmented. As I say, the whole of society—

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

I thank the Minister for making that clear. It is an ambitious aim—in my view, it should be.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that comment.

To answer the points from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, from the NATO resilience actions she can see many of the things that will need to be addressed and will be addressed as we go forward. Like, I suspect, many people in the Chamber, I disagree with her about growth. I have never seen growth and the environment as conflicting. You need good growth and alongside that you need to care for the environment, but you have to have growth in the economy and trying to bring about that growth is really important.

On the NATO seven resilience actions, to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, the national conversation is absolutely fundamental. We accept that. If I was going to criticise myself, I think I mentioned to the noble Baroness that I have been moved from the national conversation; in the reorganisation it has gone to another person. I have taken on a couple of other functions within the Ministry of Defence and that has gone to somebody else. In a moment, I will come to something that I tried to do. I would not say it was “ploughing a furrow” but it was an attempt to get it moving.

I say seriously to the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, that of course the national conversation is really important and fundamental to it. We are not frightened of doing it; the discussion is about the right way of doing it. That is the conversation and that is difficult. What exactly is the message that you want to get across? You have to ensure that people can rise to the challenge without frightening them. A discussion and debate would take place, if we had it in here, about what that means and what that should be. But the noble Baroness is quite right about the need for a national conversation and for us to move more quickly.

The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, whose service as an active reservist I always try to note, will know that in the Armed Forces Bill, due to be in Committee in September, there are a number of measures about the reserves. One of them is to reduce the threshold at which you can recall reserves from “almost imminent war” to “war readiness”. It would be interesting for us to debate what war readiness means. Committee might be the time for the noble Lord to table an amendment—not to vote on, but to explore the Government’s thinking. We are trying to lower the threshold, and the noble Lord makes an important point about that. The wider point, which my noble friend Lord Harris referred to, is whether it should be not just for war but for some of the other things we have talked about. We can have that discussion. On that issue, he will know that additional sums of money are being made available; usually, it would be left up to the reserve commanders themselves to look at how that might be allocated.

I have answered many of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, raised. On national conversations, the lesson from Finland and some of the other Baltic countries is the way they have found to speak to their people without unduly worrying them while alerting them to the change. The big thing about what they do and their example to us—the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and others talked about this—is the importance of homeland defence. The military and conflict have always been seen as about war in the traditional sense. From a UK point of view, it is almost seen as going overseas or on to the continent of Europe, whereas we are now talking about a threat to the homeland. How we deal with that is an important challenge for us all. It takes the UK into territory that we have not been in for quite a significant period, particularly since we have not been occupied in that sense, depending on how far you go back—noble Lords understand the point I am making.

The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, asked about the national conversation. She is quite right that it will be somebody else’s responsibility, but I have done work within the department which I hope will help move it forward. As she knows, there are drafts and drafts. We are alert in the department to the need for the MoD to move forward and talk with other government departments about what responsibilities they should have to deal with something so important. I have answered her point about the defence readiness Bill, though perhaps not with the certainty she would want. We have discussed the finance; I know she specifically asked about the defence readiness Bill, but she can be assured that we will make the case for how important it is to fund it properly.

I thank all noble Lords who participated in this debate, which is hugely important. There are all sorts of things going on across government and society to deal with this issue. It is an absolute priority for the Government and all noble Lords. We all want to accelerate the progress and process. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, made the point that we should get on with it, and we would all agree with that. I thank my noble friend Lord Harris for introducing the debate. It has been a very important one.

King’s Speech

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I disagree with a great deal of what the previous speaker has just said, but I am extraordinarily glad to live in a country where he has the right to say it and I have the duty to listen.

I will talk a bit about defence, like most Members taking part our debate on the King’s Speech, starting with the powerful contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. He started by endorsing the Prime Minister’s comment in his introduction to the King’s Speech that the Iran conflict demonstrates the need for the UK to be stronger and to move with greater urgency. However, he also pointed out that the bit of the speech that should have told us how much the Government intend to spend on hard power appeared to be missing. I hope the Government will say something shortly. I wish that, among the 37 pieces of legislation on other subjects, they had been able to give us more news than we have had so far. Nevertheless, I am going to continue to assume that the Government are serious about defence, even if they are dangerously slow in getting active.

There is, and I worry about this, a growing strand of opinion in the country that asserts that NATO is now a busted flush, that the US is no longer a reliable ally and that we should look for our security somewhere else. I think that is a line of argument that we should be extraordinarily wary of and should be countering strongly—it does not make sense. With an overbearing Russia on our doorstep, underpowered Europeans cannot afford a divorce. Actually, if truth be told, the Americans need the facilities and the rights of passage they have with their European allies. They do not have an interest in the end of NATO, and divorce would be quite painful for them. I do not think that, as things stand, NATO will collapse, but that relatively reassuring state of affairs is not unconditional. It depends on what we do next, and particularly on what Europeans do next.

The international landscape in which NATO was originally built has shifted materially since the start of the change that was visible with Obama. Mr Trump’s behaviour has undoubtedly made adjustments to the new situation harder on both sides of the Atlantic than it need be, but we cannot complain about his exposure of the inadequacy of our defence efforts and our lack of political pulling power that results from that, which other Lords have also remarked on. While NATO is not a busted flush, there is a mounting crisis of credibility, so, with some exasperation, I ask the Government how long they will go on without doing much, if anything. The situation, as the Prime Minister said, is urgent.

The Government tell us that national security is their primary duty. They have accepted the wide-ranging and very insightful defence review conducted by the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, but over a year later we still do not have the defence investment plan and the Government have not joined the EU’s defence, security and resilience bank. Serious spending on defence by the UK is backed up to the end of the cycle.

The important point is that our European neighbours are not waiting about; they are moving faster than we are. Each day news comes of agreements on kit that they will build and of the creation of bilateral corporate partnerships between them that will fulfil contracts. Many could turn out to be long term. The corporate structures could be set and the defence market opportunities could be cleaned out before the UK is ready to get going. Frankly, we risk being shut out.

This not only deprives us of the economic growth that the Government advertise that defence will bring to traditional defence-building regions of this country, which badly need the business; it is adversely affecting our claims to political influence and leadership inside the alliance. Our reputation took an embarrassing dent the other day with our pathetic performance in the Mediterranean. My plea to the Government is: we have the words; can we now have the deeds?

Ukraine

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his speech. He laid out what is at stake for us and what this country is doing in the contribution that we are making, which is considerable. If I might say so, I would very much like the wider public to be more aware of exactly what the UK is doing. This is a communications job, which could well be done, and that would strengthen the already solid position in this country. It would also inform our allies, which need to know what each of us is doing.

The Minister rightly said that Ukraine’s security is ours too. I want to comment briefly on some of the wider aspects of the situation in Ukraine. Putin is so tied now to the position he has taken that he cannot back off the war without claiming a success in the land taken, which in his mind means that he has to have more than what Russia currently holds. Conversely, President Zelensky is not free to give away bits of Ukraine to Russia. Indeed, a political crisis would threaten in Ukraine if he tried to do that. His strength lies in the political support in the country to fight for it; his weakness is a lack of reliable finance to continue fighting, a lack of long-range weapons to penetrate much further into Russia, and ultimately—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat—a much smaller population to bear arms, which in the end will count. Time is frankly not on our side, although there is some.

Since the meeting in Alaska, I think that President Trump has realised that Putin has been playing him along, and his reaction has been quite vigorous. He has cancelled talks and increased sanctions on Russia, which is important. He has moderated his peace ambitions to stopping the fighting along the battlelines rather than suggesting that Zelensky should be prepared to give up land not lost in battle. But he has not allowed Ukrainians to have the weapons that they are asking for—nor do I think he will. There seems to be a consistency here with the policy of the Biden Administration, which refused to let Ukraine have escalation capability in relation to Russia. This is perhaps where some of the anxieties begin.

During his state visit, President Trump said that Europeans were much closer to the front line than the US, the implication being that, while Europeans needed to get on and build our defences, about which he is quite right, somehow the US had less at risk and was less implicated. That is dangerous territory for the NATO alliance, as it suggests that the US is not so affected by Russian military activity. There is an important task here to close the perception gap. In particular, we need a joint and forceful response to other things that the Russians are doing, particularly their increasing incursions into NATO airspace and waters. Failure to respond will encourage the Russians to go further. Let us not forget the consequences of having failed to react to Russia’s activities in Crimea and its invasion there. That was a failure of deterrence, and we risk further such failures if we do not vigorously show that we are not going to put up with what the Russians are doing. Failure to respond saps the alliance and will also, in the end, reduce our capacity to deal with the Russian threat.

It is worrying against that background that, at a time when we need to bolster our capabilities, we cannot decide our priorities, and we are unable to decide that using part of the sanctioned Russian financial assets to pay for increased Ukrainian capability is more justified and important than preserving them inviolate in the vault. While the allies dither, the Russians gain political ground. We must stop them.

Ukraine

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the terms in which he restated this country’s position on Ukraine. I think he captured the sentiment of this House. The noble Lord, Lord Spellar, brought a very practical view to what we need to do to win this war. He is right to say that it is won partly on the machine bench, and through our ability to produce what we need to produce in order to defend ourselves and our allies.

Earlier this week, some Ukrainian councillors from Lviv were in town. I will say just a word about their visit, which revealed some of the things that the Ukrainians are undergoing. We heard a moment ago from the noble Lord, Lord Banner, about it. They also showed something of the same picture. Among other things, they showed us some photographs of young people with artificial limbs sitting in wheelchairs, reminding us that this is an aggressor who makes no distinction between combatants and civilians, and that war crimes are being committed every day of the week.

Lviv has become a national centre for the development of artificial limbs and prostheses. The councillors are looking for international partners. This country has a considerable reputation in that area, and I hope we can pursue this and increase our contribution to what they are able to do. They certainly need help in certain technical areas.

Another point the councillors made, which is directly relevant to the ability to win this war, is that Lviv Airport, a major connecting point between Ukraine and western allies, is still shut. That makes it considerably more difficult to get in the war supplies and to do the trading they need to do with the West than would otherwise be the case, so reopening the airport is a priority. They say they now have the necessary air cover. London insurers are involved so I hope that, just as our insurance companies were able to open up the Black Sea routes, which are being used for the transit of grain these days, we can bring our weight to bear and get this airport opened as quickly as possible.

The councillors made one last point during their visit that is directly linked to UK military assistance to Ukraine. They told us that the Danish and especially Norwegian Governments are successfully promoting ties between Norwegian private sector innovators and Ukrainians working on the ground who are together developing weapons using database technologies. That is obviously extremely relevant to the war, and also potentially an investment opportunity. The Ukrainians said they would like to see the UK doing the same thing. Perhaps we can take a leaf out of the Norwegian book. This issue came up when the group called on the Minister, so I hope that we can take this idea forward.

I turn briefly to the conduct of the war. Other noble Lords have remarked on the worrying introduction of North Korean soldiers into the Russian campaign. One cannot help feeling rather sorry for those wretched men from North Korea. It has been widely remarked in the media that resorting to foreign manpower shows Russian weakness. At the same time, shared aggression draws its promoters closer together, cements political blocs and increases instability and the risk of wider war. This is not a good or welcome development. Western allies worry about taking action in relation to Russia that might result in escalation of the war in Ukraine and understand the issue about Storm Shadow. I hope the FCDO is right about Russia’s increasing exhaustion, but the longer it takes to win the war and the longer it drags on, the more it offers Russia the opportunity to draw the political wheel against us. That would be a losing game, not just in Ukraine but more widely.

What we see happening in Ukraine is the expansion of the tension that exists in Europe being transmitted to other parts of the world and then being brought back to us. The way in which a link has been established between an Asian country, which has its own quarrel with South Korea and is now active on our continent, is serious. We need to be extremely concerned about the length of the war that we may have found ourselves involved in.

King’s Speech

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on their electoral success. It is in the national interest that they succeed, and I wish them well. I want to talk briefly about three subjects. The first is the transatlantic world, which is not in the best of health. Until relatively recently, we could count on stable politics in our own alliance as a secure basis on which to respond to threats, challenges and the rest of the world, but that is no longer the case. The rise of nationalist populism in the United States is a threat to the viability of the alliance, which has kept the peace since the Second World War. If the United States declines to continue to support Ukraine militarily, UK and European security generally will be at great risk. I have no faith in fashionable alternatives to the transatlantic alliance, such as sovereign Europe. It is a pipe dream, and a bad one, since it will produce division and weakness in NATO.

The UK has an especially strong interest in holding the western alliance together. Over the years we have put a lot of eggs in that basket, and a close relationship with the US, as part of the wider Atlantic community, is part of the fabric of our own polity. No longer being in the EU means we are simultaneously less influential and more vulnerable to the effects of transatlantic disagreement and breaches of trust. My conclusion is that devoting resources to diplomacy in Washington is top of the list of priorities, since failure of the alliance will not just destroy our ability to deal with all the other wider threats that we confront in the Middle East and China; we will face the likelihood of a wider war in our continent.

Secondly, I turn to China. The integrated review recognised the challenge that China poses militarily, politically and economically, and the Conservative Government made an important and constructive move in AUKUS, which helps join the Atlantic and Pacific worlds and increases the credibility of a European contribution to the political and military scene in the Asia-Pacific. I belong to those who believe that we should try to contribute to that part of the world. I hope that, in conducting the defence review, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, in whom I have great confidence, is able to build on AUKUS. There is no doubt that, to keep the Americans with us, Europeans must spend more on defence, especially on the security of our own continent. I am not suggesting that the Indo-Pacific has any real priority. We cannot credibly ask the Americans to take our security more seriously than we do.

I think it is time for the UK to respond to the changing global balance of power by giving the Royal Navy a greater role in, and a greater reach of, our defence diplomacy—more ships, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord West, particularly frigates. It is also time that we had a China strategy that joins up our political, economic and military objectives. It is something that we do not have and badly need. I do not believe in keeping countries guessing; that is dangerous. We did not keep the Russians guessing about our terms during the Cold War and we should not do so with the Chinese. We need to say what we mean to them.

My final brief point is to ask the Government, please—this is not my first time of asking—to take the opportunity of their proposed cybersecurity and resilience Bill, which I greatly welcome, to revise the outdated provisions of the Computer Misuse Act. They have the effect of discouraging cyber professionals, for fear of penalisation within its terms, from carrying out defensive research. That renders us all less secure in cyberspace than we could otherwise be. That does not make sense and is not a complicated change to make.

I conclude by expressing the hope that the Government will conduct foreign and defence policy in ways that enable them to maintain cross-party support. I have confidence in this. The beginning is good; may it continue.