Strategic Defence Review

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I refer to my register of interests as chair of Wilton Park and as an honorary captain in the Royal Navy.

Yesterday I attended part of the future defence, deterrence and resilience conference, at which the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, delivered a keynote speech on Monday, which I sadly missed. I note that his speech led to some very interesting conversations around strategy. I confess that the presence of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, and Julian Lindley-French may have also contributed to strategy being a topic of the conversation. The two published a book last month called The Retreat from Strategy: Britain’s Dangerous Confusion of Interests with Values. They argue that we not only continuously confuse interests with values, but fall into the habit of assessing risks against what we can afford to deal with.

No one can be blind or indifferent to financial constraints in any sphere of government, but I would urge that our current defence review is strategic and that we balance ends, ways and means. Similarly, we cannot ignore the vital link between policy and planning, which I sometimes fear we may have lost sight of. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, and Julian Lindley-French made a forceful and well-argued case, and I would recommend The Retreat from Strategy as a book—not as a policy.

If I may, I will return to an area which I feel strongly about and hope that the review will take into account: maritime security in the polar regions. The Arctic and Antarctic are very different, geographically, legally and politically, but both are areas of growing strategic competition, including resource exploitation, access, and strategic control.

The prevailing geopolitics of the Arctic have worsened. One big shift, even in the last 12 months, is the ever-closer relationship between China and Russia across the Euro-Asian-Russian Arctic north. It is worth remembering that our relationships with South Korea and Japan matter as much as those with our European and NATO partners. In the Arctic, the UK is the nearest non-Arctic state with a long-standing interest in working closely with NATO countries, such as Norway, as well as with international business and scientific partners across the region. More generally, the British Armed Forces are active participants in training exercises, secondments and mutual domain awareness.

I turn quickly to the Antarctic. China and Russia are disruptive players, while the BRICS countries and others are marshalling their interests—especially around resources. The EU is considering developing its own Antarctic strategy and will look to countries such as New Zealand as potential partners. The UK should be involved in those negotiations and look to scale up our collective scientific/infrastructural presence in the region. Having an active presence matters.

These things are important for the defence review because they have an impact on the Royal Navy. We have limited platforms that could be described as “ice class”, and we are asking a lot of HMS “Protector”. This is the Royal Navy’s only ice patrol ship; it replaced HMS “Endurance”. I am very clear that it would be a big mistake to think that a melting Arctic and Antarctic is a safer operating environment. It is more unpredictable, more dangerous and still ice-filled. We need trained personnel, including mountain leaders; that requires extensive training and support for the Royal Marines. We need to continue to support and invest in training and military exercises with our Joint Expeditionary Force partners, as well as with NATO.

At the risk of being accused of special pleading on behalf of the Royal Navy, I simply suggest that any strategic defence review ought to start with this sentence: “We are an island and the Navy is existential”. It must emphasise that shifting geopolitical tensions, combined with global warming and the ever-increasing need for natural resources, make our engagement in the Arctic and the Antarctic a vital national interest.