Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness

Brian Leishman Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

I took the underground to Westminster this morning, and at the bottom of the steps at the entrance into Parliament there was a homeless man sleeping against the wall, lying on the cold, dirty floor of the tube station. He was the last thing I saw before coming into this grand palace where we sit as legislators, taking decisions and making political choices that impact that man and everyone else in the country. Last week, £15 billion was found for weapons that will get us ready for a conflict that many politicians, much of the media, and various think-tanks and lobbyists say is imminent. That hawkish rhetoric is ramping up—of the 22 questions asked at Defence questions on Monday, three contained mention of Russia, and two were about defending the High North. A consistent theme ran throughout, pushing the narrative that we must spend on defence above all else.

Of course, I appreciate that the first duty of Government is to keep our citizens safe and to defend the realm, but what about that man at the bottom of the tube station steps? Who is keeping him safe? What about the children who are going to school with no food in their bellies—do they feel safe? Over 3 million people need a food bank to survive—people who, when the winter comes, will have to decide whether to eat a meal or put their heating on. How safe do they feel because of political choices that have seen other departmental budgets cut?

I do not think it needs to be this way. Tony Benn used to say regularly in this place that if we can find money to kill people, we can find money to help people. When I watch the news on television or scroll through my phone and I see conflict, ethnic cleansing, the displacement of millions, the destruction of Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal war on Iran—remember, a girls’ school got bombed—I do not think, “You know what the world needs? We need more weapons. We need more death.” I think that what we need is obvious. We need diplomacy, we need the de-escalation of tensions abroad, and we need a domestic agenda not of war, but of prosperity and peace.

I want us to invest in health, education and public services—all the good stuff that keeps communities together. I want better wages, the reindustrialisation of forgotten heartlands across the country, and the redistribution of wealth and power to create equal opportunities for people. I want a social security system that is a genuine safety net, one that stops people from descending into poverty. We are at war right now with poverty and inequality, and our people are dying because of it, so I urge Members not to look the other way the next time they are in Westminster tube station.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for making this debate happen. I have been to see his bookshelves and, trust me, the books on strategy and military affairs in his library are well thumbed. He knows what he is talking about, and he has done well to corral us all into talking about it today.

Let me begin by talking about defence spending. It is fair to say that others have covered it, but I will repeat the fact that we are not spending sufficiently on defence. I want to challenge the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman). He did a bold thing in challenging the prevailing consensus, the mood of the House, and views that are now quite mainstream in the House, but while it is compelling to think about all the welfare need that exists in this country—and I acknowledge that there is a great deal—he has a crude oil refinery in his constituency.

[Brian Leishman]

No, I do not.

[Richard Foord]

Forgive me, but I understood that Grangemouth was a crude oil refinery.

We need only look to Eurasia—we need only look at what has been happening in Ukraine and Russia—to see that war comes to those who do not really want it to come to them at all. Yes, that is a failure of diplomacy, but it is also a failure of preparedness. Today, I will focus my remarks on the business of readiness.

We are currently spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, and the target is 3.5% by 2035. We really ought to be getting midway between those two by 2030, yet we are projected to be at only 2.68% by then. Of course, the Prime Minister is currently at the NATO summit in Ankara. Nye Bevan said to the Labour conference in 1957 that his party members should not send him

“naked into the conference chamber”,

and I fear that the Prime Minister has been sent naked into the Ankara conference chamber. The defence investment plan is indeed a skinny dip.

The hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) talked about the famous “King and country” debate at the Oxford Union in 1933. I completely agree with him that people who thought that they would not fight for King and country in 1933 found that, by 1939, they had no choice but to do so because of the circumstances. He knows a great deal about that from his time on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.