Defence Readiness

David Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

It is an honour to wind up the final day of debate on the King’s Speech for His Majesty’s loyal Opposition. We have heard many sterling speeches from Members across this House, and I will turn to some of them shortly.

First, however, I want to pose once more the central question of this debate, and ask every Member to answer it honestly: is our national defence truly ready? My honest assessment is no, it is not. War is no longer a matter of history. The international order we have all lived under is fracturing. War has broken out across multiple continents, and rapid technological advancement and the accelerating consequences of climate change are compounding an already dangerous volatility. The world is not as it was, and we cannot afford to govern as though it is.

While it is encouraging that so many Members are engaging with this epoch-defining issue, it is equally clear that there is a “corrosive complacency” at the heart of this Government. Those are not my words; they belong to Lord Robertson, a former Labour Defence Secretary and a former NATO Secretary-General and one of the most distinguished voices in this country’s defence establishment. He did not use them lightly, and he directed them squarely at this Prime Minister and this Chancellor. When a man of that stature speaks in those terms about his own party’s Government, this House would do well to listen. More than that, there should be no politics in acknowledging the reality that stares us plainly in the face. Where politics legitimately begins is in the harder questions about where the money comes from and how and what we choose to spend it on.

Turning to the speeches, opening the batting was the Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), and I think we can all agree that he made quite a brave and powerful speech. He laid bare the holes in the Government’s approach to defence in a constructive way, as I have seen him do repeatedly in his work as Chair of his Committee. It was also good to see him wearing his Royal College of Defence Studies tie.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) made an excellent speech, as is to be expected. He touched on the supply chain issues and reliance on China, and I will come back to those points later.

The right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) is no longer in his place, but it was quite intimidating to see the Streetonian praetorian guard out in full force. He articulated the weighty issues we face as a country and I seriously hope that defence issues are front and centre of his coup d’état attempts.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) illustrated lessons from world war two, and what we need to learn and act on without delay, points that were reinforced by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).

I think we can all agree that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) is doing a fantastic job as trade envoy to Italy. She called out some of the supply chains that she is seeing in her work with Italy around the Global Combat Air Programme and pointed out the Government’s dither regarding the slow release of the defence investment plan.

We also had strong contributions from the hon. Members for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne), for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba), my right hon. Friends the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke) and for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), the hon. Members for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor), for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss), for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) and for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), and my hon. Friends the Members for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) and for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith). There were many more contributions—too many to mention, Madam Deputy Speaker—but it was great to see so many of my constituency neighbours from the south-west. As the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry has championed repeatedly, it is a region that will play a decisive role in our defence readiness going forward.

Like many in this House, I am utterly tired, if not bored, of asking when the defence investment plan will be published, and I am not even going to bother asking about the planned defence readiness Bill. The Government set their own deadline last autumn and 10 months on it is still nowhere to be seen. For the large prime contractors, those too big to fail, the calculation is simple: they leverage their workforce and industrial base to force the Government’s hand. But for smaller companies in the supply chain, the picture is far bleaker. With a meagre number of contracts being awarded, they are being starved of work. If they have not already gone out of business, many are reaching the same conclusion: if you want to grow, you have to go. And go they will. The United States and European defence markets are rising to the moment. Companies and finance will follow the business. The Government’s indecision and delay is placing British defence at the back of the queue at precisely the moment when the queue has never mattered more.

That leaves me to challenge a phrase used too freely by Defence Ministers: sovereign capability. For many of the areas where we most want to excel, true sovereignty is a myth. The best AI needs the best chips, and we do not own the means of production. Our options are either our American allies or China. I know which one I choose. The Government talk a good game on drones, but most small aerial drone systems depend on neodymium magnets and China controls over 90% of global supply. That is not a supply chain problem; it is a strategic vulnerability. What is truly in our national interest is to identify these dependencies—a point reinforced by the Chair of the Defence Committee, whose Committee is looking at this—and swiftly partner with allies who can help to address them. I do not see that joined-up work happening across the Government.

That leads me to the structure of our public defence establishment. We have roughly 55,000 MOD civil servants, yet we recently struggled to deploy a single, partially functional destroyer to protect our sovereign base area in Cyprus, a point expanded on by the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells. There are many fantastic civil servants in the MOD—I have personally had the privilege to work alongside a number of them—but I cannot believe I am alone in seeing the imbalance in that equation.

Lastly, I turn to our service personnel and veterans. At every UK training establishment, the law of armed conflict is rigorously instilled into every recruit and officer cadet. That legal framework underpins a service person’s conduct throughout their career and on operations. I speak with the lived experience as a former Royal Marine. Where someone transgresses from those rules, they are investigated and if found guilty the full weight of the law is brought to bear, and rightly so.

However, the Government must confront an uncomfortable truth. By dragging veterans through the courts decades after the event, as will likely occur under the Government’s Northern Ireland troubles legislation, the process becomes the punishment. Indefinite legal jeopardy, with no discernible end, causes profound and lasting mental anguish. Apply that logic to serving personnel operating in unimaginably violent environments: hesitation in the heat of battle, borne of legal fear rather than military judgments, can cost lives. For most of us in this House, it is impossible to truly comprehend what that means, but we must try. We owe it to the people who place themselves in harm’s way on our behalf to give them the assurance that this House has their back.

I want to extend a hand of co-operation to the Government—an olive branch offered by the Leader of the Opposition and carelessly dismissed by the Prime Minister. In this new era of geopolitical instability, we want to support the Government in delivering the defence readiness that this country deserves. The shadow Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), has set out the Conservatives’ proposals clearly. We will continue to work on them, and I hope the Government will receive them in the spirit in which they are intended.

Our country needs politicians who can rise to the moment. This is that moment. With that, I wish the Government Godspeed in this new Session, for it is not their party’s fortune that depends on it but our nation’s security.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Before I call the Secretary of State, I would like to say that, while I appreciate that I am preaching to the choir, because every Member present is indeed present, perhaps the message can get back to colleagues who are not present that page 4 of the guide to Chamber courtesies indicates that if you have contributed to the debate, you must return for the wind-up speeches. I call the Secretary of State.