Cabinet Office

Debate between Edward Morello and Matt Western

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western]

As if on cue, the hon. Member’s point is one I am just about to develop. The strategic defence review called for a national conversation, and during our inquiry on societal resilience we heard much about how our allies are engaging their citizens with that essential work. The UK is, I am afraid, a little behind the curve. Beyond the Baltic and Scandinavian nations, whose security and resilience is well documented, other nations are also moving up a gear. Their Governments engage significant numbers of military reserves, volunteers, firefighters, private defence organisations and NGOs in that conversation. In certain countries, everyone between the ages of 18 and 65 has a role in resilience—every single person. Some countries conduct wargame exercises on civilian defence, to identify weaknesses in their systems. Less obvious countries such as the Netherlands and Canada are making painful choices that are necessary to ensure that societal resilience can be strengthened. The situation warrants a reset of our whole approach to resilience and security, but to do that we must bring the public with us through a national conversation.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It has been my huge pleasure to serve on the hon. Member’s Committee for the better part of the last two years, and as I stand down from it, I wish to thank him for his leadership—it has been exemplary.

On the whole-society conversation, to go back to the hon. Gentleman’s earlier point about the incident with the Prime Minister’s car, does he agree that we must do a better job of informing the British public about the actual threat? The first stage is getting the public to understand the real threat that we are facing right now. We are under hybrid attack, and we will need the whole of society to support us in the solution.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Member, who I would also call a friend, not just for his kind words, but for his valuable contributions to the Committee over the past 18 months or so. Yes, it is vital that we engage the public, and it is incumbent on our media to start spelling some of this stuff out—not fearmongering, but explaining some of the harsh realities of what we face. There are certain nations who wish us absolute harm—we are their public enemy No. 1. We need to be much more open about that in our discourse with the public, not so as they become overly alarmed—as I may have been as a kid growing up—but so that they recognise the sorts of pressures that we face economically, socially and militarily. The situation demands that we bring the public along with us. The Committee has discussed how we develop that nationwide conversation, possibly including an education programme, by being more honest with the public about the threats that the UK faces.

The pandemic highlighted huge gaps in our country and society’s resilience. Are we ready for the next crisis that might be heading our way? We must not fearmonger, but the Government must learn all they can from our allies who are further ahead of us with spending on resilience and preparedness. I want to stress that the situation was obvious to the last Government too.

It is increasingly clear that for too long the UK has outsourced its security and resilience needs elsewhere, and is now entirely dependent on others for critical elements of its infrastructure. It is only through increasing the scale of investment in its sovereign capabilities, particularly in the realm of emerging technologies, that we can wean ourselves off these dependencies.

The defence investment plan is crucial. It is essential in guiding businesses and investors. Direction is needed, as well as dynamism and agility. At a time when UK firms need certainty, we still lack clarity on exactly how investment will be allocated. As we highlighted in our report on the national security strategy, the longer businesses lack an adequate signal from Government about what investment might be on the way, the more vulnerable they are to acquisition by foreign investors and the more difficult it becomes to achieve our sovereignty goals.

The Government have made steps in the right direction through investments as part of the AI opportunities action plan and the work of the sovereign AI unit. Those are to be commended. The UK has a strong base of talent in those technologies, but the Government need to go further and faster to secure our advantage in the long term. Now is the time to secure the investment, the jobs and economic security we need through a proper digital sovereignty strategy. As we saw last week in the series of cyber-attacks, economic security is national security.

The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy will continue to fulfil its role and to press the Government on all these points and more in a constructive and collaborative way, as it has done these past 18 months. It is only through robust challenge and scrutiny that we can ensure the Government are doing all they can to keep the people, businesses and critical systems of the UK safe and secure. As Lord Robertson of Port Ellen told the Committee earlier this year,

“it is much better to pay for deterrence than to pay for war.”

It is also, ultimately, less costly. I urge the Government to take heed.