Strategic Defence Review: Funding

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and for being honest about the consequences of his time in service. It is so important that when any veteran who has served in our forces needs to access help, they know that it is available. It is platforming those experiences and being honest about them that enables more people to come forward, so I thank him for that.

The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to increase defence spending. I want to increase defence spending, we have already increased defence spending, and we will be spending 2.5% of GDP by April 2027 and 3% in the next Parliament. However, I entirely appreciate how he made his remarks, and the Minister for Veterans and I are happy to talk to him about his experiences to see if we can learn from them and help others in a similar situation.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

National security depends on more than conventional defence spend, because our democracies can be brought down by methods other than weapons. There are concerns that the public are not yet sufficiently aware of the risk and reality of foreign information manipulation and interference. How does tackling this aspect of hybrid warfare feature in a cross-departmental way within the Government?

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Member is absolutely right that we need to go beyond conventional defence. That is why we have conventional and nuclear deterrence as part of our armed forces posture. She will also have heard in my opening remarks about the investment we are making in cyber. This is not just a Ministry of Defence effort; increasingly, if we are to deliver the national security we need, we need a whole-of-Government approach. That means the MOD working with the Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Cabinet Office and the devolved Governments to be able to tackle the deliberate misinformation that we see our adversaries trying to pump into our newsfeeds. Let me be very clear that we do not accept in any way Russian interference or any interference in our democracy or our way of life, but across Government we are having a national conversation that enables people to be better equipped to identify and challenge it, as well as putting more pressure on social media companies to remove it and not have it on their platforms in the first place.