"Let me deal with two separate issues on that. First, should the UK develop its own sovereign capability and do as much as we can to have the industry and intelligence that we need ourselves? Of course we should. The Government are taking action to rebuild and develop our own …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"First, the priority of the Government is to intercept any missiles, and the NATO umbrella is designed precisely to tackle that. Of the £1 billion that I outlined as a result of the SDR, we have committed to air defence and already started to spend some of that on various …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"My Lords, noble Lords will be aware that the Secretary of State for Defence will shortly make a Statement in the other place, and I will not pre-empt what he will say. However, I will say that the UK has taken a series of actions to strengthen our collective defence. …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"On the issue of the defence investment plan, I have nothing further to add to what has been said by the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister. It will be published when it is ready to be published and we have completed work on it, which will be as soon …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"I do not want to get into hypotheticals of what may or may not happen in the future about “If this were to happen, what would be the Government’s reaction?” The Government and the Prime Minister can and should take credit for the way they and he have handled what …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"The whole House will totally agree with what the noble Lord said about the abhorrent antisemitic attacks in Golders Green, which were absolutely disgraceful and should play no part in our society at all.
On the IRGC, the Government continue to keep it under review. The noble Lord will know …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"My noble friend makes an important and good point about instability in other regions. Obviously, the focus at the present time is on the Middle East, but clearly we can see problems in north Africa and wider. Only last week, I met with people from Nigeria and west Africa to …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"I say to the noble and gallant Lord that, of course, we await the defence investment plan, but we are not waiting for it before we do things. I have pointed out the investment we have made into some air defence systems already, but he is quite right to point …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"I was hoping the noble Lord was going to start with the Leonardo announcement, which he pressed me for in terms of spending; we pocketed that one and moved on. Leonardo was a huge investment that the noble Lord was demanding I do something about. I went back, argued with …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech
"As the noble Viscount will know, discussions continue around that. As the British public consider the threats that they face and the turmoil in certain parts of the world, there will be an interesting debate about that. From talking to many people who, frankly, do not share the noble Viscount’s …..." Lord Coaker - View Speech