Integrated Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Review

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. I reassure him that this is well understood by the Government. Indeed, we remain committed to the NATO guidance to spend 2% of GDP and, furthermore, this is protected against any inflationary increase that may occur. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, there may be further lessons to be learned from the crisis. I am sure the House will join me in paying tribute to our Armed Forces who, not just in times of challenge globally but, as we are seeing, domestically, step up to the mark.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, my understanding is that the security and defence review has been put back six months. Can the Minister tell us what is now the best expectation of the timetable going forward? If there is to be rather longer to prepare, is it the intention to have a more root-and-branch look at the resilience of the whole security apparatus and the extent to which we are able to respond to all sorts of crises, those which are natural as well as those that are initiated by hostile actors?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Again, I find myself very much in agreement with the noble Lord’s last point. We need to ensure that there is a thorough review of all the challenges we face, whether it is from Mother Nature and pandemics or from sinister actors. Let us not forget that it is not that long ago that we were impacted by chemical weapon attacks on the streets of Salisbury. On the integrated review itself, given the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, we are, of course, keeping all non-related government work under review. The Prime Minister has already said that he will lead the review and bearing in mind his leadership on the current crisis, of course we will look to ensure that the learnings from this crisis can be fed into the review itself.