King’s Speech

Lord Houghton of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, it might be judged somewhat risky for a general to follow the valedictory speech of a Bishop. Be reassured: right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Worcester is the cousin of the late Field Marshal Lord Peter Inge, who was a Green Howard, as is my noble friend Lord Dannatt and—you guessed it—as am I. It is truly remarkable that a single county regiment can claim three Members of this House and, incidentally, three Constables of the Tower at the Tower of London. We always knew that we had influence in very high places, and John has a special place in our hearts.

Bishop John has been a remarkable servant of this House and wider society. At Durham, he was a chemist as well as a thespian. He trained as a teacher at Keble, Oxford. Dangerously, he has a degree in systemic theology and is a doctor of philosophy. He was ordained at Chichester and became the chaplain at Harrow. He is one of the longest-serving diocesan bishops in the Church of England. He is affectionately known for his great sense of humour and his sartorial dress: a fascination with Edwardian frock coats, episcopal toppers and Panama hats—sometimes other people’s. He has a passion for people, cycling and international affairs.

As he said, he has served the House for the last 12 years, speaking on international development, the childcare system, hospices, schools, assisted suicide, migration, asylum and much else. A few short words cannot begin to do justice to a remarkable man, but I know that the House will join me in thanking him for his service and wishing him well for the future.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

I turn to what I want to say in this debate. My time is now short, so I will concentrate on one aspect of the gracious Speech: the Government’s welcome intention to conduct a defence review.

I will offer a view on what sort of a review this needs to be, because it needs to be very different from the last three. The SDSRs of 2010, 2015 and 2020 had a number of things in common. First, they had an elegant narrative regarding the state of the world, which was increasingly alarming in its portrayal of the growing diversity and intensity of danger, threat and instability in the world. Secondly, there was the reality of government austerity and the imperative to deliver national security to an ever more constrained budget; and, thirdly, to me they were all exercises in a delusionary reassurance to the nation.

Each of those SDSRs produced some form of alchemy that appeared to make an acceptable level of national security somehow affordable. In 2010, it was defence reform. In 2015, it was defence efficiency. In 2020, it was technological advantage. Somewhere in the mix was fusion doctrine.

I offer that all three reviews produced the common and indulgent delusion that our Armed Forces were fit for purpose and the country was safe. I bore witness to many defences of this delusion even in this House. I fear that those defences came close to a failure of honesty both to Parliament and to society—a failure that, to our collective shame, we were all party to. We asked our questions, made our speeches, felt that we had done our bit and sat down.

The result is now extremely concerning. The Armed Forces of this country are most definitely not fit for purpose; they are completely hollowed out and, even more concerning, the men and women of those Armed Forces are now voting with their feet. Just as concerning, government has no truly effective narrative with society that alerts it to the dangers that exist and the risks that we are running. It seems as though so long as we somehow spend 2.5% of GDP on defence, all will be well, and the only really substantive question is when we reach that figure.

I say this in such stark terms to make the point that we cannot afford another SDSR that is a protracted and largely academic exercise that is wholly constrained by issues of cost, reflects a 20-year vision on the size and shape of the Armed Forces, and employs delusional rhetoric to conceal the realities of clear and present danger. Rather, we need a review that is clear about the dangers that we face, our ambition to meet them, the true state of our military capabilities, and the realistic resources required.

However, the review must do something even more important: it must accelerate the actions needed to win a war that we are already in. If we move, and NATO moves, with sufficient pace, we can still win this war without having to fight it. Ukraine does not have that luxury.

If I were to offer three priorities for action, they would be, first, to do whatever is necessary to keep Ukraine in the fight. We must not delude ourselves that Ukraine can win in military terms, but they can help to buy time for the second imperative: the re-establishment of conventional deterrence in Europe. NATO has a strategic deficit in deterrent credibility. We must be a leader and exemplar to make good this deficit. Thirdly, for pity’s sake, we must invest in our people. It is our people, not shiny platforms, that are our strategic edge.

I could go on, but the sole point I wanted to make is one of principle. We are at a point in history when we need an SDSR that urgently balances ambition, capability and resources, and one that is focused primarily on the short-term imperative to defeat, hopefully by deterrence, those who seek to destroy the values we hold dear.