Greenland

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord characterises as “faffing” a new defence industrial strategy, an increase in funding and clear, effective leadership when we inherited the smallest Army since the time of Napoleon.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Might it be helpful to pass to President Trump and the Washington team the useful advice of the late Professor Joe Nye of Harvard, who was a good friend of this country? His message was of course that, in modern conditions, you gain much more in terms of influence, security and getting things to move in the right way by being attractive, helpful and friendly to a country than you do by being plain nasty.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I share the noble Lord’s admiration for Professor Nye. I never had the privilege of meeting him, but I think he was somebody whose words we should always bear in mind. You need to do both, and that is what we do. We have a much better co-ordinated approach to our use of what Joe would call soft power, but that needs to go hand in hand with our investment in defence. Given the precarious nature of many parts of the world right now, the idea that we need to do both is I think the correct one.