King’s Speech

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friends who have made the transition from Opposition to Government swiftly and highly successfully. They are good, clever people and the country and its defence are in good hands.

Secondly, I have to make an apology. On 25 April this year, I asked a question in the House of the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and inadvertently omitted to preface my question with a reference to my main entry in the register of interests. I apologise to the House for that error and refer today to my current and more innocent entry.

As many noble Lords have said, the gracious Speech says that

“my Government will conduct a Strategic Defence Review”.

As so many have already said, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence have asked me to lead that review, along with General Sir Richard Barrons and Dr Fiona Hill. With great pleasure, we have agreed to do that.

This will be my second strategic defence review but probably the more difficult. The world has changed dramatically since the last one in 1998 and, in the intervening period, the range of challenges, threats, complications, instabilities and fragilities has multiplied. The sheer volatility of events in the world today has combined with the velocity of dynamic change to produce new vulnerabilities in our society. We must all face that new global turbulence with serious intent. Therefore, our Armed Forces must be agile, lethal, survivable and robust enough to deter any threat to our country. That is the imperative.

I do not intend to give a running commentary during the period of the review. After all, we are out to listen and consider, but not yet to proclaim. I just make two brief points. First, we invite the maximum input to our review, including from parliamentarians. I am conscious that Select Committees of both Houses will not be able to give us an early submission, but they will be taken into account. What we mainly seek in this review, from all people, are solutions and frankness about the choices before us. We all know the problems. However, we need honesty about the answers and the trade-offs that are involved in confronting these problems, and we would like to hear all views on that. Send your views to [e-mail].

Secondly, we and the country need to recognise that the threats to our country and citizens are no longer theoretical. They are no longer a distant possibility. They are alive and well in Ukraine today. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has brutally invaded and sought to occupy a peaceful neighbouring independent sovereign nation state. Anybody who needs reminding of what is at stake in the world today needs look only at the depraved conduct of Putin’s occupiers in those parts of the Donbass and Crimea that they presently and temporarily occupy. In that changed world, we have to look afresh at how we keep our people safe from that grim reality and other deadly and disruptive threats—not just now but for decades to come. It is a daunting task for this review, but I hope that we will help point a way towards a more secure and safer future.