UK Homeland Defence

Viscount Hailsham Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

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 talk about some of the things that my noble friend talked about. Any assessment of where we go and what we do in the future has to take account not only of threats that we face now but threats that we may face in the future. It is difficult to have a crystal ball, but all of us need to look at the problems that are occurring and how they may impact on us in our own homeland rather than believing that it is thousands of miles away and will never have any impact.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, may I suggest that there is now widespread public support for a very substantial and rapid increase in expenditure on defence?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

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 opinion, I know that they would rather see money spent on other things—health, pensions, schools, children and so on—but my view is that the first priority of government is that to defend your country. Some of the rights that everybody enjoy are there only because of the people who fought in the past. Hopefully, nobody will have to fight again, but let us remember that and remember that it needs defence funding to fund it.