King’s Speech

Debate between Baroness Crawley and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley]

That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, I thank His Majesty the King for delivering the gracious Speech. I am grateful for the privilege of opening today’s debate on the Motion for an humble Address. As this is a King’s Speech debate, I begin by uniting us all in praise of Their Majesties’ incredibly successful state visit to the United States just a few weeks ago. The visit saw the words of His Majesty the King bring members of the House of Representatives to their feet again and again, where his wise words, sharp humour and powerful messages resonated across political divides.

I will use this occasion to set out how the Government will continue to drive forward the UK’s national interests, tackling pressing global challenges to make Britain safer and more prosperous. The only way to do that is by bringing all the tools at our disposal to bear. We have to be truly integrated: from diplomacy, development and defence to soft power and economic strength. The crisis in the Middle East is just the latest example of why the Government are taking this approach. Families and businesses across the UK, and countries across the world, are grappling with the fallout from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. We are working tirelessly across all fronts, leading efforts for a lasting diplomatic breakthrough to restore freedom of navigation without tolls and to get the global economy moving again.

We have urged Iran to allow shipping to flow freely through the strait and to progress a diplomatic pathway. As my friend the Foreign Secretary did in a call with Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi on 8 May, we have used our convening power to bring together more than 40 countries to channel collective pressure to reopen the strait, engaging intensively with the US, our partners in the Gulf and European capitals. We have bolstered our defensive capabilities in the region as part of co-ordinated regional defensive operations in line with international law, and we are working internationally to respond to the impacts of the crisis on the world’s poorest. That includes at the Global Partnerships Conference that we co-hosted this week, where we gathered developing countries around a new approach to international partnerships and discussed how to alleviate the impacts of the crisis on food, fertiliser and fuel. That is because our efforts must be integrated and the effects of these crises around the world are connected to what we are doing at home.

Sadly, this approach is essential, given that we face a world more riven by conflicts than at any time since the Second World War, where tools of economic integration are being used as weapons of geopolitical conflict and where competition between the US and China shapes our world. We see this with the threat posed by Russia to the UK and wider European security: an aggressive, expansionist Russia that deploys hybrid threats and information warfare against us and our allies, and exports interference and instability. Just as in the previous Parliament, this Government have taken every opportunity to stand with Ukraine and apply pressure on the Kremlin’s war machine. The UK’s total military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine amounts to £21.8 billion, and the UK has sanctioned over 3,000 individuals and entities since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

In this Parliament, we will remain stronger than ever in our support to Ukraine, confident in the cross-party commitment that Ukraine’s fight is our fight, and steadfast in putting pressure on Russia. That involves sustaining our international leadership that has brought together partners and unlocked practical commitments through the coalition of the willing, including for the future deployment of the multinational force in Ukraine. Faced with Russia’s aggression and growing global security threats, last year the Government committed to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War. To do that, we took the decision to reduce the development budget to 0.3% of GNI by 2027, but we remain just as committed to tackling global challenges in a new and modernised way, which I will return to shortly.

Turning to other pressing conflicts, Palestinians and Israelis desperately need peace. We need to deliver phase 2 of the 20-point plan, prevent Gaza getting stuck between peace and war, and stop Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence, which is at an all-time high and in flagrant breach of international law. Last year, this Government took the historic step of recognising the State of Palestine, to help keep the two-state solution alive, and we will continue to ensure that our international work is consistent with Israel’s lasting security, with Palestinian self-determination and with achieving peace in Lebanon.

These are messages we delivered through the UK’s presidency of the UN Security Council in February, a presidency we also used to put the spotlight on Sudan, as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, including the women and girls who have endured unimaginable ordeals of sexual violence. We will sustain our focus on Sudan, building on the Berlin communiqué that followed the international conference we co-hosted in April, which brought together 55 states, secured £1.3 billion of funding to save lives, and renewed the diplomatic push for a ceasefire and political resolution of the conflict.

Sadly, Sudan is not the only example of a conflict overlooked. In March, I visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo and saw the consequences of years of conflict, including on survivors of sexual violence, the desperate need for clean water, emergency healthcare, and food and nutrition assistance. But I also saw the courage of those delivering front-line services, the expertise of local health professionals and the ingenuity of Congolese entrepreneurs. To break the cycle of conflict, the world must get behind those people. That means providing humanitarian and peacebuilding support. The UK is delivering life-saving care: from trauma surgery and support for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, to clean water and emergency food. This means calling for those responsible for the violence to stop and supporting multilateral efforts towards sustainable peace.

Crucially, it means supporting long-term opportunity for people in the DRC through strengthening business links and supporting investments, whether that is setting up a new UK-DRC Chamber of Commerce, which I launched in March, or expanding access to finance for SMEs through British International Investment’s $55 million commitments to the DRC’s banking sector. As we discussed in a Question earlier, Ebola in the eastern DRC is a major threat, and we are working with the World Health Organization and Africa CDC. So far, we have allocated up to £21 million to the region, and I will be going to the Congo next week.

This Government are putting into practice a new, modernised approach to international development, one that reflects the scale of the global challenges that we face today and the very different geopolitics compared to two or three decades ago. International systems are threatened and humanitarian responses, already strained, are being stretched to their limit. While some are turning away, the UK with our partners is doing things differently. The countries that we work with want modern, respectful partnerships rooted in shared interests.

As my noble friend Lord Collins’s consultation on Africa last year set out so clearly, all of this means that we need to forge new alliances and work with developing countries in a different way. We have a new approach, one that channels aid to a more focused set of priorities over the next three years and moves us beyond being a donor to focus on spurring new investment, providing the expertise that enables countries to build up their own capacities and that helps countries and communities thrive without aid. It is essential that we streamline an inefficient, insufficiently co-ordinated system that places an unnecessary burden on partner countries.

This was at the heart of this week’s global partnerships conference, which brought together Governments, international organisations, civil society, businesses, technology and philanthropy. We must draw on the strengths that everyone has to offer: the richness of innovation that diverse coalitions bring to even the toughest problems. Working together collectively, respectfully and through mutually reinforcing partnerships is the only way that we will tackle the global challenges of today. Together, we agreed a new compact: not a typical negotiated text, but a synthesis of what partners have told us across its themes of finance, technology, and shifting the power: a shared commitment to working faster, more openly and in true partnership in the decades ahead. That will provide the framework for us to deliver a new way of working, a more responsive international system and improved financing. This will better meet the priorities and aspirations of partner countries and tackle the shared challenges of a new era, to forge new ties with growing economies and trading partners of the future.

Irregular migration is one such challenge, exacerbated by conflict, poverty and climate change. We have secured the return to France of over 600 migrants under the UK-France returns treaty; we have reached agreement with six African partners on improved processes to return those with no right to be in the UK; and we have deployed our new sanctions regime to target 55 individuals and entities to help break the business model of criminal gangs. But we need to go further, together with others, to raise our collective ambition on migration, supporting the security of our borders, the fabric of our democracies and the protection of those who need it.

Across all the priorities I have set out, there is one constant: we cannot meet any of these challenges alone. Our partnerships and alliances remain crucial to global growth and security and to our own growth and security. We will work through groups such as the G7 and the G20 to build and strengthen these alliances, collaborating to address issues of global importance that impact every household in the UK—whether that is working through the G7 to support Ukraine, keep the pressure on Russia and respond to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, or promoting policies to support growth, jobs and productivity through the G20. As His Majesty the King outlined in his Speech to Parliament, our G20 presidency in 2027 will place the UK at the forefront of driving global growth and stability, which is essential for the prosperity of working people across this country.

The world today is more fragile, contested and interconnected than ever. The breadth and complexity of the challenges we face underline why we must bring to bear all the tools at our disposal, integrating our diplomacy work with our efforts on development, defence, soft power and economic resilience. Only through this approach will we make progress. So, over our new parliamentary Session, the Government will seize every opportunity to advance our interests and uphold our values, using all the levers we have across government to strengthen our alliances, build new coalitions and shape solutions to the shared challenges we face. There is much for us to discuss, so I look forward to hearing your Lordships’ contributions and working with noble Lords to make the UK a stronger, safer and more prosperous place.