Future Capability of the Armed Forces

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent and fascinating debate, with hugely perceptive contributions. I thank my noble friend Lord Harlech not only for securing the debate but for his insightful and powerful contribution, made in a characteristically elegant and gracious manner—which I do not promise to emulate.

The Government’s defence policy can be summed up in four words: too little, too late. It is too little money and too little equipment, all delivered too late. I make that claim because the plans the Government have laid out are for the future; they do not meet the threats we face right now. The NATO Secretary-General has warned that we may face war with Russia within the next five years. If that happens, we need to be ready to fight a major war by 2030, not after 2030. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that I know the advertisement to which she refers from BAE Systems above the escalator in the Tube station, but, unlike her, my view is: what an advert for British skills, and what a formidable capability this terrific British company is capable of delivering. May I see it translated into our defence capability before too long.

On the Secretary-General’s memo, the Government seem to have missed that point. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, reminded me—poignantly, because I remember where I was in August 1968—that the invasion of Czechoslovakia caused shock. As she rightly pointed out, you cannot assess risk on the basis of what you can afford. Risk is there, threat is there and the duty of the country is to have the wherewithal to counter it.

Where are we? The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, confirmed in a Written Answer that there will be no new deliveries of F-35s until the early 2030s. The integrated air, space and missile defence operations centre, announced in the defence investment plan as the future ballistic missile defence system, will not be operational until the early 2020s. The Type 91 uncrewed missile platform announced in the defence investment plan has no planned in-service date, and the only timeframe the Government can offer is “from the early 2030s”.

There is a pattern emerging. Virtually everything in the defence investment plan will not materialise until well into the next decade. The vital new equipment required by our Armed Forces right now will not be ready in time, and the Government simply do not get the urgency and the immediacy with which we need to rearm.

Last week, in front of the House of Commons Defence Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who obviously is one of the Government’s own, said:

“Quite simply, we are running out of years. The reality is that the challenge is now bigger, more serious and earlier than we had anticipated, yet the defence investment plan does not come up to it”.


His concerns were emphatically endorsed by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and reflected upon gently and philosophically by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark, to whom I also extend my best wishes for a happy and fulfilling retirement. I extend my thanks to him for his reassuring presence on those Benches, to which I often direct a glance at moments of tension.

The defence investment plan was supposed to do two things: prepare our Armed Forces for major combat operations within the next five years, and end the uncertainty and unease dogging our defence industry over the last two years. The noble Baroness, Lady Carberry, eloquently described the challenge. However, instead of allaying all those fears, the defence investment plan, unbelievably, made things worse. We have been left with less clarity as to the Government’s plans for defence than we had previously.

Take the Royal Navy, for example. The DIP confirmed that the Government will scrap the Type 83—the replacement for the Type 45 destroyers—and scrap the new light class of frigate, the Type 32. Yesterday, my noble friend Lord Minto mentioned the common combat vessel. This is the proposed replacement for both the Type 83 and the Type 32. The Type 83 was in the concept phase of its development. It was supposed to be the centre of the Future Air Dominance System, which had its outline case approved but has now been scrapped without a successor. We know absolutely nothing about these common combat vessels—how much they will displace, what armaments they will have, how many sailors will be required to crew them. We have no detail. It is a phantom concept, a ghost ship.

What was the MoD doing in the past year while it was preparing the defence investment plan? If it was planning to replace the Type 83 and Type 32 with the CCVs, one would have thought that it would have done more preliminary work so that when it published the DIP, it could tell us what a common combat vessel would look like. The suspicion is that the MoD did not decide to scrap the Type 83 until very recently. In September, in response to a Written Question from my honourable friend Ben Obese-Jecty, the Minister, Luke Pollard, said:

“The Type 83 is planned to enter service from the mid-2030s and is assumed to have a 25-year service life”.


So just last September, the MoD was committed to the Type 83s, but now it has changed its mind. It is frightening.

Let me express a caveat. This concept of a hybrid Navy deserves a word of caution. I am increasingly concerned that the lessons from Ukraine are being overlearned. We seem to be moving in a direction that assumes that drones and automation are the answer to every question of future capability. However, Ukraine is not the same as the north Atlantic. Providing a carrier strike, escorting supply ships, fighting piracy and defending a naval taskforce from air attack has no parallel with the Ukraine conflict. What of hard defence diplomacy, which the Government have said they are championing and to which my noble friend Lord Ahmad astutely referred?

An uncrewed missile barge does not have quite the same clout as a large, highly capable destroyer. I completely understand the benefits of uncrewed vessels and aircraft. They have their place and we must learn from their use in Ukraine. However, they should be additional rather than an alternative capability. They should complement destroyers and fighters, not replace them. We will need conventional warships for years to come. Yet, under these plans, Britain will have no destroyers at all by 2040.

I hope that the Minister will understand that my unrelenting and unapologetic focus is on the threat that we face now and the urgent response that is needed to address it. I am trying to impress upon the Government, as far as I possibly can, that the mid 2030s is, quite simply, too late. We know the threat. Sadly, we can predict the conflicts. We need more F35s, more modern Typhoons, more helicopters, more drones, more warships, more missiles, more tanks, more armoured vehicles and more air defence—and we need them as soon as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, delivering the Lord Speaker’s Lecture last night, to which many of us were privileged to listen, quoted Warren Buffett:

“Predicting rain doesn’t count; building arks does”.


This was a wise man quoting a wise man. Let me conclude by quoting a third wise man, Shakespeare:

“Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends”.

That is my message to the Minister. I look forward to his response.