Ukraine and Wider Operational Update

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do not want to disappoint the noble Lord but I will not be a hostage to fortune and say that it will be in a few weeks, or when it will be. All I can say is that we are working as hard as we can to deliver as soon as we can a defence industrial plan that meets the needs of the budget we have and the needs of the country to deliver the military force and capabilities we need. That is what we are seeking to do. The noble Lord will continue to argue the case for more money and resources. We are working with the resources we have and seeking to deliver the military capability we need.

In my answer to the noble Baroness, I was trying to point out that, even within the existing budget, this country does an awful lot of which we can be proud with our existing military and the Armed Forces personnel that we have. But there is no doubt that the debate that the noble Lord quite rightly raises will continue.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, when asked about the deployment of a multinational force, the Secretary of State for Defence in the House of Commons said:

“Any deployment of a multinational force into Ukraine will take place only after a peace deal”.


That is fine. He then said:

“Secondly, the role of that force is primarily one of reassurance, the regeneration of the Ukraine forces, and deterrence of any future Russian aggression”.—[Official Report, Commons, 7/1/26; col. 395.]


To that last point, if it is supposed to serve as a deterrence to future Russian aggression then the national debate has to start with what would happen if that peace agreement were breached and what our response would be. The Minister will say that these are hypothetical questions, but I think the national debate will have to prepare people for that possibility.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It is a hypothetical situation. It goes back to the point I was trying to make in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. There is a need for a national conversation about the threat that we face. There is a national conversation about the state-on-state threat that exists now in a way that people would not have predicted a few years ago. The Cold War and Russia and one country versus another country were supposed to be the wars of the past; we were supposed to be combating terrorist activity, counterinsurgency and those sorts of things. Although those threats have not totally gone away, the state-on-state threat has now re-emerged. Part of the national conversation has to be about what that means for our country and our Armed Forces.