Defence Readiness Bill

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, on securing this important and timely debate and introducing it in such a persuasive way. I confess to being somewhat daunted to be following the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, whose experience is so relevant to this debate and whose speech was full of questions that need to be answered. Coming after the chairman of the National Preparedness Committee and a former Secretary of State for Security, I am a mere amateur in this area.

I start from a different point of view: that of someone who has studied and been active in business. In that capacity, I have encountered many a risk register. I have noted a tendency to believe that once a risk is identified and placed on the register, it has been dealt with. In the Government’s latest incarnation of the National Risk Register, 89 specific areas of risk are identified. I wonder whether the Government are in any way confident that each of these is being addressed.

In his foreword to the document, Pat McFadden—then the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who chairs the Cabinet committee on resilience—stressed the need for transparency about risks and said:

“We need everyone to play their part in building resilience”.


Of course, he was absolutely correct. If businesses are to be successful in navigating their way through risks, they need to involve all their people in the effort. It is no good if the chief risk officer identifies the risks and the risk committee pores over them and nods, and so it is with the country. In a company, everybody has to be involved. They have to know the risks and they have to be involved in addressing them. It is the same in the country. My concern is that the Government are failing to involve the public.

Pat McFadden referred to the guidance for the public at the Government’s Prepare website; the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, made reference to it. But can the Minister tell the House how many people have visited that site? How many even know of its existence? If they were to take a look, they would find that it refers to:

“Emergencies such as flooding, fires and power cuts”.


The noble Lord, Lord Harris, has made the case for such risks to be integral to any national resilience plan, and he is right, but we have to stop being so squeamish about the fact that we face another increasingly real risk: war.

The noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who wrote the pivotal strategic defence review, spelled out the danger:

“We are under-prepared. We are under-insured. We are under attack. We are not safe”.


This is not an easy message to hear, but it is the truth. There should be no further delay in ensuring that the public are made fully aware of this. A national conversation or national dialogue has long been promised, but this is not the subject for a cosy fireside chat or interminable consultations. The Government need to tell the public about the risks of warfare that we now face, and ensure that people are prepared. Talking about it just does not do the job.

Other countries face up to the problem. They are very effective in getting their message across without unnecessarily scaring people. Some, such as Taiwan and Finland, can see the threat because it is in such close proximity. But technology means that the enemy need not be visible. Russia has assassinated people on our soil and infiltrated our electoral process. It has made its presence well and truly felt. As the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, said, “We are not safe”. When will the Government take their responsibilities seriously, trust the public and tell them to be ready, to prepare?

National resilience and defence readiness are not different things. They should be addressed together, and a joint Bill is clearly the answer. After all, how often have we seen the military called in to help in civil situations? Public involvement is crucial. Reserve forces must be recruited, volunteers lined up and trained, and businesses and the education sector brought into the effort.

In Finland, senior business leaders train alongside government officials in how to build resilience and schools prepare their pupils. We shy away from being frank with our children, yet they regularly see images of war and violence. Are they supposed to think it could never happen here? Might it not be far more reassuring to be told that the threat is there but we can deal with it, and this is what you have to do to help?

In a recent essay, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper admitted that successive Governments have failed to level with the country. On defence, we have not yet had the kind of public engagement we need. Now is the time to put that right. The national resilience and defence Bill should kick off a concerted effort across the country to be prepared. Benjamin Franklin said that by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. He was not only a founding father of the United States but the man who invented bifocals—so a man of vision. If we have a vision of peace and security, we need to start working for it now.

Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

No minutes were taken of that meeting, but it was a routine visit. The noble Lord will know from his own experience that going to visit businesses and industry is a significant part of the job. The noble Lord will have done it in the past; he will have gone with civil servants and others, maybe not industrialists but with industry representatives, to see that capability. That is not a criticism of the noble Lord; it was him doing his job. The Prime Minister went with the then ambassador to Palantir. As I understand it, during that visit he had a short presentation, followed by a tour of the premises and an introduction to members of staff. That is the Prime Minister doing his job: trying to develop and build business contacts with huge companies which are of benefit to our country.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, on 5 January, I asked the Government if they could give us details of contracts with Palantir and Anduril. The noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, said that, as an honorary captain in the defence of the country through the Royal Navy, it was of prime importance to her and she would write to me. She has obviously been incredibly busy, and a lot of information has come out since. I wonder if the Minister could let us know about contracts with Anduril too, please.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I missed that. Could the noble Baroness say with who?

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

With Anduril.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I will write to the noble Baroness about that. I will write, along with my noble friend Lady Anderson, to make sure that the noble Baroness gets one joint letter rather than two. I will take that on board and make sure that she gets it, and put a copy of it in the Library so that other noble Lords can see it as well.

Ukraine Update

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

To be honest, I think it is premature even to be discussing that. The sanctions are part of a universal and, I think, very effective ligature around the Russian economy and Russian financial activity, and anyone would be very wary of dismantling any part of that composite edifice. At the end of the day, as we speak, this illegal invader, with his military, is in Ukraine wreaking carnage, and our duty is to do our level best to stop him and help the Ukrainians defend themselves.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, Mariupol has been without water for five days now and children are dying of thirst. Can more be done to provide food and water to those who are trapped by this terrible war?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I understand the noble Baroness’s concern, which I think is shared right across the Chamber. What we, as the United Kingdom Government, are doing, as she will be aware, is offering an extensive package of humanitarian aid. The total offer is £395 million, and that has been used in various ways. The important thing, as she identifies, is how to get aid into Ukraine. The funding that we are providing will help agencies to respond and, I hope, create a lifeline for Ukrainians, with access to basic necessities, particularly medical supplies such as medicines, syringes, dressings and wound care packs. Indeed, one important request from the Government of Ukraine has been in the area of medical supplies. We have provided £3.5 million to fund medical supplies to Ukraine, and medical items have been flown to the region. They came from the DHSC and from the NHS in Scotland.

Ukraine

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, the speeches we have heard today, including the remarkable maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, have eloquently described the horror we all feel at the outrage in Ukraine and the need for a united response.

Putin has shown total contempt for the West and our democratic values, but what are those values? Too often they seem financial rather than moral. The UK has made life too easy for Putin and his Kremlin cronies. The sanctions being imposed now are welcome—although the first response was embarrassingly inadequate —but, as others have said, they must go deeper and be sustained. Much of the damage has already been done, in part by a UK that welcomed Russian money, often from the most dubious sources.

There used to be reason to be proud of the City of London, its banks and its professional firms. That surely can no longer be the case. The rot set in years ago. Since 2005, 39 Russian companies have listed on the London Stock Exchange, raising $44 billion. Much of that cash has gone to enriching Putin’s apparatchiks. But there have been only three listings since 2014—most of the Russian people’s assets had already been shared around the oligarchs, parcelled up and brought to London to be turned into cash. Instead, the 24 Russian companies currently listed need to be carefully investigated.

Freezing the assets of the Russian banks is only a start. The huge fees paid to bankers, lawyers and accountants to bring companies to market seemed an incentive for them to see the best, not the worst, in those companies. Now we need to be assured that these companies properly deserve a listing on our stock market. If the answer is no, investors from the UK will suffer, but their pain will be little in comparison with that of the people of Ukraine. We need Putin and his allies to be hurt.

We also have to look at the highly commercial approach of some of our major law firms. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, was among those to point out the failings that have led to London’s reputation as the favourite laundromat for dirty money. Last month, for instance, Mishcon de Reya, one of our major law firms, was fined £232,000 for serious breaches of the money laundering rules, but my Google search for “Mishcon de Reya” and “money laundering” only brought that up as the second result; what came first was the firm’s offer of services to companies on advice on dealing with money laundering regulations. It points out that it has on its staff Russian-speaking lawyers who are ready to help.

The noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford, spoke of the long-term pain that the UK may have to endure to help Ukraine. I believe that the City of London should be prepared to bear its share. It is time not just for more new regulations but for a change of culture. While our lax attitude to Russian riches has empowered Putin’s cronies, our laxness in another area has helped him destabilise the West. Russia’s interference in our election and referendum process was highlighted in the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report. We now see the need for a united European approach to dealing with security issues. It may or may not be the case that Russian propaganda bots influenced the decision over Brexit, but it is now mighty clear that Russia wanted Brexit. We have to find a mechanism for engaging fully with the EU on security issues, and we have to be more vigilant in policing propaganda that attempts to influence our elections. Cyberwarfare was a reality even before the troops stormed into Ukraine, and we have to deal with it.

British Armed Forces: Global Britain

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, has repeatedly called for a multiyear defence settlement to enable the military to invest in constructing a modern defence capability. I echo that plea. If the military is to be able to deliver the integrated operating concept, a pivotal strategy for global Britain, with its emphasis on continuing cyberwar against authoritarian states, it needs long-term investment in technology.

Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, spoke of the horrors continuing in Mali. Some 220 UN peacekeepers have been killed there since 2013, eight of them in the last four weeks. Our UK mission there is under-resourced; it needs helicopters —absolutely essential for providing crucial casualty evacuation—and it does not have them. Would the Minister examine that situation?

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Healy of Primrose Hill) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has withdrawn, so the next speaker is the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins.

Defence and Security Public Contracts (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the nature of the world we live in means we have to have adequate defence and security provisions. Ensuring that the necessary procurement can continue effectively after our departure from the EU is clearly essential. These regulations are designed to ensure that, so I support them, but I wonder, as did the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, why the opportunity has not been taken to draft some new and more easily comprehensible regulations than these. As the Minister tried to explain the changes that are being made and the tidying up that is being done, I sympathised with her plight: these are a real hotchpotch.

It had been my fervent hope that, after leaving the EU, the UK would seek the closest possible alignment with EU regulations, thus allowing, effectively, a continuing membership of the single market that has been such a boost to our industry. That is not the Government’s policy. I believe the decision will undermine the UK’s economy, but it is clearly important that, in the new, post-Brexit world, the UK nurtures its industrial base. The defence and security industry is a valuable contributor to that. The research and development that goes on in many of our defence businesses feeds into valuable innovation in companies in many other sectors. We need to help that in the future. Can the Minister tell us how much we are going to be able to place our own industry at the forefront when it comes to procurement? To what extent will we still have to offer contracts to the EU and beyond? Are we able to make it clear that our shipbuilding industry is the one we wish to nurture?

The noble Lord, Thomas of Gresford, referred to state aid. Can the Minister explain exactly what the position is on state aid? Many of us are confused at the moment as to why it is such a stumbling block in EU negotiations. Any elaboration she could give would be much appreciated.