Afghanistan

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to the Minister for the Armed Forces for a briefing yesterday. It meant that, temporarily, I was under a super-injunction. I was a little surprised when I was summoned to the MoD. On Monday afternoon I received a message asking me to come in for a confidential briefing. I had no idea what to expect, or of the magnitude of what we would hear in the Statement made by the Secretary of State yesterday.

It is a matter of extreme seriousness for a variety of reasons—the risk into which an official and the MoD placed Afghans who were already vulnerable, but also the fact that Parliament was entirely unable to scrutinise His Majesty’s Government on this issue for almost two years. The media reported immediately after the super-injunction was raised yesterday at midday; they had spent the last 22 months gathering evidence that, of course, they could not publish. There is a whole set of questions that are probably beyond the remit of the Minister who is responding today on behalf of the MoD, including what scrutiny Parliament is able to do and what the Government feel is appropriate regarding the media. Were the media being suppressed?

Lest anyone think that I am being cavalier about the lives of Afghans, it was absolutely clear that the United Kingdom had a duty to those Afghans who worked alongside His Majesty’s Armed Forces, including the interpreters and those who worked for the British Council. In light of that, the ARAP and ACRS schemes, which we all knew about, were the right approach. Yet we already knew, from open source material and cases that were brought to this House and the other place, that breaches of data had caused fines to be paid.

At the time of the evacuation of Afghanistan in August 2021, it was clear that many people were left behind, and that the helplines were not necessarily fit for purpose. The hotline for parliamentarians and their staff did not necessarily act as a hotline at all. I certainly left messages about cases and received no follow-up or reply. I was not alone in that and, although I believe that I was not part of this data breach, some parliamentarians were.

We began to acknowledge our debt to some of the Afghans, but not all. Then a data breach, about which we knew nothing, happened over three years ago. That in itself is shocking. Has anybody in His Majesty’s Government taken responsibility for that? We understand from the Statement that it was reported to the Metropolitan Police, which believed that there was no criminal activity. Has anybody taken responsibility for this catastrophic data breach that potentially put many tens of thousands of lives in Afghanistan at risk and caused considerable concern to Afghans who were already in the UK, having come over as part of the ARAP scheme?

The former Secretary of State, Sir Ben Wallace, has said that the super-injunction was not a cover-up, as has the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. Yet Mr Justice Chamberlain, who finally lifted the super-injunction yesterday, said in November 2023 that a super-injunction

“is likely to give rise to understandable suspicion that the court’s processes are being used for the purposes of censorship … This is corrosive of the public’s trust in Government”.

Does the Minister agree? Can he confirm that this Government would not seek to use a super-injunction or, in the event that it was felt that a super-injunction was an appropriate course of action, that it would not last for more than 600 days but could be for a very limited amount of time while a particular, specific policy needed to be undertaken? The substantive policy change that was brought in—the Afghanistan response route—seems to have been very sensible. Had it been brought to your Lordships’ House and the other place, parliamentarians may well have thought that it was the right policy and been happy to endorse it—but we were never asked, because of the super-injunction. We knew nothing about it.

Could the Minister tell us whether, in future, the Intelligence and Security Committee might be briefed in camera? What role would Parliament and the media be allowed to play? If the courts, Parliament and the media are not deployed appropriately, that raises questions about our own democracy that need to be considered.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Goldie and Lady Smith, for their comments and their words about the way in which the Government tried to inform His Majesty’s Opposition and the defence spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats. We tried to ensure that as many Members of your Lordships’ House, as well as other people in the other place, were informed as appropriate. I apologise if that did not happen with everybody who may have expected to have been informed, but we tried to ensure that everybody was consulted and spoken to.

I join the noble Baronesses, Lady Goldie and Lady Smith, in the apologies that His Majesty’s Government, through me, again make today for what happened, which was totally unacceptable.

Before I answer the specific questions, I shall make a couple of opening remarks. The whole House will agree that the UK owes a huge debt of gratitude to all those Afghans who fought alongside us and supported our efforts in Afghanistan. Although I appreciate that there is significant parliamentary and media concern around these issues, and rightly so, let us not also forget that we are talking about human lives.

As noble Lords will know, a major data loss occurred in February 2022, involving the dissemination of a spreadsheet containing names of applicants to the ARAP scheme. The previous Government responded by setting up a new assessment route—the Afghanistan response route—to protect the most at-risk individuals whose data was disseminated. The data, and the lives that sit behind them, were protected by an unprecedented super-injunction, which was granted by the High Court, based on the threat posed to those individuals. That is a point that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, made: it is the court that grants an injunction, and when the Government asked for an injunction they were granted a super-injunction.

It is our view that the previous Government acted in good faith to protect lives. However, when this Government took office, Ministers felt deeply uncomfortable —to go to some of the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, made—with the limits that the super-injunction placed on freedom of the press and parliamentary scrutiny. As a result, we therefore commissioned a reassessment of the situation, led by a former Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence, Paul Rimmer. Mr Rimmer, following a comprehensive review, found that it is

“unlikely that merely being on the dataset would be grounds for targeting”

by the Taliban. He also found that there was no evidence pointing to Taliban possession of the dataset. We have therefore decided, as have the courts, that the risks have reduced, and that the existence of the scheme and its associated costs should be brought into the public and parliamentary realms for the appropriate scrutiny. Therefore, we expect and invite parliamentary scrutiny for these decisions.

I will deal with a couple of the points that have been made. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, asked me how this happened. I do not normally do this, as noble Lords know, but I will read out from my brief so that I get it factually right. In February 2022, under the previous Government, a spreadsheet with names of individual applicants for ARAP—the resettlement scheme for Afghan citizens who worked for or with the UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan—was emailed outside of official government systems. This was mistakenly thought to contain the names of a small number of applicants, but in fact the email contained personal information linked to 18,700 applicants of ARAP and its predecessor, the ex-gratia scheme, or EGS. The data related to applications made on or before 7 January 2022. A small section of this spreadsheet appeared online on 14 August 2023, which is when the then Government first became aware that the MoD’s ARAP casework and spreadsheet had been mistakenly included with the original email. The previous Government investigated that and a report was sent to the Information Commissioner’s Office. I repeat that the Government reported this to the Metropolitan Police, which found that there was no malicious or malign intent by the individual responsible.

The noble Baroness asked whether we believe that the systems have now been adequately changed. In a statement yesterday, the Information Commissioner’s Office said:

“We’re reassured that the MoD’s investigation has resulted in taking necessary steps and minimised the risk of this happening again”.


I hope that will begin to reassure the noble Baroness with respect to her point about how the leak happened, the measures that have been taken and the way it has been looked at and investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which has now reported in a statement yesterday that it believes the MoD has, as far as it possibly can, taken the necessary action to prevent such a terrible and unfortunate incident happening again.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, of course it is of great concern that parliamentary and media scrutiny had, essentially, to be stopped. Parliament and the press have not been able to scrutinise the activity and decisions in the way that they should. When we came into office, we were, fairly obviously, uncomfortable with that. We looked at the facts and the situation and, in January this year, as the noble Baroness will know, the Secretary of State asked Mr Rimmer, a former senior officer at Defence Intelligence, to investigate.

Noble Lords will have seen Mr Rimmer’s report. There are a number of important facts in its key conclusions, including that:

“No evidence points clearly to Taleban possession of the dataset”,


and the fact that the policy

“appears an extremely significant intervention, with not inconsiderable risk to HMG and the UK, to address the potentially limited net additional risk the incident likely presents”.

In other words, with where we are now, after the passage of time and the various assessments of the risk in Afghanistan, Mr Rimmer now believes that it is appropriate for the Government to apply to the court to lift the injunction. With the evidence provided in the Government’s presentation, it was lifted at Noon yesterday. The Government have decided that the time is right to make a Statement about what has happened, put as much of that evidence as possible into the public domain, and invite public, media and parliamentary scrutiny of it. That is the right thing to do.

At the end, in government, there is always a balance between making decisions about how to protect lives in a particular situation and recognising that you must have parliamentary and media scrutiny. The previous Government acted in good faith. We have looked at that again and believe that now is the right time for us to come forward, to publicise what happened and to invite comment from everyone. I hope noble Lords will accept that explanation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, if the reporting is correct, I understand that the date of the super-injunction was 1 September 2023 and that it was granted at the instigation of the then Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps. Eight months later, in debates on the safety of Rwanda Bill, I repeatedly moved an amendment to exclude from deportation to Rwanda Afghans who had served with British forces but had arrived here via irregular routes, no safe route being available. As these debates were taking place, some of the very people I was trying to exclude were being flown here by the United Kingdom without almost any Member of this House or the other place being aware. Why was I not told? Why was your Lordships’ House not told? If that was due to the super-injunction, why did the Government not accept my amendment? If my noble friend cannot answer any of these questions because he was not in government at the time, can he guarantee that we will have a chance to ask those questions and get them answered?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. My understanding—and there are better lawyers in here than I—is that the Ministers would have believed themselves to be subject to the injunction and the super-injunction, and that would constrain what they would or would not be able to say. But now that we have gone to the High Court to say that we believe the time is right for that super-injunction to be lifted, and the court has agreed with us, we are able to debate and discuss the very points that my noble friend has raised. No doubt these are the questions that, over the coming days, weeks and months, I and others will be asked to account for—quite rightly.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, it has been stated again and again that the person responsible for the loss of data thought that the spreadsheet contained a small number of names, whereas it actually contained a very large number of names. Surely this is irrelevant. It is the fact that it was used on a non-departmental system, not the number of names, that constitutes the breach. This has been presented as an individual failing, but one cannot help but notice that it seems to have originated in the same part of the Ministry of Defence which contemporaneously was making some rather questionable judgments and decisions about the so-called Triples, which must raise questions in people’s minds about the overall degree of supervision and direction of that part of the Ministry of Defence. Can the Minister reassure the House that this is being looked at in that wider context?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for this important question, which the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goldie, also asked, as to how on earth this could have happened. First of all, it was really important to ascertain whether there was any criminal or malign intent. The previous Government were quite right to refer that to the police for investigation. As I have already said, the police found that there was no evidence of any criminal or malign intent. Alongside that, it was referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The answer to the noble and gallant Lord’s question is the whole of the statement that the Information Commissioner’s Office made yesterday about its investigation into what happened, and into the way in which the Ministry of Defence has changed many of the processes that it had in place and its management arrangements to ensure as far as possible that we would not see that again. The importance of that is the independence of the Information Commissioner’s Office looking at what the MoD was doing, rather than the MoD marking its own homework.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, yesterday, the Secretary of State for Defence described the super-injunction as

“unprecedented, uncomfortable and, in many ways, unconscionable”. —[Official Report, Commons, 15/7/25; col. 160.]

Given that, does the Minister agree that if, in the future, super-injunctions are sought, or their renewal is sought, the application will be made only with the consent of not just the relevant Secretary of State but the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Viscount, with his legal understanding and background, makes an interesting point. I cannot confirm whether that would be the right process and way forward but it is certainly something that should be thought about and considered. I will ensure that that suggestion is put into the process, but I cannot guarantee that it is the right way forward. I would need to talk to other colleagues about whether it is, but I thank him for his suggestion.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend and Min AF for their briefing to me yesterday in my role as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee. At that briefing, Min AF said that Defence Intelligence undertook an assessment of those individuals who were at risk. We now know from Paul Rimmer’s report that other assessments were taken forward by Defence Intelligence. The Intelligence and Security Committee is the only committee of Parliament that can actually look at these detailed intelligence reports. Contrary to what the former Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, said on Radio 4 this morning, the Intelligence and Security Committee has full oversight of Defence Intelligence and does and can receive current intelligence. I therefore ask my noble friend: will the MoD now release these reports to the committee, or do I, at the meeting of the committee tomorrow, have to formally require the Government to produce these reports to the committee under our powers under the Justice and Security Act 2013?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend, as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, points to its important role. I would think that every report should be made available to the committee, given that it was set up specifically to give parliamentary scrutiny to difficult intelligence decisions, but under the protection of the way in which it operates. I say to my noble friend that I would expect that to happen—I hope that there is not some process of which I am not aware that means I am not supposed to say so. In all openness, and in trying to be transparent about this, I would think that the Intelligence and Security Committee, given the way in which it operates, should have everything made available to it so that it can consider it and, where necessary, question Ministers and others.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, there are those in the other place who are spreading misinformation about the nature of the checks that were undertaken for those coming from Afghanistan to the United Kingdom. It is in the Statement, but it would be helpful for the House—and the public—if the Minister could reassure us from the Dispatch Box that every individual coming to the United Kingdom under all three of the schemes that were set up, including the one that was not made known until yesterday, was subject to proper national security checks to protect the public.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Indeed. Under both the previous Government and this Government, the fact that you are deemed eligible with respect to the Afghan resettlement programme does not mean that you do not have security checks made upon you. Let me be clear: that is for everybody who is said to be eligible under that scheme to come to the United Kingdom. I remind noble Lords that, if someone comes to the United Kingdom under that scheme, they automatically get indefinite leave to remain. I further remind noble Lords that the second part of that is for people to undergo security checks to make sure that they are not people who would come here and commit crime, or worse. On the particular individual to whom the noble Lord referred, who has made those allegations and said what he has said, if he has specific allegations, he should—as many have said—go to the police to report them, rather than just cast aspersions.

[Lord Tyrie (Non-Afl)]

I think noble Lords in this House would agree that the last Government and this Government acted properly in handling this, in every substantive respect. Unfortunately, that is not how this case, at least in part, is being presented in the media. Part of the media is still presenting this as if there has been some kind of cover-up at some stage, to protect the politicians who were in power at the time. Can the Minister categorically assure the House, on the basis of the evidence he has seen, that that was not the case and that, in looking at this issue, the previous Government acted entirely properly—as have this Government, in my view—at every stage?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and others, the last Government acted in good faith in a way that they believed would protect people who had been put at risk by the data breach. They also went to the court for an injunction. The court itself granted a super-injunction, the thrust of which was to try to protect people from the consequences of having their names inadvertently put into the public domain. The previous Government did that. When we came to power, we decided that we needed to look at this to see whether it was still proportionate and how we should act. On the basis of the Rimmer review, we changed that. I sometimes wonder what the consequences would have been for any Government had that happened and lots of people had been killed.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, the logic behind the basic injunction to protect these vulnerable people in the wake of a catastrophic data breach is understandable and the application is laudable; the super-injunction is less so. Is my noble friend the Minister able to open up a little more? Has he been briefed on the rationale behind the super-injunction, or at least on the Government of the day not applying some time ago, if not immediately, for the super-injunction, which did not protect the sensitive data but the fact that there was a breach? What was the rationale for not seeking to suspend the super-injunction? That is where the constitutional concern lies, for the then and future Government.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I understand my noble friend’s point. I respond with trepidation, because I do not want to get into a legal discussion with her, as her legal knowledge is far greater than mine.

My understanding was that the previous Government asked for an injunction and then the court decided, on the basis of what it was told, that it was necessary for there to be a super-injunction. That was granted by the courts because of the threat that people faced. It was then renewed over a period of time. In the summer of 2024, the High Court suspended the injunction and gave the last Government 21 days to appeal. The Government appealed and the Appeal Court allowed the reimposition of the super-injunction. I can only presume that that was on the basis that the court was persuaded that the threat still existed for those whose data had been inadvertently put into the public domain.

On the basis of knowledge we accumulated over a few months, we decided to undertake the Rimmer review, which gave us the evidence to go back to the court and say that we no longer believed that the injunction was necessary for the protection of those individuals. The court accepted the Government’s new evidence, from the report, that the super-injunction was not necessary. At 12 pm yesterday, the injunction was lifted, and at 12.30 pm, my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary made a Statement in the other place, and we have come here today to make a Statement, which I have no doubt will be the first of many.

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords—

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[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, as I am sure the Minister is aware, there are a number of Afghans who are on the run from the Taliban, some of them in Pakistan, terrified about being sent back. The Taliban threatened to hunt down any woman who had played a public role. Could the Minister tell me whether there were any Afghan women on the list that leaked?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We are trying to contact anybody on the list, whether they are in Afghanistan or Pakistan, who has been designated eligible for the scheme, to ensure that they understand that we will honour the commitment we have made to them. Whether they are in Pakistan or in any other country, we will honour the commitment we have made to them and try to ensure they get passage here. The noble Baroness will understand why I will not say any more than that, as it would compromise people we are trying to bring here.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I say, if I might, how encouraging it is that the Government are working so closely with the Opposition on this issue. It helps increase respect for and trust in the British political system. It was absolutely right that there should have been a super-injunction. My question is related to the effect of lifting the super-injunction at this stage. The Rimmer report says that there will be no added risk and a human judgment has to be made about whether or not that is the case. Undoubtably, the huge amount of publicity about registering the super-injunction is going to have an effect. Will anybody in the MoD be looking at the lifting of the super-injunction to see what kind of result there has been and whether there has been a significant effect which has increased the risk of vulnerable people?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We will keep everything under review and look to see what the consequences of the decision we have made are. Following on from what the noble Baroness said about women in Pakistan, our initial focus is to try to ensure that, for everybody who is eligible for the various schemes, we honour the commitment that we made to them. There are still hundreds of people; the number of people still to be relocated under the Afghan response route, which is the scheme that was not publicised, is 600. We are trying to ensure that we know where they are and to bring them here, with approximately 2,700 family members. That, along with our other commitments, is our first priority: to try to ensure that we bring to the UK those we have made a commitment to.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not know whether my question is for my noble friend the Minister or for the party opposite. While I can totally understand why an injunction was sought to protect the content of the leak and to protect lives, I would like to understand—perhaps my noble friend can explain—why an injunction was sought to prevent our media reporting the fact of the leak.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It is difficult for me to comment exactly on the motivation of the last Government, although I believe they acted in good faith. If I put myself in their position, I think the motivation behind the injunction would be to protect not only the names but the fact that the dataset exists, to prevent people looking for such a dataset through the various means by which they would. For us, that was an argument that was made, and, over a period of time, we got to the point where it no longer held. As soon as we had the independent evidence to go to the court, we went to the court, to enable the parliamentary and media scrutiny that there should be of the actions that were and are being taken.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

I am afraid I am a little less sanguine about some of this than others. This catastrophic cock-up—and it was a cock-up, not a criminal event—is a direct consequence of us getting involved in a war in which we should never have got involved in the first place, which we did not have the political will to see through, despite all the efforts of our gallant military, and which left the country in a worse state than it was when we arrived. If it were a one-off, it would perhaps be understandable, but this is a pattern of British policy over the years, from Iraq to Afghanistan and, of course, to Libya. I express a little prayer that we have learned the lessons of that deeper malaise.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I think that we all need to learn lessons from anything that has happened in our history, whatever steps or decisions have been taken. The only thing I would say is that non-decisions and not doing anything also have consequences. It is about balance, and that is a debate and discussion that needs to happen. In terms of the content of today’s debate and future debates, the concentration has to be on what we do both to learn the lessons of what happened under the ARAP scheme and to make sure that we protect as many as possible of the people who stood with us in Afghanistan, whatever the rights and wrongs of that conflict.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, further to the point raised earlier by a noble Lord opposite about the lies, misinformation and fake news being spread, let us not pussyfoot around: it is by Nigel Farage and other members of Reform UK. Can the Minister confirm that this could actually put some of the people concerned in further danger?

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really good point. Let us be clear: these are people who stood with us, fought with us and, in many cases, died with us. I think that the British public understand and welcome that.

By the end of this scheme, some 56,000 applicants under ARAP, plus their family members, will have been relocated to this country. There is some difficulty in terms of transition when they originally arrive, and so on and so forth—where they are placed and as they assimilate into society—but my understanding is that the British public understand that and are generally very supportive of these people. They are not asylum seekers. They are people who have come to our country because they stood with us; that is an important distinction to make.

The answer to those who would exploit that is to stand up to them and say, “You’re wrong. You’re actually not right. You are not speaking for the British people. The British people understand what we are doing and why we are doing it with respect to Afghanistan”, and so on and so forth. As I said to the noble Lord, making allegations and aspersions about all those who have been resettled under the Afghanistan scheme—“They’re all like this, they’re all like that”—is a total nonsense and not true. That is what I think the majority of people in this country think.

Let me say this: if there is an individual who has raped somebody, stolen from somebody, or worse, that person, whether they are an Afghan or not, should be prosecuted in the courts and sent to jail. I say again, as I said to the noble Lord, that, if the said person has evidence of it, they should go to the police and get them prosecuted, because that is what the British public want as well.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)]

My Lords, before I call further business, some noble Lords might wish to take this opportunity to leave.

Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Coaker]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Armed Forces Act 2006 (Continuation) Order 2025.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, the purpose of this order is to continue into force, for another year, the legislation that governs the Armed Forces—the Armed Forces Act 2006. By way of background, Parliament renews the Armed Forces Act every five years through primary legislation. This first happened in 2011, then in 2016 and most recently in 2021. It will next be renewed in 2026. However, in the intervening years, an annual Order in Council, such as the one before us today, must be approved by both Houses. This will keep the Act in force for a further year, but for no later than 14 December 2026, when the present Act is due to expire. A new Armed Forces Act will therefore be required to be in place by December 2026 to renew the 2006 Act for a further five years, and then we will resume the practice of yearly renewals.

Having detailed the legislative framework for the draft order, I wish to turn to some of what lies at the heart of our Armed Forces. After announcing the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War, we recently unveiled our comprehensive strategic defence review, which declares clearly this Government’s intent to meet the threats we are facing and return the UK’s Armed Forces to a state of war- fighting readiness. This is why we are putting people at the heart of our defence plans. As set out in the strategic defence review, there will need to be a whole-of-society approach—wider participation in national resilience and renewing the nation’s contract with those who serve. In support of that approach, it is therefore essential that we improve the recruitment and retention of our personnel. This is why the Government have made the largest pay increase for serving personnel in more than two decades.

We will expand opportunities for young people to experience more of what the Armed Forces have to offer, delivering a 30% increase in cadets and introducing a voluntary gap year scheme. Further to this, we have brought back 36,000 military homes from the private sector as part of plans to transform Armed Forces accommodation, while we will also deliver a generational renewal of military accommodation with at least £7 billion of funding this Parliament, including over £1.5 billion of new investment for rapid work to fix the poor state of forces family housing. We are intensifying efforts to root out bullying and harassment, which have, as we all know, no place in our Armed Forces.

Against the backdrop of improving support for veterans, as exemplified by the new VALOUR programme, which will see VALOUR regional field officers working closely with local services and local government bodies on the application of the principles of the Armed Forces covenant for the betterment of our veterans. We will be updating kit and equipment across all three services to ensure that our nation and those who serve and will be serving in the future are ready to fight the war of tomorrow. That will mean harnessing artificial intelligence, drones, cyber technologies and other innovations alongside more traditional approaches to land, sea and air warfare to make us stronger and safer, because tomorrow’s conflicts will belong to the smartest and most innovative, as the war in Ukraine has shown and is showing.

The defence review sets out a path for the next decade to transform defence and help make it an engine for growth, boosting prosperity and jobs across the whole of the UK while continuing to lead within NATO, ensuring our security is protected through collective power and capabilities. To achieve this, we need to ensure that we maintain a strong and effective discipline framework for our Armed Forces, which the Armed Forces Act 2006 provides and which this order maintains for a further year. The 2006 Act contains nearly all the required provisions for command, discipline, justice, enlistment, pay and redress of complaints. It provides the legal basis and associated powers for offices such as the Judge Advocate-General and the Director of Service Prosecutions, as well as the various service courts. Further, it establishes the Service Police Complaints Commissioner and the tri-service Defence Serious Crime Unit, and contains the legislation for the Armed Forces covenant. In short, the 2006 Act is a vital piece of legislation that our Armed Forces cannot function without.

Those in service protect the nation, our allies and partners and global stability wherever in the world they serve. It is only right, as I know all Members of the Committee will agree, that in this debate we honour their bravery, courage and unflinching duty through the small token of providing consent today. To that end, all of us here pay tribute to their public service. I beg to move.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I support this continuation order. As has been explained, it keeps His Majesty’s Armed Forces legal until after the Armed Forces Bill in 2026 is enacted. The Minister has given a good trailer for the debate that we will have on Friday on the strategic defence review, so I will not respond on that.

I would like to make just one point. When the 2021 Act was being debated, I, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and other noble Lords pressed for the obligation to have “due regard” to the Armed Forces covenant to be extended from local authorities to include central government departments. We quoted, as examples in need of central government consideration, Gulf War syndrome and the right of abode in the UK for Hong Kong Military Service Corps veterans who had served full time in the Armed Forces. A compromise was reached, and the issue was set aside for further examination.

The present Government have made it clear from the outset that they would extend the responsibility for supporting the covenant to central government. This is most welcome—it will, I assume, be legally formalised when the 2026 Bill is being considered—but the importance and reach of the Armed Forces covenant has had a very long incubation. I was one of the first to raise an amendment to the covenant legislation, which I tabled to the 2011 Bill nearly 15 years ago.

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[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her impeccable judgment on timing, which worked very neatly. As she said, it seems that, every year, this comes round sooner than the year before; it is a bit like how policemen are getting younger. Anyway, here we are to approve the continuation of the Armed Forces Act 2006 for another year.

Apart from the necessary attention to legal process, this is a welcome opportunity to pay tribute to and thank our Armed Forces personnel for the incredible work that they do on our behalf. Some of those to whom we perhaps do not pay sufficient tribute are the ranks of talented civil servants over there—they were of enormous support to me when I was a Minister—so we should extend our thanks for the support that the MoD gives to both the political process and our Armed Forces personnel. I thank the Minister for opening the debate on the order and echo his praise for our men and women in uniform.

This debate provides an important opportunity to reflect on the previous year in defence. Over the past year, we have seen the international security environment deteriorate further. Russia is continuing its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Iran has become emboldened to lash out. Iranian-backed Houthis from Yemen sank two ships in the Red Sea just this month, and the conflict in Israel and Gaza is showing few signs of abating.

Currently, the carrier strike group, led by the fleet flagship HMS “Prince of Wales”, is in the South China Sea, reinforcing our global reach and maintaining freedom of navigation. As a country, we can take pride in the professionalism of our Royal Navy sailors doing so much to stand up for our country globally.

We have seen ever more harrowing attacks on Ukraine by Russia. Increased use of drones has meant that, as of 31 May 2025, 13,341 Ukrainians have been killed and 32,744 have been injured in Putin’s illegal war. The Government are to be commended for their continued, resolute commitment to aid Ukraine in repelling Russian aggression. With the recent announcements of the coalition of the willing, which has the best wishes of these Benches, we hope that further progress can be made on ending the war.

As my noble friend Lord Minto and I have said, we welcome the broad direction of the strategic defence review. I know that we will have a fuller debate on that matter on Friday, so I shall not delay the Grand Committee by dwelling on it. Suffice to say that, while I genuinely welcome the Government’s acknowledgement that much more must be done to bolster our defence capabilities, I shall have a number of questions arising out of the SDR, but the Minister will have to contain his excitement as to what those questions are until Friday.

I was very struck by what my noble friend Lord Lancaster said about the reserves, given his profound knowledge of them and his own military experience. He raised a number of interesting points, which I confess had not previously occurred to me, but I think are substantive. As we live in a new threat environment, with increasing need for resilience and swiftness of response, they are very well-made points, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments on them.

What I would like to stress at the moment applies to the Northern Ireland veterans. The Minister was helpful last week when he said that there would be a Statement soon on this matter, which is a welcome development; we might finally know what the Government are planning with regard to the legacy Act. I might point out that I did not get an answer to the question that I asked last Monday: does the Minister think that recruitment and retention in the Armed Forces will be aided by constantly relitigating cases where veterans were simply doing their jobs? The recent case of Soldier C—who has already faced multiple investigations and been cleared each time but has now been told as a very elderly man that he may face another investigation and possible prosecution—is more than egregious. I do not expect the Minister to comment on media commentary that the Minister for Veterans and People, the honourable Mr Al Carns, is allegedly deeply unhappy about possible changes to the legacy Act, but it underlines the need for urgent clarity by the Government as to their position.

On the issue of retention and recruitment, we all know how much service accommodation requires improvement. My right honourable friend in the other place, James Cartlidge, when a Minister in the MoD, began the process of buying back the estate from Addington Homes, to which the Minister referred. This was the first step in resuming control by the MoD over living conditions. But that work is not yet complete, and the next step requires further structural innovation and change and further investment. That is why my right honourable friend has launched his policy of instituting an Armed Forces housing association, where our service personnel would be part of the association governance, to better meet the needs and listen to the voices of our service men and women. I hope that the Government consider that a constructive proposal.

Finally, it would be remiss of me if I did not continue to push the Minister on the money. We know that the Government have decided to shift spending on intelligence to the definition of defence spending but, so far, it is not quite clear exactly how much of that intelligence spending will be redefined as defence expenditure. Could the Minister enlighten the Grand Committee on that point? Does the Minister have full confidence that the Government will be able to reach the new NATO defence spending targets?

I look forward to the Minister’s response but, of course, confirm that these Benches support the statutory instrument to keep the Armed Forces Act current in law.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all the noble Lords who participated in the debate, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Goldie. They expressed their support—I know it is true for every single Member of the Committee and across the whole Chamber—for our Armed Forces and the recognition of their work, both seen and unseen. It is quite right for all of us to remember that. Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, in recognition of the work that he does, we know that many Members are either still active or have been active as former military, and we continue to pay tribute to them. I thank the noble Lord for the work that he does, and I want to make sure that when we thank the Armed Forces we also include the reserves. I know that we would all wish that he conveys that message to them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, paid tribute to the civil servants as well. I like to think that, by and large, we are served well by the Civil Service in this country. They get some stick sometimes but in my experience, they are they are pretty good. I have one word, that I will not use—sometimes, I think that perhaps they could do a little better at understanding, but I shall leave that to my private secretary who is here and knows exactly what word I mean. But overall, they are a tremendous and great credit to our country. They deserve more support and recognition than they often get. I thank the noble Baroness to pointing that out; it was well made.

I shall go through a few of the points in no particular order. The noble Baroness talks about spending. She will know that the way in which this is now going to be included goes to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, about homeland resilience and Article 3. That is what has taken us down—the fact that for too long we have talked about Article 5 but not Article 3 in terms of civil defence, homeland resilience and homeland defence. That is why 1.5% is being talked about. What is included in the 1.5% will obviously be a matter for discussion and debate, but it will not include some of the silly suggestions that we have heard. There will be a debate about what it should include, because it will be part of building up to a significant homeland defence, civil resilience and all those sorts of things. So you will get whatever is spent on defence, plus that 1.5%. The noble Baroness, as well as other members of the Committee, will have seen the Government laying out that target of 2.6% by 2027. You can add 1.5% on it then, if you want, depending on how you get to 4.1%, the 3% in terms of defence spending in the next Parliament, and 3.5% by 2035.

In same way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, said that I will have to wait for her questions on Friday and contain my excitement, she will have to contain her own excitement about when the Government lay out exactly how we will reach those figures. But that is the aim and policy of the Government—to reach that target in terms of defence spending. I know that this sentiment is shared across the House in the last Government, this Government, and all of us: I thank her for the general support for Ukraine and what we are doing with respect to that country. It is an important statement of this country regarding standing up for our principles and providing leadership not only in Europe but beyond. I thank her for that and for her reminder. It is an important statement. Our debates and discussions are read by others, so it is important that we continually reiterate those points.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for her comments about the carrier strike group, which is currently just off the coast in Australia for Operation Talisman Sabre. She will know, because I have mentioned it in the Chamber, that I was with the carrier in Singapore recently and with the other support ships, including the Spanish frigate. The air power that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, mentioned and will be pleased about is all over the carrier, with the F-35Bs on the deck projecting that hard power. There is also the soft power, the defence diplomacy and receptions that have taken place. It is easy to mock that, but the diplomats, friends and the military from other countries came on board the carrier as well as the other ship.

I will digress slightly if the Committee allows me. I visited HMS “Richmond” and the Spanish frigate in Jakarta, which as everyone will know is in Indonesia, to show the fact that the Indonesian Government were welcoming British warships into Jakarta, which I think is very significant, as well as allowing exercises to take place, which some of their senior military would go on, off the coast of Indonesia. It shows the importance of that carrier strike group and the importance of the fact that our military, with our friends, allies and partners from the region, are out there in that part of the world, emphasising the importance of what we do. I thank the noble Baroness for raising that and giving me the opportunity to talk about that and about Ukraine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I suppose I bring good news: I do not think we have a problem with recruitment. The one thing we do not have is a shortage of people wishing to join the Armed Forces. The problem we have is the self-imposed challenge through conversion. As ever, that is down to policy.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is something to look at and to try and deal with. Certainly, some of the things I see suggest that there is a need for the process to be improved. One of the things we are doing is to try to improve the process as well.

Before I come to my final comments, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, would have seen the debate in the other place yesterday about veterans and Northern Ireland. As it stands at the moment, this is as much as I can say: the Government are discussing this very seriously with the Northern Ireland Office, veterans’ organisations and victims’ associations in Northern Ireland to try to ensure that we move to a situation that is acceptable and respects those veterans who have served us so proudly in the past. That is what we are seeking to do. When we are in a situation where there is agreement and we have a policy that makes sense and is acceptable, then we will be able to come forward and make a statement with respect to that. The noble Baroness is right to raise it, and it is an important issue. The office of my honourable friend Minister Carns is just next door to mine, as the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, know. I spend all my time talking to him, and he is working very hard on veterans affairs, bringing his particular experience, which I think is a great benefit to the Government—it would be of great benefit to any Government, but we are very proud and pleased that he is a member of our Government and is helping us with that, because of the obvious credibility he has.

Those are most of the points and questions that people raised in this short debate. Obviously, we will have a longer debate or discussion on Friday, with the whole day on the defence review, which the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, will lead and I will conclude. With that, I beg to move.

Motion agreed.

Armed Forces: Recruitment and Retention

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of their recruitment and retention policies for the armed forces.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

Since July 2024, we have taken decisive measures to redress the recruitment and retention crisis, slashing the time it takes to access medical records from weeks to hours and restructuring the Army’s recruitment organisation. The results are clear. Year on year inflow is up 19% and outflow is down 7%; the Navy’s yearly recruiting target has been exceeded; the RAF’s applications are up 34% compared to early 2024; and the Army has seen a seven-year high in applications.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. While conscious of the Government’s commitment to the recommendations of the strategic defence review and, for instance, improved housing and greater stability in posting, what assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the psychological impact of modern warfare—including drones and other digital means—on the likely recruits over the next few years, especially due to the reported higher mental health needs that there are among younger people?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is an interesting question. There are a number of different aspects to that. Clearly, mental health and the psychological impacts of modern warfare are things that any recruiting process will have to take account of, not only for recruits but for those who are serving and veterans. To answer the right reverend Prelate’s question, we have set up a new cyber direct entry means by which recruits can join, given the changing nature of warfare and the fact that traditional recruits may not be somebody we might regard as being fit for cyber recruitment. This issue is causing us to reflect and change in all sorts of ways, with respect to existing members of the Armed Forces and those who may serve in future.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

Does my noble friend the Minister agree that we have slightly lost sight of why youngsters want to join the military? I do not believe youngsters have changed that much and I think Capita got it wrong in spades. The sorts of reasons one joined were for action, danger, excitement, comradeship, travel and pride. Being told that you are going to have a very good pension in however many years and that there is going to be career development and this sort of thing is all fine and dandy, but you have to remember the real reason you might get people in. I think we got it wrong, particularly with Capita.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree absolutely with my noble friend’s points and will not repeat them. He will know that we have replaced Capita with Serco, which will make a difference. In a couple of years’ time, we will have a single point of entry for applicants, rather than through the three individual services. Let me also say this. We ought to speak up and speak out about the Armed Forces. My noble friend will know about the carrier strike group which has sailed through the Red Sea and is now on its way to Australia. They are young men and women who this country is rightly proud of, and we should use them as examples for our young people of the sort of service they can do and of what a career in the Armed Forces means. It is exciting, but it also stands up for the things that we in this country believe in.

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister join me in congratulating the Armed Forces on the wide diversity that it holds now? Will he also tell the House what we need to do more of once people leave the forces so that we look after them better?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her comments and all the work that she does in trying to ensure that we get diversity, which is so important to our Armed Forces. She does a brilliant job, which we need to recognise, and we need more people like her. On how we treat our veterans, she will know that the Government are about to extend, in the Armed Forces Bill that will come forward in the autumn, the Armed Forces covenant so that it covers not only local government but central government and more departments. That is one of the ways that we will do it. We do it also by speaking up for the value which we place on what our veterans have done to defend the freedoms of this country and our allies.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, given the loyalty of Sikh soldiers in both world wars, there has been talk of having a Sikh regiment in the British Army for a number of years. Governments of both parties have talked about it. Is there any progress on that?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Let me consider that request from my noble friend. I am quite happy to meet him to see what more we can do to recognise the contribution of soldiers such as Sikhs, and those of many other faiths as well. We have VJ Day coming up on 15 August, and we should reflect then on the sacrifice that so many people made across the world—not just in Europe—to defend the freedoms that we all enjoy today. Not least among that were the Sikhs of the world, who played a valiant part.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, given the Minister’s response to my noble friend Lady Verma, does he think that creating uncertainty by reopening the possibility of vexatious prosecutions against Northern Ireland veterans who were simply doing their job will assist the goal of improving recruitment and retention in our Armed Forces?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a really important point. If she waits a couple of weeks, my understanding is that a statement will be made by both the MoD and the Northern Ireland Office about how we might take this forward.

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, the 2023 review that was undertaken on recruitment and retention was conducted by one of our most eminent and successful businesspeople, and he identified a number of bureaucratic problems and economic drivers that would be important. The Minister has indicated that the Government are trying to work their way through that.

I want to pick up on the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord West. When young people get involved in business life, they are driven, appropriately, by individual economic drivers for their own betterment and success. When young people enlist in the military, we expect them to be prepared to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of the wider community. I know the Minister is very much aware of this difference and dilemma, but can he say a little more about how His Majesty’s Government are trying to address this dilemma?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The Government have increased pay by 35% for new recruits. That increase in pay is one of the ways in which we could encourage direct entry. We should not underestimate the power of the sense of duty among our young people and their desire to serve. As evidence of that, on Armed Forces Day and VE Day, in which the noble Lord and many other noble Lords and noble Baronesses across this Chamber will have been involved, it was remarkable to see the number of young people involved in those events across the regions and nations of the UK. That shows us that putting these careers and opportunities in front of young people is really important. Alongside that, we should never underestimate, however much sometimes we decry our young people, their sense of patriotism and duty.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, under the Capita system, probably the single biggest difficulty of the recruitment process was actually getting medical records out of the health service. What is happening to improve that?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We have scrapped a number of the medical record requirements to get rid of some of the silly things—for example, around dental records. Alongside that, we are making sure that, in the recruitment process, there is electronic access to GP’s records. That means that instead of days or weeks or months of trying to get those records, they can be accessed within a few minutes.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have committed to significantly growing the size of the Reserve Forces. With that in mind, what discussions have the Government had with employers to encourage them to promote the possibility of a career in the Reserve Forces and to ensure that they are prepared to release their workforce when they are called upon to serve?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We are having discussions with businesses of all sizes to try to ensure that we can promote the reserves as much as we can. That is in progress, and we will need to do more of it to ensure that we get the reserves we need.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

The Minister is well aware of the peculiar position of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s contracts. What assurances can he give me that the MoD will be looking at issues such as continuous days at sea and better work/life balance requirements for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Baroness has often raised the importance of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary to the Royal Navy, and we will continue to look at what more we can do with respect to it. I was recently in Singapore, where, as well as seeing the carrier and HMS “Dauntless”, I went to see the RFA ship—I can remember everything else except the name of the RAF ship.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

RFA.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend Lord West; that was very helpful—it is always good to hear your own side mumbling behind you. It was RFA “Tidespring”.

The serious point is this. As well as seeing the carrier and the “Dauntless”, I specifically went to see the RFA ship to ensure that I spoke to those people and discussed with them the importance of what they were doing and to see if they had any particular issues. That will inform the discussions that we have in the MoD.

UK–EU Defence and Security Co-operation

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the state of UK–EU defence and security co-operation.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, on 19 May, the UK and the EU agreed a landmark security and defence partnership, delivering on our manifesto pledge to strengthen European security, support growth and reinforce NATO. This partnership marks a renewed era of co-operation on issues such as Ukraine, military mobility and maritime security. Additionally, it allows for potential UK participation in the EU SAFE regulation, indicating the strength of UK-EU defence and security co-operation.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, noble Lords will recollect that, in February 2018 at the Munich Security Conference, the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, then Prime Minister, urged European Union leaders to

“forge a new security partnership with the UK after Brexit”.

The EU-UK defence and security partnership—I imagine entirely coincidentally established in May—is testament to a mutual recognition that we must work together to deepen the resilience of our collective security. The FCDO has already been briefed on the European Leadership Network’s proposal for an annual EU-UK strategic forum, which would work to deepen defence and security co-operation, assessing emerging threats and ensuring that we pool capacity as needed. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that such a forum is desirable, and would he further agree to meet me and the ELN senior management team to discuss how the MoD could engage in this process too?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I will always agree to meet noble Lords, and I will of course meet my noble friend to discuss the particular point that he raises and how he might take forward his proposal with respect to the European leadership forum. Let me add the important point that the UK Government establishing a new security and defence arrangement with the EU, in the troubled times that we face in Europe and beyond, is a real step forward for this country, complementing the work that we do with NATO.

[Lord Lee of Trafford (LD)]

My Lords, with drones increasingly revolutionising modern warfare, is it not essential that the UK and European countries collaborate and partner drone research and production, thus avoiding the wasteful duplication of each country doing its own thing, which has so bedevilled European defence procurement in recent years?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a really good point. The issues involving drones have been one of the lessons that we have all learned with respect to the conflict in Ukraine, whether they be surveillance drones, one-way drones or any other sort of attack drone. Drones are a real weapon and resource of the future. International collaboration will therefore be vital. Anybody who visits a defence conference will see the whole range of drones that are laid out. There is a coalition, which we lead with Latvia, to streamline drone procurement with respect to what we give to Ukraine. That is a starting point, but there is more to be done. Drones will simply be something that we will all have to take account of as the battlefield of the future becomes clearer.

[Lord Peach (CB)]

My Lords, I recognise the potential of the announcement made by the Minister but, in declaring my interest as a former special envoy to the Balkan region for several years, I ask the Minister to consider whether the UK could perhaps support the European Union force which is currently serving in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The reason I raise this in your Lordships’ House is that Russia continues to destabilise the Balkan region—at very low cost to itself—and will not stop. The influence that it exerts, and has exerted for decades, is only too plain to see when you visit. Can we look at that as one element of a practical outcome from this new pact? My other question, and will I close on this, is this: can we please look at new frameworks to deliver some of this potential?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We need to look at the new frameworks, which will deliver many of the things that are in the defence and security partnership. The noble and gallant Lord asked specifically about Bosnia. The EU mission there is Operation Althea, as he knows, and the Government are currently considering what to do with respect to that. Let me make it clear to all Members of this House that this Government, like the previous Government, support the integrity of Bosnia and support the Dayton accords. All of us over the decades have tried to support that agreement. It is under threat at the moment, as he knows, from Dodik in the Serbian part of Bosnia. We need to do all that we can to support the Bosnian Government to continue under the Dayton accords framework.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, there continues to uncertainty, and indeed anxiety, about whether UK defence firms will be able to access the EU Security Action for Europe fund. Is the Minister able to give this House any update, or has he any estimate to make, of the progress of discussions and when we might get a decision?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The fundamental point is that you cannot access the Security Action for Europe framework unless you have a security partnership agreement with the EU. That is the gateway to it. The fact that the Government, on 19 May, agreed the security and defence partnership means that we now have a gateway to the €150 billion loan available within SAFE. If we had not negotiated that partnership, there would be no gateway. On the loan money that is available, my understanding is that the first loans that could be made available will be towards the end of this year.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, on Tuesday, the Minister made it clear that the United States remains Britain’s prime ally. Does that imply that this is very much a secondary partnership with the EU, or are we engaged in a delicate balancing exercise, recognising that our dependence on the United States is no longer as secure as it used to be and that American priorities are moving away from Europe and we therefore need to prioritise our security relationship with Europe more than we used to?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I think that is in our interests. To run through this, NATO is our prime alliance and something of which we can all be proud—we have been a member for decades. Alongside that, having a better, more secure relationship with Europe and working with it where that is appropriate, whether in Bosnia or in other missions, such as in Georgia or Moldova, is in our interest given the threats that we face. It is in our interest to pursue that. Let us be absolutely clear that, alongside NATO and the security and defence partnership with the EU, the US and the UK standing together is of immense importance to our own security, as well as to the security of Europe and global security. That is the point that we continue to make. It was the policy under the last Government and is the policy under this Government. The US-UK relationship is fundamental to global security. We of course pursue other alliances and agreements where we need to, but let us always remember the US-UK relationship. It has kept the peace for years and will do so in the future.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister take the message back to his department that maritime security is under direct challenge now. With the Red Sea virtually closed and the Persian Gulf about to be closed if possible, that is the real challenge to our security and prosperity and where our attention should be diverted. Does he accept that something such as the Commonwealth network, which can integrate maritime data throughout the entire planet, is an important part of our future and also requires maximum attention—fundamental attention, in fact?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree with that. The Commonwealth and the other things that the noble Lord mentioned are of course important. In this Parliament and in this country, we should be immensely proud that our carrier strike group sailed through Suez, through the Red Sea, through the BAM and into the Indian Ocean. It did that to preserve the freedom of navigation and the trade routes of this country, which the noble Lord has mentioned. It is important to emphasise that and point to it as something of which we can all be proud, because it does the very thing that the noble Lord was asking for.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the global dominance of US and Chinese AI models is threatening Europe’s security and defence, through both its ability to cripple our public services and its impact on the rule of law and democracy within Europe? Can he say what collaboration is going on between the EU and the UK to develop shared AI models that will rebalance that global dominance?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. In the document, there are things about cyber, emerging and new technologies, and the need for Europe to co-operate together to meet the very threats that the noble Baroness has outlined, including AI.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that our future and well-being are dependent on our relationship with Europe? Is it not also the case that, when people attack Europe, as they often do from the Opposition Benches, they weaken our defences and our position in the world?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend highlights the importance for us of developing a relationship with Europe. Where it is appropriate and where it is complementary to NATO, having a defence and security partnership with Europe, as outlined in the document, is in our interest, Europe’s interest and, ultimately, the interests of regional and global security. Taking that forward is really important for all of us.

F35A and F35B Jets

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

I draw noble Lords’ attention, on my noble friend’s very serious point, to the fact that just last week I was in Singapore with the carrier strike group. What a proud moment it was for our country to see the “Prince of Wales” in Singapore harbour at the invitation of the Singapore Government, with F35Bs and helicopters all over it, to see the crew there and to visit the other ships that are part of it. I just wanted to say that but, in answer to my noble friend’s Question, I can confirm that the second procurement phase will consist of 12 F35As and 15 F35Bs, which will enable the stand-up of the third front-line squadron focused on F35Bs. Forty- one of the 48 F35Bs in the first procurement phase have been delivered, with 617 Squadron and 809 Naval Air Squadron both currently deployed on HMS “Prince of Wales” for Operation Highmast. We remain committed to 138 F35s across the life of the programme, and the defence investment programme will examine options on further purchases in the coming months.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply, although my question has been rather shredded of various elements by the previous debate. It is worth remembering that 80 years ago as we speak, the British Pacific fleet was leaving the waters around Okinawa, heading towards the Japanese homeland. It consisted of a mere 21 aircraft carriers, four battleships and dozens of destroyers and frigates, which were in the same waters that the “Prince of Wales” is in now. They were under almost continuous attack by kamikazes, which you could argue are the ultimate drone. Whenever we discuss the military, we ought to remember those who have gone before and what they did to enable us to be here.

As for my question, I now have two bits left after everything that has been discussed. The first one is: does my noble friend believe that now might be time for us to review our nuclear doctrine? One could argue that it goes on all the time, but might it be time to do a proper review of our nuclear doctrine? The other one is: I had understood that major investment decisions—and this is one, bearing in mind the costs of having bases ready to take nuclear weapons and all of this sort of thing—were going to be made in the autumn as part of the defence investment plan to check out the national armaments director and the new strategic headquarters. Does the fact that this decision has been made now, without waiting for the autumn, mean that all the decisions from the SDR that we were expecting in the autumn will be taken piecemeal before then?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his questions. On his very serious and important point about those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the Far East, he will be pleased to know that, on my visit to Singapore, I visited the war grave cemetery there, and that when I was in Jakarta a day or two later, I visited the war grave cemetery there and laid a wreath to remember those who had gone before. I think that is really important.

On the issue of the nuclear doctrine, of course one always reflects on these matters but, as it stands, the nuclear doctrine is as it is. The major investment decisions, in terms of the money and the direction of travel, remain the same. It was felt important, given the serious geopolitical challenges that we face and although the number of planes remains the same, that there should be some movement from F35Bs to F35As. It was important that we made that decision at this particular time in the light of the threat that we face.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the procurement schedule for the F35As, but delivery of the F35Bs has not been free of problems. Does he have confidence in the delivery schedule for the F35As being achieved?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do. To reiterate and clarify, the procurement phase for the 48 F35Bs should, and will, end by March 2026. For the second procurement phase for the additional 12 F35As and the 15 F35Bs, which will give us 75 in total, our expectation is that they will be procured by 2033. It is important we meet the schedule and I have every confidence that we will be able to do so.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the following precis of programme A activity rings true? The F35As are not additional to the programme; they replace 12 F35Bs. The 12 F35As cost $20 million less per plane than the F35Bs, therefore resulting in a saving to the programme of $240 million. However, we have no sovereign capacity to air-to-air refuel an F35A. Therefore, we will create an allied dependency unless some additional programming action is taken.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The answer is yes to all those points. The F35As come from the F35 schedule, so 12 of the additional 27 will be F35As instead of F35Bs. F35As are some 20% cheaper than F35Bs, so the noble and gallant Lord is right: that creates an additional sum of money which can be used in a way that the Government feel is appropriate and consistent with the SDR. He is right about the refuelling capability; there will need to be allied support for that. Many of our capabilities require allied support and help to function. I do not see a particular problem with that, but he is right to point it out.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the SDR and the national security strategy emphasise the threats to us locally and regionally, as opposed to the global projection of power to Singapore and the South China Sea, which is what the aircraft carriers are for, above all. Are we sure that we still have our priorities right in wanting to stand firm with our prime ally, the United States, in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, or should we pay more attention in our defence priorities to the North Sea, eastern Europe, the Baltic and that part of the world which is closest to our insecurity?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I understand the point the noble Lord makes, but I do not agree with it. We, with our allies, simply have to guarantee the security of regions across the world, whether it be the North Sea, the Mediterranean or the Indo-Pacific. Our carrier went through the Red Sea, through the BAM into the Indian Ocean, which is under threat from the Houthis. The sailors and others on the ship had to write a letter home saying what might happen. We should celebrate the fact that we have people with a sense of duty that allows them to put their lives in danger to ensure that trade, communication and all the things we depend on can get through that narrow bit of sea. If that did not happen, our shops would soon be empty and our data would not work. Many of the things on which our standard of living depends would not function.

That is why it is important that we go to the Indo- Pacific and stand alongside the Americans. Let us be clear: we do not go there because only we want to—Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia want us to go there. All those countries ask us to go there because they recognise the importance of ensuring the global trade routes stay open—it is the trade and prosperity on which our nation, and the nations of the world, depend.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the announcement of the procurement of the F35As. Some 15% of every single F35A will be produced in the UK. Does my noble friend agree that those who are calling for us to limit our involvement in this programme to try to restrict the export of these components would do huge damage to the UK economy and our standing in the world?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

As always, my noble friend makes a really important point. He points to UK domestic production of the F35A. Of course, our exports are also really important. With that, and as I know my noble friend would, I welcomed the court’s decision yesterday in the al-Haq judgment, which was really important for our country.

[Lord Soames of Fletching (Con)]

My Lords, would the Minister confirm that the F35A is capable of being fully marinised?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The F35A has a number of different capabilities, but I just need to check so I do not misinform the noble Lord. It is dual capability in terms of the weapons it can carry, and it normally operates from airfields. If I understand the noble Lord’s question right, I will check it, write to him and put a copy in the Library, because I need to make sure that I do not misinform him and, indeed, the House.

UK Weapons Systems

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have complete control over the use of all UK weapons systems without needing to consult, or seek approval from, other governments or third parties.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

His Majesty’s Government have complete control over the operational use of all the United Kingdom’s weapons systems, without needing to consult or gain approval from other Governments or third parties. This includes the nuclear deterrent.

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I expected the Minister to say that he had operational control over all weapons systems, but all weapons systems require maintenance, and require to be renewed. It is my understanding that not all of that process takes place in the United Kingdom. Therefore, third parties or other Governments must have an influence over the maintenance of our weapons. Therefore, the question is: how independent is “independent”?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Well, “independent” means what it says. I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Empey, and the House, that we have complete operational use in terms of independence. We can use all our weapons systems in the way that His Majesty’s Government choose to. Of course there are arrangements about how you maintain that and what you do, but independence means independence and we work to ensure that we maintain all our capabilities to the standard that the noble Lord and this House would expect.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, when the Conservative Government announced in 1957 that we had again an independent deterrent, they meant independent of the United States—a British warhead and a British weapons delivery system. Since then, we have compromised the delivery system with dependence on American missiles, and the recently announced airbase delivery will also have an American warhead. If I understand it correctly, some of those warheads will be stored on US bases in Britain. How far does that mean we can depend on the next American Administration, let alone this one, to give us permission when needed, in what might be a prolonged war rather than an immediate crisis?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We need to unpick that. It is a very good question the noble Lord asks, but no Government will comment on the storage of nuclear weapons, for obvious reasons. The strategic nuclear deterrent is completely operationally independent. It cannot be used without the agreement of the United Kingdom Prime Minister. As for the F35A, which I presume he referenced with respect to the Government’s announcement, that forms part of the nuclear mission of NATO. For that capability to be used for a nuclear mission, it will require the agreement through the nuclear planning group of the United Kingdom Prime Minister. So both the strategic deterrent and the fighter deterrent of the 12 F35As will require the authorisation of the United Kingdom Prime Minister.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

Given the answer that the Minister has just given, can he clarify that, while it may very well be the case that at NATO level the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would be required to give consent, is it conceivable that the United States in that scenario might refuse consent?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Let us deal with this, and I apologise to the House if this takes some time. The strategic deterrent, CASD, remains, as we have always had it, operationally independent and a UK weapon. As for the 12 F35As that the Government have announced, that forms part of NATO’s nuclear mission. The F35As are UK jets and they are dual-capable aircraft, so they can be used normally or, in a particular crisis or a particular sense in which we felt and NATO felt that they should be used, they would become part of the nuclear mission. At that time, they would be armed with American nuclear missiles.

Of course, that means that the authorisation of the use of those missiles remains US-controlled, because, in the same way that we control our UK nuclear weapons, US nuclear weapons remain subject to US approval. The point I was making to the noble Lord is important. Of course, the authorisation for the use of those weapons within the context of a NATO mission has to be agreed by the NATO planning group and the UK is part of that. In that sense, the Prime Minister would have to authorise those UK planes being used to deliver that nuclear capability. I hope that is clear to the House and to the noble Baroness, because it is an important point for us to make with respect to the nuclear shield and the nuclear capability that this country has, and how it will work in practice.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that, along with my noble friend Lord Robertson, we got rid of gravity nuclear bombs back in 1997. That was in a particular context, and I fully accept that the world has changed, so I have no objection to now maintaining or restoring that capacity. However, since we are getting the F35As, what is the implication of that for any offset arrangement in the previously considered demand for F35Bs?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I am going to either pass or fail this exam. As it stands, we have 41 F35Bs, and by March 2026 we should have 48. That is what is called the first procurement phase. The F35As will be brought within the second procurement phase, which will take the whole F35 programme from 48 to 75. That is an additional 27 aircraft, of which 12 will be F35As and 15 will be F35Bs. I will give a further answer in response to the noble Lord, Lord West, by saying that they will form part of an operational group. The F35As will go to that group, which will free up the F35Bs that are currently doing that training exercise with them. So the carrier and others will always have the full complement of F35Bs that they need.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the security of this country against major threats in high-intensity warfare is based on our membership of NATO, and that within NATO we rely upon many of our partners to provide crucial capabilities —not least, for example, a number of strategic capabilities that at the moment only the Americans provide? So, in terms of warfighting, to be too nice on the point of purely national capabilities does not make sense.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I agree with what the noble and gallant Lord has just said. It is an important point to make, and I should have made it to the noble Lord from the Liberal Benches: of course our alliances matter and are important. We have a shared interest in the geopolitical threats that we face, and the noble and gallant Lord is quite right to point that out. I say again, as I often do from this Dispatch Box, that the US is our prime ally. The US is our most important ally. It is the ally that we depend on to work with to guarantee our security in Europe and across the globe. We should celebrate the closeness of that relationship, as we should celebrate the closeness of our relationships with all our friends and allies in Europe and beyond.

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

Anything to do with nuclear does not have time for planning discussions. It is almost immediate. It can take place in hours. The military have to make a decision in minutes as to what they are going to do. What do we do then?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Whether it is nuclear or any other capability, but particularly with nuclear, you have to be calm, rational and reasonable about it. One of the successes of our strategic deterrent has been the fact that it exists. People know about it and understand the situation and the context that we have for it. As I say, the decision to go ahead with the F35A, with its dual capability, is in light of the changed strategic geopolitical context in which we operate. As such, it is a perfectly rational and reasonable decision for us to take with respect to our NATO colleagues in order to ensure that we can defend our country and the things that we stand for.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether in this context the SNP can be described as a Government or a third party. To be generous, its policy in this area is best described as “flexible”. I wonder whether the Minister could help by explaining what it actually is.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I would like to think I had been able to answer most of the questions that have been asked so far, but I am not sure about this one from my noble friend. I will have a go. First, what the SNP stands for is completely and utterly incoherent. I remember the time a few years ago—I think it was 2012—when SNP members debated nuclear weapons but also, along- side that, whether they should be members of NATO. At that time they agreed to be members of NATO and, if I remember rightly, and others here will know, some SNP MSPs resigned because, they said, you cannot be a member of a nuclear alliance and be against nuclear weapons; that is incoherent. It seems to me that the SNP policy is that it accepts NATO’s nuclear umbrella and the security that that brings but does not want the nuclear weapons themselves to deliver it. In George Orwell’s famous terms, it seems to be “NATO nuclear weapons good, UK nuclear weapons bad”.

Defence Industrial Base

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my interest as a member of the Army Board.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, our new defence industrial strategy will make sure that national security and a high-growth economy are aligned to deliver the changes we promised: cracking down on waste, building resilient supply chains and boosting Britain’s defence industry. By strengthening our relationship with industry, innovators and investors, we will make it easier and more attractive than ever before to do business in defence.

[Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister’s EU reset supposedly opens the door for the United Kingdom to participate in the European Union’s €150 billion defence procurement fund. However, there were reports over the weekend that France is now insisting that any beneficiary of that fund—any project—will have to have 85% EU content. That would be a disaster for UK industry. Can the Minister reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government will seek cast-iron guarantees that before they put any money into the fund, it will be a level playing field without artificial restrictions so that UK industry can compete fairly against its EU counterparts?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a point the Government themselves would make: access to the €150 billion Security Action for Europe fund is really important. Of course, we will act in the best interests of the UK and ensure that British industry is protected as far as we possibly can. The only reason we can access that money, under whatever terms we are able to negotiate and discuss with our European friends, is because we have a security and defence partnership. Without that partnership, which the British Government and the Prime Minister negotiated successfully with the EU, we would not be able to bid for the money or be involved at all. So I take the noble Lord’s point, but we should also think that the Government have done well to negotiate the security and defence partnership.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, do the Government themselves not also have to place orders with British companies? Like me, does the Minister regret that the previous Administration gave the contract for the fleet solid support ships to a publicly supported, publicly owned foreign shipyard, to the detriment of work in the United Kingdom? Does he also accept that the defence industry depends on a supply chain that supplies both civilian and military use? Therefore, should we not be looking at rebuilding British industry and buying British?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend makes an important point. He will know that one of the actions of the Government was to see the fleet solid support ships now built in Belfast. That is a really important success that the Government have had. But he is also right that we must ensure that, as far as we can, we rebuild the sovereign capability of our country to have the defence industry it needs. Let me be clear: the sovereign capability of our own industry is now a national security requirement. One thing that Ukraine has forced us to do is to wake up to the fact that we need our own industry, as well as depending on others.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain whether the proposed SME support hub has been established and how many SME businesses the Government anticipate will engage with the hub? Furthermore, will the Government urge engagement from SMEs from every region of England?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

There used to be something called the Defence Suppliers Forum, but it did not include SMEs. We have established the Defence Industrial Joint Council, which, as well as big industry—the primes—will include small and medium-sized businesses. The noble Baroness makes a good point; another thing we have learned from Ukraine is the agility and adaptability of small companies and businesses, which have shown their worth—clearly, we need to grow them. The number of small and medium-sized companies will grow over the next few years through the Government’s determination to grow all sectors, including the SME sector.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, what steps have the Government taken recently to reconcile the possible risk of failures in developing novel defence capabilities against the need to ensure that government funds are paid out with due care and avoidance of unnecessary risk?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord asks a good question. We have reinvigorated and put more money into the defence innovation fund. With respect to defence, you cannot move forward without innovation, challenge, new technology and new ideas. One of the lessons from Ukraine is that sometimes, for not an awful lot of money, innovators—those who think for themselves—provide the defence equipment and security that we need. Of course, we must be sensible and not throw money away and waste it, but innovation is an important part of any defence industrial strategy, which is why it was mentioned in the defence review and why the Government are putting more money into it.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, the strategic defence review is an admirable blueprint for what our defence capability should be. But, as it stands, it is devoid of any specific information about implementation. The Government have accepted the 62 recommendations from the reviewers, but they have given no detail about how or when they will deliver them. We know the review was predicated upon a defence budget of 3% of GDP. I ask the Minister: when is that 3% is happening and is it sufficient to implement the recommendations fully?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has been very clear about his commitment to ensure that the 62 recommendations are properly funded. The noble Baroness will know that the 3% is a commitment in the next Parliament, should the economic circumstances allow us to do so. The Prime Minister’s commitment is absolute, with respect to funding the defence review, and the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, accepts and understands that. As to when we will lay out the capabilities, the noble Baroness knows that alongside the defence review and the defence industrial strategy, in the autumn there will be a defence investment plan. This will be a line-by-line outline of the capabilities and choices needed to deliver the defence review according to the budgets that have been set.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I ask my noble friend the Minister: does the Treasury now understand that all this military equipment requires a drumbeat of orders? For example, if you want 30 frigates and they have 30-year life, one frigate has to roll off the production line every single year, year after year. The same goes for all other types of equipment. Historically, we have ordered little batches and then there has been a gap, so SMEs lose trade and cannot do anything. Then we order another little batch and there is a big fight about it. The Treasury has to understand the need for the drumbeat—have we managed to get the message through?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The Treasury understands the need for that drumbeat. My noble friend is absolutely right that you cannot turn defence industry production on and off like a tap, and that we have to maintain the capability to produce ships or whatever military equipment that we need. It is also particularly important that we maintain the skilled labour and not allow those skills to be lost. My noble friend will know that the numbers of ships are now set out over the next few years, with designs for frigates and destroyers being planned for what comes next. I also draw noble Lords’ attention to the up to 12 additional AUKUS submarines. So the Treasury understands both the need for more money—which has been injected—and the need to ensure that we get that steady drumbeat, as my noble friend says.

[Lord Jack of Courance (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

As the Minister must know, there are a number of former RAF stations that, until the defence review, were not required; I mention particularly the example of RAF Scampton. Will the Minister now have another review of those airfields to see which are appropriate to meet the new defence requirements? As a former pilot, I would have thought that there were two or three that would fill that category.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The defence review will require us to look at what bases we have in order to deliver the defence review, whether they are RAF or other facilities. Of course, we need to do this in a sensible way and one which delivers value for money. The number of bases and where they are is important, whether they are RAF or other bases.

Armed Forces Commissioner Bill

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Coaker]

That this House do not insist on its Amendments 2 and 3 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 2A in lieu.

2A: Page 5, line 19, at end insert—
“(1A) Subsection (1B) applies if the investigation was carried out wholly or partly in response to a request made by an individual.
(1B) A report under subsection (1) must not include information which identifies the individual or enables them to be identified, except with their consent.”

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Motion A, I will also speak to Motion A1. I thank all Members, including His Majesty’s Opposition, the Liberals and others, for their careful and considered scrutiny of this landmark Bill. As we have all agreed, it is an important Bill, one that marks a significant step change for our Armed Forces and their families and delivers on a commitment upon which this Government were elected.

At the consideration of Lords Amendments in the other place last week, the minor and technical government amendments were all agreed to. These were the amendments to fully implement the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendation to change the regulation-making power to define relevant family members from the negative to the affirmative procedure, and the amendment that was consequential on Clause 3. The noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, also raised concerns about anonymity. We listened carefully to the points she raised and brought forward amendments to address these concerns. I shall return to that later.

This leaves only the matters of whistleblowing and anonymity, which are the issues before us today. The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, were put to a vote in the other place and were both disagreed to. However, the Government had taken on board the important debates we had in your Lordships’ Chamber and proposed a significant amendment in lieu, to which the Commons agreed. This amendment picked up on the spirit of the noble Baroness’s amendments, and actually went further than her proposals in delivering concrete legal protections. However, noble Lords will be aware that an amendment to the Government’s Motion today has been tabled, offering amendments in lieu in place of the Commons amendment in lieu.

Let me first offer some explanation on why the other place disagreed with the original Lords amendments on whistleblowing before addressing the specifics of the amendments now before us. While the amendments proposed by your Lordships chime with the spirit of the Bill, the contents did not offer any additional legal protections for anyone coming forward to the commissioner. This entire Bill is already designed to create a trusted and independent route for service personnel and their families to raise concerns about welfare matters that they may personally be affected by or that they observe to affect others.

The commissioner—and this is really important—can already investigate any general service welfare matters they choose, and anyone can raise such an issue with the commissioner, including the type of person defined in the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. The commissioner is independent, sits outside the chain of command and the MoD, and reports directly to Parliament. The commissioner will be bound by data protection legislation, meaning that, for anyone who contacts the commissioner, the personal information and details they provide will be subject to stringent protections.

We all want to protect women from unacceptable behaviours. The debate between us is just about the best way of doing that. In her amendment and speech on Report, the noble Baroness raised the central issue of anonymity for a person raising a concern with the commissioner and the role this may have in building trust and confidence for people to come forward. We heard this and we agreed that this was a concrete legal protection that would add to the Bill. The government amendment—tabled and agreed to in the other place—is therefore designed to address anonymity protections for all those who raise welfare concerns to the commissioner. It has the effect of ensuring that their identity is protected in all the commissioner’s reports, should they wish. It is often said that the Government do not listen to what the Opposition say. In this aspect of this important debate, we have listened but we have also acted.

As I set out on Report, this amendment is supported by further non-legislative commitments, which, taken together, will further bolster trust and confidence in the commissioner. I will restate them now. The Government will update their current “raising a concern” policy, which includes replicating protections available to civilians under the Public Interest Disclosure Act for the military. This update will ensure that similar protections for people under this policy are applied to disclosures made to the commissioner, including provisions relating to anonymity, confidentiality and protection from unfair or negative treatment due to raising the concern.

The Government will also conduct a thorough communication campaign—another point raised by noble Lords—to ensure that members of the Armed Forces and their families are clear about the role of the commissioner and how this interacts with the existing protections and policy, as well as the types of issues that can be raised with them and how they can be dealt with. These specific concerns were raised in your Lordships’ Chamber, and we have acted on them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, and her amendment. I am not going to repeat the strong and powerful case that she made, but I want to pick up on a couple of issues. Whistleblowing and a complaints process are two different things—it is a point that I tried to make on Report. A coherent complaints process is exceedingly important, and it can rise to the level of commissioner, but whistleblowing is an opportunity to deal with things that are far more systemic and come, in a sense, from a different perspective from that of a complaint. That is why, if we look at financial services regulators or regulators in essence across the piece, we will find they all have both channels. They have a complaints channel for people who run into an issue where they have a really serious complaint that they want to raise, but they also have a whistleblowing channel so that where somebody comes across intelligence, has an awareness or sees something that they think should be attended to because it has much deeper implications, they use that whistleblowing channel to go to the investigative or regulatory body.

To me, it is extraordinary to put in place a new Armed Forces commissioner, a clearly important and independent role, and not give that commissioner the tools which you would normally give anybody else picking up that kind of commissioner role so that, through the whistleblowing route, they can receive and reach for information. Without that information, it is very hard for him or her to function in that role.

I think one of the reasons why this is not in the Bill and was not in the Bill from the start is that a change in culture and mindset is taking place. We are now seeing with many Bills coming through this House the issue of whistleblowing being raised, because the public have become aware every time there is a scandal that there have been people who have spoken out but who have not been heard, have been silenced and have suffered detriment, so now there is a search to put whistleblowing protection, almost as a standard norm, in Bill after Bill—I think it would be better to unify it in one place, but I am not going to make that argument today.

An Armed Forces commissioner needs to receive a regular and steady flow of information to enable them to carry out the role that is intended. I think the establishment of a whistleblowing channel will create far more trust among service personnel, who quite frankly understand better than we do the limitations of complaints systems. When somebody enters a complaints system, they typically see themselves as raising a specific personal issue or one among friends which they want to be resolved. In a welfare case, it may well be a situation where housing repairs have not been carried out. It is a perfectly reliable and important channel, but whistleblowing touches something deeper and more fundamental and systemic. To have that channel running parallel is not exceptional; it is the norm. In fact, excluding it is the exception, so I ask the House to seriously consider this.

As I said, if this Bill was being written six months from now, given the discussion there has been around these issues in Bill after Bill, it would automatically have been put in place. I do not want to slow this Bill down as it is important, but I do ask the Government to quickly draft something that they feel captures all these issues, with the legal expertise that they have, and not to lose this opportunity.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to respond to a couple of the points that have been made. I agree with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, but the purpose of the Bill is to expand the remit of the service complaints ombudsman, who can only look at service complaints, to the commissioner who, as my noble friend Lord Beamish pointed out, can also look at thematic and systemic issues—so it is a complete expansion and change of the role.

I say again to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, that we are passing legislation here. The whistleblower amendment is not connected to new Section 340IB. There are two different tiers of somebody coming to the commissioner. There is the first tier, which gives the commissioner all the powers and advantages that noble Lords want: viewing premises, observing, power of entry—all the things laid out in 340IB. That is not in the amendment for the whistleblower. If we pass the whistleblowing amendment, the powers of entry and other powers would not be made available to the commissioner. That is why it becomes a two-tier system, and I suspect that, if noble Lords had the Bill in front of them, they would see exactly the point I am making.

I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, for his point. Let us say that somebody comes forward as a whistleblower, raising a hugely important thematic issue, and the commissioner says, “I am going to investigate that”. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, pointed out, they cannot do it if the whistleblower says “No, I don’t want you to do it”, because it can be done only with the consent of the whistleblower.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I understand the point the Minister is making but, in all the years when I have met whistleblowers, I have never met one who came forward intending to speak to somebody and then closed down the issue that they had just raised. Whistleblowers are looking for investigation. But, if he were to present something in lieu that corrected that very small lacuna in the language—three or four words, as far as I can see—I am sure that no one would object.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I say to the noble Baroness that we are legislating here, not on a wing and a prayer and not on the basis of what may happen or the fact that this has never happened. We are a legislature and we are trying to legislate for things that actually may happen.

Strategic Defence Review

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I start where the noble Earl, Lord Minto, finished by suggesting that it would be extremely welcome for your Lordships’ House to have a full debate on the strategic defence review. It is a full, thorough and detailed review that merits detailed reading. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and his team have clearly put in a huge amount of work, and it would repay noble Lords and the Armed Forces if we were able to explore at least some of the 62 recommendations in detail.

The review gives many recommendations, some of which have been trailed but some have not, and which are sometimes much more complicated than we might imagine. There are commitments to our Armed Forces, to recruitment and retention and to increasing the number of the reserves. That is the headline, but the detail of the recommendations says that we should increase the size of the reserves “when funding allows”. That gets back to the fundamental question raised by the noble Earl: 2.5% is not going to take us far enough. What plans do His Majesty’s Government have to enable us to implement the 62 recommendations. assuming that the other place and your Lordships’ House, after due scrutiny, agree with the Government that all 62 recommendations should be implemented?

There is clearly a need for a lot of detailed scrutiny because many issues are raised in the review, starting with the essential context that the world has changed a lot since the start of the post-Cold War era, and indeed since the start of the review. Many issues need to be thought about, some of which we have had the opportunity to think about over months and years while others have been floated recently. As the noble Earl, Lord Minto, pointed out at Questions, the commitment to the nuclear deterrent is obviously important and welcome. I was expecting to see the noble Lord, Lord West, here to take up the discussions on the future of sea capabilities; the transformation of the carriers is presumably something on which he could run a Question for Short Debate by himself.

There are many detailed questions about capabilities and procurement but also about transitions—for example, the upgraded Typhoons. Are we sending back the existing Typhoons for an upgrade or procuring more of them and keeping the production of the Typhoon going, pending the introduction of Tempest? There are a lot of questions about procurement that are worth considering.

There are also questions not just about the headline figure of 2.5% of spending but about savings. On page 5, there is a suggestion that £6 billion of new savings will be found, and then there is talk of spending £11 billion. Does the £11 billion include the £6 billion that has just been found from savings and is now being recycled, or is the £11 billion new money? There are a lot of issues that would probably merit longer than the Minister will have for his response today.

There is one welcome point in terms of recruitment. It is very welcome that a little bit of recommendation 16 suggests that the medical requirements will differ from role to role, because that has clearly been part of the recruitment difficulty. That is very welcome, as are the commitments to improving accommodation and the defence industrial base. There are many more questions than I have time to ask and the Minister has time to answer, but we welcome the review and look forward to working with the Government over the next decade and beyond.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Earl, Lord Minto, for their contributions and their overall general welcome for the review. I turn to my noble friend Lord Robertson and say how fantastic the report is and how professionally he has conducted himself with the experience he has brought to bear on this.

The contribution that my noble friend, General Barrons and Fiona Hill have made is not only to the report but to the overall effectiveness of the security of our nation, the security of our allies and the pursuance of the goals that we all hold dear. That is something that, as the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, pointed out, is shared across this House. Many congratulations to him for that.

I take on board the points that both the noble Earl and the noble Baroness made. It is not a matter for me in terms of a day’s debate or whatever, but I will ensure that that point is made to my noble friend Lord Kennedy, the Chief Whip. I am sure the usual channels can consider that so that we may get the opportunity to discuss this in more detail.

Before I deal with some of the detailed points that have been raised, I will say that what is really important about this debate, which is why perhaps we need longer, is that different Members of this House will have different points they will wish to make about the report and the review. There is a debate about funding but the overall direction of travel this sets out for us is something that this place and the country can get behind. We face the new geopolitical challenges of today, the state-on-state threat that we thought had gone. We are now in a new age. We need to reconfigure our Armed Forces in a way which meets that challenge. We need to look at homeland defence. We need to look at the reserves. We need to look at the new threats such as those to underwater cables and underwater technology. We need to look at the threats that cyber presents to us. We need to look at how we protect the critical national infrastructure of our country. We need to look at the alliances we can build, not only in Europe but across the globe.

There is one thing laid out in the report and the review which is really important as we discuss this. It sets out that, yes, this is a NATO-first policy—it sees Europe as the priority for the defence and security of our nation—but it also says it is not a NATO-only policy. It recognises the political and geopolitical contexts in other parts of the world where we have a responsibility as well. I just say to my noble friend Lord Robertson and those who have contributed to this report that I think the direction of travel is the really important thing for us to discuss, and there are many points that many of us could make.

To address some of those points, it is quite right for the noble Earl, Lord Minto, to point to AUKUS and the development of that—the commitment of up to 12 additional nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS development and the AUKUS treaty. Time and again I was asked in this House about the commitment to GCAP. GCAP is maintained in that.

On the munitions stockpile, time and again many of us have thought about the way in which Ukraine, which has been a wake-up call for us, has led to the situation where we have not had sufficient stockpiles. The report lays out £6 billion for that, of which £1.5 billion will contribute to six new munitions factories. I have already had discussions about who in private industry may work with that and others have had discussions as well. All of that is taking place.

On funding, there will be debates and no doubt question after question will be that it is not sufficient—the demand to have 3.5% at NATO. If some other noble Lords were here, they would be demanding 4%. What about the 5% that they have heard President Trump may want? All I can say is that the Government’s policy is well known in this House. It is 2.5% by April 2027, with the ambition to reach 3% in the next Parliament. All the things in the report from my noble friend Lord Robertson and others have been brought about with the understanding that that is the financial envelope within which that works.

On some of the other questions, we are committed to amphibious capabilities. The noble Earl will know that we have the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships which provide that at the moment. He will know that fleet support ships will be built in Belfast to help support that. He will also know that the new First Sea Lord, with his background, will ensure that there is no shortage of amphibious capability, which will be important as well.

The noble Earl talked about reform within the Ministry of Defence. He will know just alongside this that defence reform has seen the creation of a military arm headed by the CDS, who is now in charge of all the service chiefs; the department of state; the new national armaments directorate, which will try to deliver the procurement savings and the more effective delivery that the noble Earl quite rightly points out are needed; and the nuclear arm as well.

The use of AI is another area that the report mentioned, and the use of that with the research that will be available to it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked whether the noble Lord, Lord West, was here. I am sure he would welcome the carriers and the suggestion in the report, which I think is a really good one, that carriers are adapted to that hybrid-type platform which not only allows jets to take off but has all sorts of autonomous capability both above and below the sea to operate off that, with missiles able to be fired. I think that is a use of the carriers. If noble Lords remember, there was some discussion about all of those, so I think that is a really good suggestion.

On recruitment and retention, many noble Lords have talked about the need for more in the Army. They will have seen the Secretary of State’s point that our ambition is to increase the Army to 76,000. But we cannot, as it stands, get the number of regular soldiers that are budgeted for. We have just over 70,000—70,500, I think I am right in saying—when the target figure is 73,600. The recruitment and retention points that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, points to are crucial if we are to deliver that. Some of the changes we have brought about—pay, accommodation, housing, childcare —seek to address that point. There are so many other issues around reserves and all that sort of thing which may come, quite rightly, from noble Lords, who will question how we are going to achieve those things.

I finish by saying that this House can unite around the fact that we have had an excellent report from my noble friend Lord Robertson, which sets out a direction of travel. There will be debate and discussion within that report as to what the correct balance is, what should be funded, what perhaps should be given a greater priority. We have accepted all those 62 recommendations. We are delighted with the way that the report sets out for us a sense of where this country can go in terms of establishing Armed Forces who fight the battles of today and the future and not those of the past. In that way, we can defend our democracy, defend our continent and stand up for our interests globally. As such, I think we should unite behind it.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)]

My Lords, there is significant interest in this Statement. Can I urge brevity from both noble Lords and my noble friend the Minister in order to get in as many colleagues as possible?

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I join all previous speakers in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and his team. Would my noble friend the Minister agree that, since the end of national service, there has developed a worrying gap between the citizens and the military? One way of bridging that would be to ensure a fair regional distribution of the new jobs that will be created by this review. Will the Government commit to that and perhaps produce some map or plan showing that jobs will be created across the whole of the UK?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

On the first point about the need for us to reassert and highlight the link between the Armed Forces and the general population, I think my noble friend is right. I have some optimism about this, although I think the Government could reflect on how we do it. The report talks about greater use of the military in terms of education in our schools in the appropriate way. I think that might be one consideration. I do not know whether my noble friend agrees, but I thought that the VE Day celebrations—the increase in cadets and the numbers of young people out on our streets celebrating and commemorating the sacrifice of those in the Second World War—give us some optimism that that link can be re-established. Perhaps as politicians we should be more proactive in standing up for that, and not being embarrassed to call for that recognition.

On my noble friend’s second point, page 52 of my noble friend Lord Robertson’s report has a map that illustrates some of the ways in which the jobs and industries of defence will be spread across the nations and regions of the UK. My noble friend Lord Dodds, who sometimes thinks—as I do—that Northern Ireland is missed out, will be delighted to see that Northern Ireland is included. All the nations and regions are mentioned; these are just some illustrated examples. There are many more, and we should make sure that is a reality.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my registered interest as an honorary captain in the Royal Navy. I refer to the Statement:

“We will establish continuous submarine production through investments in Barrow and Derby that will enable us to produce a submarine every 18 months”.


That is a pretty ambitious timetable. Could the Minister say a little more on how we will co-ordinate this, not only in Barrow but across government, so that we can meet that timetable?

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Can I apologise? I always forget this, and if the standards people come after me, I am really sorry; I should have mentioned that my son-in-law is in the reserves. I apologise to the House for not stating again that my son-in-law is an active member of the reserves.

On the ability to produce the number of submarines the noble Baroness mentioned, she will know there has been huge investment in Barrow in order to be able to deliver. There is now dual-line production, which will mean the ability to produce more submarines at speed will be possible. That sort of adaption and need for investment shows the fact that, over a period of time, we have allowed the sovereign manufacturing capability of this country to develop the defence equipment it needs perhaps to not have the priority it deserves. One of the things my noble friend Lord Robertson’s report says is that we need to ensure we have a sovereign capability to produce the equipment and munitions we need. Submarines will be part of that.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make a contribution and ask a question. I have spent 10 months answering questions, so there is a slight difficulty involved in that. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether in future, to this House and the public outside, he will emphasise the fact that this was not a Labour defence review? It was designed specifically to be a strategic review that would incorporate other elements of the country. Not only did we consult as many people as we could—we got 8,000 submissions through our invitation—but I asked a former distinguished Conservative Minister for defence procurement, Sir Jeremy Quin, to be part of our team. Throughout the whole of that, he was of invaluable assistance.

This report is not simply about warships and missiles. It is about reforming the whole way in which we deliver defence. After all, defence expenditure is the premium we spend for an insurance policy, not only for the current generation but for generations to come. I hope that is something Ministers will be making clear to the outside world.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I think my noble friend has just demonstrated why the report has been such a success. There may be things that divide people in this Chamber. There may be debates to be had, and quite genuine disagreements. I have always said, and I have always tried to reflect as a Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, that that is a real privilege. It is predicated on the basis that I do not believe that anyone in this House wishes to undermine the defence and security of our nation. We all have that at the front of our minds. My noble friend is right to point out that the public should understand that. We believe that we have the interests of our country and of our alliances—of our friends and allies—at the forefront of our minds.

My noble friend’s remark about the fact that the right honourable Sir Jeremy Quin has been involved in the review is a good example of that cross-party support. I also know that, in my time in this office, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, the noble Baronesses, Lady Goldie and Lady Smith, and many others, including the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, through his responsibility as chair of the International Relations and Defence Committee, have contributed, along with many of my noble friends who have experience. That brings together a wealth of experience and talent that can only make any report better.

On the noble Lord’s last point, an important point needs to be made. It is not only about the amount of money that we spend; we have to be clearer about what we spend it on in order to meet the threats of the future. That is an important point that the report makes as well.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a serving Army Reserve officer. Page 70 recommends only a modest increase in the active reserve of 20%, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, pointed out. Finland’s reserve—albeit it uses a different intake model—consists of over 800,000 trained soldiers, and that is warfighting readiness. Will a defence readiness Bill be forthcoming and much more ambitious and robust in respect of the active reserve?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I will make one suggestion to the noble Lord: perhaps he and the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, and others in this Chamber who have professional experience and expertise with respect to reserves, will set up a meeting with me about how we might more effectively reach the target of an increase of 20% by the 2030s. I would appreciate the experience and ideas that the noble Lord might have on that.

The defence readiness Bill will come after the Armed Forces Bill in the autumn. The concept of defence readiness is, again, that we face a new type of threat, not only potentially of missiles or state actors but of cyberattack and the disablement of critical national infrastructure. I do not know whether the noble Lord realises, but the Defence Secretary pointed out yesterday that the MoD has had 90,000 state actor threats in the last two years—that is an astonishing figure—and we have seen big business bodies affected by cyberattack. The defence readiness Bill will be about asking how we protect critical national infrastructure and what we need to do to prepare for something happening. Are we ready to defend ourselves, protect our population and ensure that things continue? The defence readiness Bill will help us understand that and develop the sorts of structures we need to do that. Of course, people will be at the heart of it. That Bill will come some time at the beginning of 2026.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, thanks are indeed due to my noble friend Lord Robertson and his team for this review, and to the Minister and the Secretary of State for the vigour with which they have addressed the challenge of redressing the balance in the priority we give to the defence of our nation. They ought to be congratulated. However, my experience of two comprehensive spending reviews has taught me that CSRs never fully meet the expectations of the Ministry of Defence. I speak from experience of a time in which we were spending more on defence, as a proportion of our GDP, than we are today. Having said that, can the Minister therefore give us an assurance that his department and the Treasury are looking at innovative mechanisms to supplement defence spending, potentially including peace bonds? There has to be a conversation with the British people about how we fund defence. The strategic defence review gives us an honest and clear basis for that conversation, but we have to be prepared to spend more and we have to be prepared and willing to spend more effectively. We have to use innovative mechanisms to raise the money to do so.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I say to my noble friend that, as this progresses, it may be that we have to look at innovative and different ways of funding. I am no expert on all these things, but I am not averse to looking at any novel or innovative ways in which funds may be raised.

There is a more general point to be made. The current threats mean that we have to ensure that our Armed Forces have the funds and resources that they need—I think people recognise that. Difficult decisions were made about funding the increase to 2.5%, and people accepted that because of the new threats that we face. We need to continue to make the point that there cannot be security for nations or countries without armed forces. You cannot do anything about poverty or refugees being moved and a whole range of other things unless you have security. Security delivers the stability that we need to live the lives that we want.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

I briefly add my congratulations to the authorship of this review. It is, in my view, the most considered, professional and comprehensive review that I have ever seen at close quarters. However, the spectre of fiscal pressure attends every chapter and every page. If this is not funded, it is not a review but a delusion. The reviews that I have known—as vice-chief, chief and all that—have fallen foul of the same problem: a delusional delivery through some alchemy of efficiency, technical superiority, lethality or a new design of battle. The Ministry of Defence will not be capable—it is not viable—of funding this by some internal alchemy of efficiency. As the previous speaker said, we need to find the money elsewhere. This country can easily afford the Armed Forces it needs. If it does not, it will be a laughing stock. What it cannot afford is 9 million people of working age drawing benefits.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for the warm welcome that he gave to the report of the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. I know that the direction of travel that it sets out is supported by the noble and gallant Lord, and I thank him for that. He lays out the challenge for the Government. He knows what the Government’s position is with respect to funding. People will have heard his continuous campaigning and demand for additional resources. We are, as a Government, committed to ensuring that the recommendations of the report from the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, are implemented, and we will do all that we can to see that that happens.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and generally offer my support for the review. Everything that we have talked about has to be underpinned by good logistical and operational support. The Minister will not be surprised that I immediately looked to find where the RFA sat within the report. I was pleased to find that page 106 acknowledges the critical role played by the RFA. Is the Minister and the MoD more widely concerned—notwithstanding my noble friend Lord Minto’s point about amphibious capabilities—that the RFA has only three Bay-class vessels, aged between 16 and 25 years old, and that the newest vessel, “Stirling Castle”, has been acquired by the Royal Navy due to lack of personnel? I do not really understand what the review means when it says that the Royal Navy will be

“using commercial vessels and burden-sharing with NATO Allies to augment the … RFA … Fleet … in non-contested environments”.

Does the Minister agree with the review and with me about the essential need to support the RFA, which underpins everything?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I absolutely agree with the point about the RFA, which is crucial. The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that the long-running dispute with respect to pay was resolved as part of our attempts to ensure that the RFA was properly supported and its personnel properly respected and given the pay that they deserve. On the issue of commercial vessels, it is about the innovative ways—that is part of the report—of seeing whether, in certain circumstances, commercial ships are required to support the RFA in its function to deliver the supplies that may be needed to support our warships. Obviously, you would do that in situations where it was safe to do so—but that would be augmenting the RFA, not replacing it. Those sorts of imaginative solutions to deal with some of the problems will give us the capacity and capability that we need.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, for his second very fine strategic defence review. He has done a service to all of us on that. I want to ask about a very specific point. In response to the changing nature of conflict, the review includes plans for several things, including a new digital warfighters group, the creation of a cyber EM command and the creation of a digital targeting web. I know that the Minister cannot be specific on timelines for that, but can he give some general indication, because it seems to me that that is a vital element of modernising our capability?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Some of the timelines will clearly need to be clarified. On the general point, all the things that my noble friend has mentioned are critical to move from the forces that we have to the integrated force that is essential—not the joint force but the integrated force. We need to make that happen as soon as we can.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the recruitment gap earlier. I had the privilege last week of spending the week with the Royal Gurkha Rifles, and I must say how impressed I was. We take only 250 Gurkha recruits every year, out of 12,500 keen applicants. I suggest that there is a potential opportunity there, and one that the Government might take.

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is a good suggestion, and I will look at it and try to take it forward.

[Lord De Mauley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Council of Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations, with a bit of a history with the Reserve Forces. I thank the Minister for his call yesterday, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and his team. My welcome of the SDR is caveated slightly on the apparent gulf between the ambition, which it is difficult to fault, and the funding, which is more concerning. There are a number of issues that I would like to debate, but I will pick just one for this evening. The SDR places a welcome emphasis on home defence and resilience, yet it also acknowledges that:

“A more substantive body of work is necessary to ensure the security and resilience of critical national infrastructure … and the essential services it delivers”.


The Minister mentioned just now that he would address the issue of timelines. I am asking him to include in that thinking about and telling us about the timelines for that important piece of work.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

In a similar vein to my answer to my noble friend Lord Reid, some of these timelines will need to be discussed and worked out to ensure that they are deliverable. Let me say to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, that his point is well made; clearly, we need to get on with that task. There is an urgency to much of this, and we need to address that and ensure that we make much of this happen as soon as possible.

UK Nuclear Deterrent

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, on these Benches we wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s ironclad commitment to the nuclear deterrent and its modernisation. It is the backbone of our military deterrence capabilities and is so valuable to all our NATO allies. But we know that, historically, nuclear projects have eaten up enormous portions of the defence budget and—not unsurprisingly, due to the nature of the challenge—always tend towards overspending. With the raft of recommendations from the strategic defence review and the sheer number of projects that the Ministry of Defence will have to fund, is there not a possibility that the proposed increase in the defence budget could be consumed by the cost of the Dreadnought and nuclear warhead programmes? In light of this, can the Minister guarantee that there will be sufficient funds within the plans for the highly necessary renewal of the nuclear deterrent, as well as the equally necessary boost in what we now understand to be conventional capabilities?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, I first thank the noble Earl for the ironclad commitment that His Majesty’s Opposition have just given to the strategic nuclear deterrent. That is the most important point that has been made today, and I thank him for that. The co-operation between all of us on that has been a source of strength to this country for many decades and will continue.

On the question of funding, the Government make it absolutely clear they will fund the nuclear deterrent. On the Dreadnought successor programme to Vanguard, we have made commitments to the four submarines, and noble Lords have seen the Statement about the nuclear warhead programme. I remind the noble Earl that, in 2015, the last Government put a package out of £31 billion for the nuclear modernisation programme with a £10 billion contingency, and I can confirm that the budget is within those parameters.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the Urgent Question asked in the other place came from the chair of the Defence Committee. It came because there was speculation in the press that the SDR would propose not just renewing the continuous at-sea deterrent, which from these Benches we also support, but a move to a second platform for nuclear deterrence; that appears not to be the case. How does the Minister think such speculation came about? Would it not have been better if, rather than floating the SDR to the press, it came first to the other place and your Lordships’ House and we could have avoided unnecessary speculation?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

On the issue of nuclear weapons and the point that the noble Baroness makes, I will read the following for the purpose of clarity because she makes an important point. Neither the UK nor NATO talks about nuclear weapons being tactical. Any use of nuclear weapons would fundamentally change the nature of a conflict. I can say that the UK continues to view its nuclear deterrent as a political tool rather than a war-fighting capability, and it will remain the case that none of the UK’s nuclear weapons is designed for tactical use.

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[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I was in command of the crew of a nuclear-armed Falcon on quick-reaction alert over a number of years, and I realise the cost of maintaining the V-Force on alert over many years as well. Will the Minister return to the first question as to whether the cost of maintaining new nuclear capability, which has been talked about, can be met with less than the 3% guaranteed for the defence budget?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

To be absolutely clear for the noble and gallant Lord, whatever the debate about the levels of funding for the defence budget, the nuclear deterrent will be funded both as it stands and for its renewal. That is a cast-iron guarantee from the Government.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend’s commitment to the nuclear deterrent, but does he agree that the problems we are facing now with the deterrent replacement are the failure to replace submarines in the 1990s by the Conservative Government, the delay from the coalition Government in ordering the replacement, and the movement of the actual finance for the replacement into the defence budget, whereas before it was always ring-fenced? Are not this Government trying now to play catch-up after the mistakes that were made in the past?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. We are trying to ensure that, whatever may have happened in the past, we move forward in a way which guarantees our strategic nuclear deterrent. That is the fundamental point that must ring out from this Chamber: there is unity of purpose across the Chamber that the strategic nuclear deterrent, particularly in the geopolitical times of today, will be maintained and renewed by this Government.

[Lord Houghton of Richmond (CB)]

My Lords, does not the Minister crystallise in what he says the stupidity of the situation in which we find ourselves? The declaration that at all costs, at any cost, the nuclear deterrent will be retained, must mean, under a time of fiscal pressure, that the balance of the MoD’s programme—the conventional methodology for deterring attacks—is further undermined. Is this not a ridiculous situation, and should we not return to the time when the nuclear enterprise was funded completely separately from the conventional requirements of defence?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his question. Clearly, others will have heard the points that he made. All I am saying to this Chamber is that, at this geopolitical moment in history, it is particularly important that His Majesty’s Government, plus His Majesty’s Official Opposition and all parties, are united in saying to others that the nuclear deterrent will remain at the heart of our defence policy, whatever the debates about the budget.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that it is an independent nuclear deterrent, or is it tied in? Would it work if we did not have support from the United States? One of the problems that we have had in the past is that it has not been an independent nuclear deterrent; it has been dependent on support from others. I would like to have an independent deterrent.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I just say to the noble Lord that it is an independent nuclear deterrent. The person who decides whether, God forbid, that nuclear deterrent is ever used is the Prime Minister of our country. It is only the Prime Minister of our country who can determine whether, God forbid, that nuclear deterrent is used. That guarantees its independence.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that our nuclear weapons will be used only when our supreme national interest so requires, and in no other circumstance?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Of course it will be in the most extreme of circumstances that the nuclear deterrent would even be considered for use. I just say that the whole point of the nuclear deterrent—this is something I have said many times at the Dispatch Box—is to deter people. It is that whole concept that sometimes seems contradictory: that by preparing for war, you prevent war. The strategic nuclear deterrent is the most significant example of that.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, it has always been the case that the nuclear programme has been at the very limits of our technological, industrial, scientific and cost profiles. The speed at which we produced Blue Danube bombs, for example, was excruciatingly slow, and so was the Beard process beyond that, and the other weapons. Now we have a lot of pressure from civil nuclear as well. Does my noble friend agree that we have to have a really national endeavour among all departments to pull together so that we can get the training of scientists and everyone focusing on this particular issue, because otherwise we will find it very hard to deliver—certainly within the cost parameters, but very hard to deliver anyway?

Just as an aside, when I was in government, the Prime Minister asked me to go and check on the independence of our deterrent. I was allowed access to all sorts of things, and the answer is that it is independent. Clearly, over time, over 20 or 30 years, that becomes more difficult, because of maintenance of missiles, for example.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really good point with respect to the nuclear enterprise and the need for it to be a national endeavour. It is true of the defence nuclear enterprise, as it is true with many other aspects of defence, that the need for us to upskill, to have more apprentices and to have more of the systems available to us in order for us to be able to deliver the defence programmes and projects that we want is a challenge. Let me be clear that we will make sure that we have all the necessary skills and capabilities required to maintain our nuclear deterrent.