King’s Speech

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a senior counsellor with the Cohen Group. The opening lines of the gracious Speech hit the nail on the head:

“An increasingly dangerous and volatile world threatens the United Kingdom, with the conflict in the Middle East only the most recent example. Every element of the nation’s energy, defence and economic security will be tested”.


And indeed, we are being tested.

I want to remind the House what we said in the strategic defence review last year, when I was the lead reviewer, which was adopted by the Prime Minister and the Government. The review said:

“The UK and its allies are once again directly threatened by other states with advanced military forces”.


It went on:

“The UK is already under daily attack”.


All that is true and troubling enough, but, as the Prime Minister himself said at the Munich Security Conference only a few weeks ago:

“Time and again, leaders have looked the other way, only re-arming when disaster is upon them. This time, it must be different. Because all … the signs are there”.


These are tough words and, if we had that promised national conversation about defence, I am sure the country would agree with the Prime Minister.

Why do I raise the subject of defence in this economic growth debate? It is a fair question. Although the Prime Minister has made these grave forecasts, we still have no clarity in this speech or in the Munich speech about the steps necessary to get to the agreed 3.5 % of GNP by 2035. I remind the House that that figure would add £36 billion to the present £70 billion that we already spend on defence. These are eye-watering figures, but 30 countries committed to them at the Hague summit, and President Trump is watching all the time.

In his introduction to the document accompanying the King’s Speech, the Prime Minister highlights the Iran conflict. He says:

“But in the light of that conflict, we … need to move with greater urgency”.


This builds on what he said in Munich:

“We must build our hard power, because that is the currency of the age”.


He went on:

“So together we must rise to this moment. We must spend more, deliver more, and co-ordinate more”.


I will make two points about the powerful Munich speech. First, there must have been a page missing from it: the one which logically went on to say what additional funds the British Government were committing to spend to acquire that necessary hard power. Without that commitment, it is simply rhetoric. Secondly, the Prime Minister needs to make that speech again, with its solemn and worrying warning about a potential Russian attack on NATO before the end of the decade, which is in three years’ time, and make that speech not just in Munich but in Manchester, Middlesbrough, Mallaig and many other places.

I repeat what I recently said, which caused a degree of controversy: we are underprepared, we are underinsured, we are under attack and we are not safe. It is a blunt message which the country needs to hear, and from the top of government. Only when people realise the dangers that we face and the threats to them, and to their children’s futures, will the Chancellor and her advisers be willing or forced to make the budgetary trade-offs to spend and deliver more. So I ask my noble friend the Treasury Minister: when will the Treasury set out the steps to get to the 3.5% plus 1.5% promised at the Hague NATO summit? The next summit is only eight weeks away and our country is now 10th in NATO’s league table for spending.

I appreciate that the Government have already pledged to increase expenditure to 2.5% by 2027, and this is welcome. But is this nearly enough, in light of the challenges and threats that face us at the moment? NATO and SACEUR are forecasting a possible Russian military attack on the alliance in just three years’ time. Why are we sleeping? Why are all of us not rearming at pace and rebuilding the hard power so necessary to deter current and future threats to our land, sovereignty and democratic way of life?

I have said it before, but it needs repeating: when the lights go out, the hospitals close, the data centres melt and the ATMs stop working, the public will rightly say to all of us, “Why did you not do something to sort this out before?” If, somehow, we are attacked with cruise and ballistic missiles when deterrence fails, will we stand in the ruins of our cities, homes and schools, and proudly say, “Well, yes, we protected the fiscal rules”?

Will the Minister consider this question: what if we do not increase defence expenditure and rebuild deterrence in the way the Government have agreed in the defence review? Will the Chancellor and the Treasury accept the blame for our continued weakness and the open door that it represents to our aggressive and fast-learning adversaries?

The gracious Speech is not strong on defence—our adversaries will note that and draw some conclusions—and the absence of the defence readiness Bill is a major failing in it, but it says something:

“My Government will also uphold the United Kingdom’s unbreakable commitment to NATO and our NATO allies, including through a sustained increase in defence spending”.


I welcome that promise, but what does it mean, how much does it mean and when will it mean? The threat is immediate. In Ukraine, we can see that it is very real and very nasty. It is no longer theoretical. Under the threshold, it is happening now. When will we see the steps and the commitment to the 3.5%? Only when we do will the British people feel safer than they are today.

I conclude with the words of Denis Healey, speaking in 1969. He said that

“once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/3/1969; col. 551.]

It was wise then; it is a warning today.

Preparing for Extreme Risks (RARPC Report)

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, on his skilled and very patient leadership in this important committee of inquiry. I join him in thanking and commending the staff who carefully listened to our deliberations and to the evidence presented, and who distilled, with such skill and mastery, an account of our conclusions. We are immensely lucky in this House to have people of such talent working for us.

In keeping with other members of the committee—especially those of us with some experience in these fields—I say that this special committee was a true eye-opener for all of us. To see in some detail just how ill-prepared our country and our people are for the kind of grave risks prevalent in today’s very dangerous—and increasingly dangerous—world was itself alarming, to say the least. Our study was both significant and timely, and it is possible to say that this is perhaps one of the most consequential reports that this House has produced in many years.

The fact that, in their response, the Government accepted all but two of our highly critical recommendations is evidence enough of the traction that we have created. The appearance in late December of the brand new UK Government resilience framework shows just how timely our report was and the effect that it had.

Of course, the Government’s position—I anticipate what the Minister will say—is that many of the recommendations that we made were already the subject of internal governmental consideration and action. That is easily said but if that was the case and the government machine was aware of the deficiencies in its risk processes, it did not actually say that during the time that the committee was conducting its inquiry.

We took evidence from the then Paymaster-General—then the Minister in charge of the national risk register—and her successor to give a view, and from neither, nor from the civil servant advisers, did we get the impression that the kinds of issues that we were confronted with were being treated with the appropriate degree of urgency. However, the new resilience framework begins to show that, however belatedly, Ministers have woken up to the nation’s vulnerabilities and are seeking to remedy them, and mainly in the ways that we proposed—better late than another grave disaster.

Time is limited in this debate so I will confine myself to making a couple of points that the committee identified. However, I would like the report itself to state its case. It merits reading and rereading widely, because a wider audience than this needs to know what we found and are now concerned with; our conclusions are so relevant and so important. I know that Professor Andrew Morris has already promoted our report to the Scottish Parliament in its post-Covid deliberations. We should make no mistake that our report was hard-hitting and highly critical and, frankly—I say this candidly—that not all of the deficiencies are to do with the last 12 years. Some of us who held government positions related to risk management must share at least some of the blame for historic vulnerabilities.

The main weaknesses in the current system that we identified were an overbearing and unjustified element of secrecy in the whole process and a lack of external challenge to internal government thinking. Both these problems have been addressed in the new resilience framework, and Parliament must be vigilant to see that its sentiments are translated into action.

The experience of Covid-19 has shone a bright light on the way that we look at the grave risks to this country’s safety and security. If we are to avoid the kind of cascading damage that we have seen over the last two years, we need more than fine words in a little-noticed framework document. We need to see its provisions put into effect, and quickly.

Devolved Governments: Public Expenditure

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the devolved governments regarding monitoring of their public expenditure.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock—who is self-isolating, according to law—and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is responsible for the Treasury’s relationship with the devolved Administrations and last met their Finance Ministers a week ago, on 12 January. The devolved Administrations provide the Treasury with information on their spending every month to support the management of the public finances. It is for the devolved Administrations to allocate their Barnett-based funding across their devolved responsibilities. They are accountable to their respective legislatures for their decisions.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is aware, as he says, of the billions of pounds that are transferred to the Scottish Government under what is known as the Barnett consequentials, but does he know where it is spent? The Scottish Government seem remarkably reluctant to tell the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people how that money is spent. What does he think of the fact that, at the moment, the Scottish Government are starving Scottish local authorities of money, thereby forcing them either to put up council taxes or cut services?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, as I said in my opening Answer, the Scottish Government are accountable to their electorate and to the Treasury here for how they spend their money. They have had a very generous settlement in the SR—an additional £8.7 billion went to the devolved Administrations, of which £4.6 billion per year has gone to Scotland. I encourage the noble Lord to keep his scrutiny up.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, what do you say in two short minutes on one of the most important treaties signed in our lifetime? Well, first, I can say that this process of scrutinising an already signed deal is an accountability disgrace. The Brexiteers said “Bring back control,” but the Maastricht treaty took 300 hours of scrutiny over 14 months whereas this hugely significant treaty is only going to get a couple of days and two-minute speeches. So much for taking back control.

Secondly, I can state the obvious: that we are leaving the EU but not Europe. Brexit does not change geography, history, economics or common security threats. For good or ill our destiny will still be affected, and in many ways determined, by the actions of the EU 27 —it is just that we will not have a say in designing that destiny.

Thirdly, I can say that this deal is better than crashing out without any deal, but that is like saying that a 50-year sentence is better than the death penalty. The cold reality is that the EU will do well out of this deal because it was united, and it knew what it wanted and how to get it. We had none of these benefits. Like so many others, I care deeply about my country so I despair at the newly created barriers, especially the non-tariff barriers, which will inevitably foul up the process of doing business across the channel.

Finally, I can say that we now enter a manmade and government-designed mess for the whole country just as we face the nightmare of an out-of-control nature-made virus which has made a complete mockery of that idea of taking back control.

David Frost

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) when they expect David Frost to be introduced to the House; and (2) whether he will be accountable to the House in relation to his duties as (a) the Prime Minister’s Europe Adviser and the United Kingdom’s Chief Negotiator of Task Force Europe, and (b) the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has recommended David Frost for a life peerage. Her Majesty the Queen has graciously approved the recommendation. He will be introduced to the House in due course, in the usual way. The Prime Minister has appointed David Frost as National Security Adviser; he is not a Minister and will be accountable to Parliament in the usual way for officeholders—for example, appearing before Select Committees where necessary and appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply but, sadly, it raises many more questions than answers. Do the Government not recognise that the post of National Security Adviser was designed for giving impartial advice in the national interest? By appointing a Conservative Peer as the National Security Adviser, it will instead be political advice in the Conservative interest. I first ask the Minister this: will Mr Frost, as a Member of this House, simply sit silently on the red Benches, while the business of the National Security Council is debated here?

Secondly, Mr Frost is, at present, in charge of the negotiations on our future relations with the European Union—perhaps the most important negotiations in our lifetime. Will he again be sitting here silently or will he regularly report on the progress of the negotiations to the House, of which he will be a Member? The public outside will see this Government not reforming the system in a thought-through way, but introducing yet another partisan way of politicising our remarkable Civil Service.

[Lord True]

My Lords, there were a number of questions there; I am not sure I remembered them all by the end. The post of National Security Adviser has only existed since 2010 and it is an evolving role. Mr Frost is a career diplomat of 25 years’ distinguished service to this country. He is perfectly capable of giving dispassionate and wise advice. His role as an outstanding negotiator with the EU will continue as now. He will be ready to appear before your Lordships’ Select Committees, as he has already.

Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Excerpts

Thursday 29th August 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

My Lords, this is an important debate on a very important issue but in many ways it is a bit late. This civil war has been going on, with increasing violence, for the past two years. Perhaps it is right that we should be focusing on it at present after what happened last Wednesday.

I agree with the Government, and with other allied Governments, that there must be a response to the events of 21 August in Damascus. To do nothing in the face of this illegal, obscene, despicable and, indeed, desperate use of poison gas would in itself be a positive act. It would be in many ways to legitimise an instrument of war that has been outlawed for almost 100 years and it would open the door to much further and wider use of these chemical weapons. Effectively, it would end the responsibility to protect that has now been established by the UN General Assembly.

What we do now in response to the atrocity of 21 August has to be the beginning and not the end of what we do about the crisis of Syria and its neighbourhood. To pretend that taking action now, whatever it might be, would end our involvement in Syria is naive, short-sighted and profoundly dangerous. There is a danger that we focus exclusively in this debate on what happened on Wednesday 21 August and relegate the other horrors of what has gone on over the past two years and what might happen next. There are 100,000 people already dead in Syria. There are 2 million people displaced; that is one-third of the Syrian population both inside and outside its borders. Lebanon has 710,000 refugees. Jordan has 520,000 refugees; that is 10% of its population. As David Miliband said in a speech he gave at Ditchley in August, that is the equivalent of the whole population of Romania coming to the United Kingdom. That is in Jordan, one of our friendly countries. Lebanon is destabilised. Turkey has 440,000 refugees, Iraqi Kurdistan has 160,000 and Egypt 110,000. Israel is on edge at every minute. Iran is on Assad’s side. Iraq is partial in the conflict. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are pumping weapons to whoever wants them in that area.

Are we really saying, by focusing on this particular atrocity, that Assad can continue with horrifying violence so long as he does not use chemical weapons? Are we, after we strike, then to stand back as Assad with his new friends in Hezbollah mounts a scorched-earth policy against all his opponents? Is the fevered discussion of the past few days forcing us into the corner of saying that chemical weapons are wrong and will lead to severe punishment, but Assad can go on destroying his people and his country and we will have no further response to what he is doing? Jeremy Bowen, the profoundly brave and wise Middle East correspondent and editor of the BBC said in a programme last night that the regime in Syria is now quite ready to take whatever attack will take place and then simply to move on with what it was doing before—and that was bad enough.

To those who say that any action carries the risk of siding with one side in a civil war, I say this, which has not yet been said even by the Government: we have already taken sides. We do not recognise President Assad as the President of Syria. This country and two dozen others recognise the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people. We have taken sides. All we have not done is very much about it and it is time that we did, not only by preventing the human catastrophe of another chemical weapons attack, but by helping and supporting—indeed, arming—the anti-Assad forces which we recognise as the legitimate representatives of the people; by creating truly safe areas for refugees, learning all the lessons of what not to do from Bosnia; and by being generous with Jordan and the other countries that are bearing the unbearable burdens of the spillover. We need to make it clear that genocidal killing and ethnic cleansing by artillery, rockets, grenades and guns, as well as poison gas, are at least as evil and need to be treated in the same way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen]

I wonder whether the Minister will enlighten the House. In the light of the fact that in the past few minutes the House of Commons has defeated the Government Motion, what is plan B?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it is very kind of the noble Lord to ask me to respond three minutes after that happened. I am sure that plan B is to consider the situation. We will continue to discuss with a wide range of international partners the possibilities and implications of these circumstances.

To conclude—