Strategic Defence Review: Funding

Julian Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the hon. Member for the way that he posed his question. There was much in it that I agree with him on. He is certainly right that we are not at war but nor are we at peace. We can look at a number of domains where we see UK forces and infrastructure being attacked, the cyber domain being the most obvious. The Defence Secretary revealed only last week the threats to our undersea infrastructure from covert Russian activity, and we must be able to call it out and say to Putin, “We see what you are doing. You will not have deniability.” In fact, the military call it “denying deniability”, which is a typical military phrase, but I think we all know what that means. There is more to be done here, including the national conversation about the threats that we face and how all of us can, in our own way, take actions—just updating the operating system on our phones makes us and the country safer. There is lots more that we can do, especially in this House, to further support that, and I am happy to have a conversation with him about how we do that.

[Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

On the key recommendation of a national conversation to build support and understanding among the population, it is all very well having debates here or in Whitehall, but what conversations are the Government having with the Departments for Education and for Culture, Media and Sport, the BBC and social media providers about the issues that are faced and about communication with the public to build support for funding and increase understanding of the challenges we face?

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that very fair question. My colleague in the House of Lords, Lord Coaker, is the Minister leading on the national conversation. The right hon. Gentleman will have seen that Lord Coaker recently published the defence diplomacy strategy. Although it deals with more traditional diplomacy, it also deals with the necessity of speaking to our own people and to the wider population about how to respond to the threats we face. We are still in the early stages of forming the proposal for that formal national conversation, but, again, it must be a cross-Government effort that includes the Cabinet Office and Departments beyond the Ministry of Defence. The way we defend our nation in the 21st century is not just about the brilliant men and women in uniform; it is a whole-of-Government and whole-of-nation effort. That is why we are trying to kick-start that conversation. A debate about defence spending certainly contributes to that.