Strategic Defence Review: Funding

Lord Coaker Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have been under sustained attack over many months for inadequacy of defence spend, opacity as to what they are going to do about it and lethargy engulfing their defence investment plan. When the most acerbic criticism comes from a political friend and the Government’s defence adviser, that is painful, but it is also a piercing alarm klaxon; help is needed now.

I ask the Minister, whom I hold in respect and affection, two questions. Even if the Government do not accept that the Chagos deal is dead, although everyone else does, why not redirect the identified and assigned Chagos payments to the MoD? That money is not going to Mauritius any time soon. As the MoD struggles to fill a current £3.5 billion black hole, it must ruthlessly prioritise, so how about, above all else, urgently getting warships out of maintenance?

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

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. On the Chagos deal, the direct answer, fairly obviously, is that priorities across government are always being assessed and reassessed as policy develops or changes, but predicting that is very difficult. I cannot give a direct answer to what the noble Baroness has asked—as I expect she thought I would not be able to. On warship maintenance, the First Sea Lord is working extremely hard to improve the maintenance of warships to see how we can get them all ready and operational more quickly. It is not just warships but the whole of the Navy. He is working hard, as the noble Baroness knows, with respect to a hybrid Navy. He is also working extremely hard to improve submarine availability.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

My Lords, first, is the delay in the defence investment plan partly due to the Government having to make cuts to existing programmes to provide for programmes that meet new and increasing challenges? How does that sit with the claim to be funding increased defence spending? Secondly, given that the SDR called for a “whole-of-society approach” to defence and security, when will the Government seek to engage the public and all political parties in a debate on the threats we face, how they are escalating and how we need to respond? At the moment, the public are not so convinced that increased defence spending is justified. Most of us know that it is, but we need to ensure that the public are carried with it. Will the Government take such an initiative?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

There is a debate in Grand Committee on Monday about defence resilience, so we can start the conversation there. Of course, there is a broader conversation that the noble Lord referred to, and we are working hard to deliver that as well. I accept that there is a debate about defence spending. However, in 2024-25, the total DEL was £60.2 billion. In 2028-29, it will be £73.5 billion under current plans. That is a £13.5 billion increase in that final year.

On the SDR, the noble Lord will know, notwithstanding the debate going on around it, that the Government are not waiting for the publication of the SDR. Significant investments are being made already. The Leonardo investment in Yeovil around helicopters was announced recently. Again on helicopters, just yesterday nearly £900 million was announced Boeing UK for Chinook and Apache maintenance. There is huge investment in shipbuilding in Scotland, which is immense for Scotland and something about which we can all be pleased. The nuclear deterrent is being renewed. We have ordered 12 F35As. All those things are important. We are not waiting for the SDR; we are investing already. The debate will no doubt continue on the total amount, but it is wrong to say we are not investing anything.

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I offer my sympathies to the Minister for being put up, once again, to defend the indefensible. Would he agree that the people of this country have a right to expect their leaders to, well, lead? The need is not in doubt. The Prime Minister goes to places such as Munich and gives very eloquent speeches, setting out the urgency of the requirement, but back at home the issue apparently remains on his desk, where I assume it has been sitting for months. Could the Minister take the message back to his colleagues—it is a message with which I know he agrees, although he cannot say so—that the time for leadership is not now, it is long past? We need to get on with this. The situation is too urgent and too dangerous to permit a further delay.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The DIP is being finalised. As the noble and gallant Lord said, the DIP is on the Prime Minister’s desk, as he said recently at the Liaison Committee, and is being considered. The only point I make to the noble and gallant Lord is the one I made to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and often make to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. I accept the debate and discussion about the totality of the amount that should or should not be spent within the total the Government have available. Alongside that discussion and debate, significant change is happening and significant investment is being made. The defence budget is rising. I know it is not rising in the way the noble and gallant Lord would wish it to but, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and without repeating it to save time for other noble Lords to ask questions, significant investment is going into the defence industry and defence capabilities across our nation, of which the British public can be proud.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, in the current debate about the appropriate balance between welfare and defence spending, allegations have been made about the lack of defence expertise in the Treasury. Is this justified?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

We speak to the Treasury all the time, so I hope the Treasury will understand the points we are making about defence and its importance. I know the Treasury and the Prime Minister understand that. The debate continues about the totality of the spending that needs to be allocated to defence. Those discussions with the Treasury, the Prime Minister and others across government will continue.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a serving Army Reserve officer. I thank the Minister for giving up his valuable time yesterday to meet senior Army leaders from the directorate of personnel. Reservists are the first echelon. The Regular Forces are now so small that reservists are no longer second echelon, but being, essentially, on a zero-hours contract our budgets are usually the first to be cut. What assurances can the Minister give the House that reserve budgets will be protected in the forthcoming DIP?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, and to the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, that the reserves are an essential part of the defence of our nation; they will be an increasing part of the defence of our nation. As such, they deserve a budget which matches the responsibility they are going to be given.

[Baroness Antrobus (Lab)]

My Lords, on Tuesday, my noble friend the Minister called on all sides of the House to come together to deal with the threats we face. However, my noble friend Lord Robertson this week called out the lack of engagement of the Liberal Democrats and Reform, who did not respond to his offer—at least until this week—to brief them on the strategic defence review. The Green Party is at best, if I am being charitable, ambivalent about NATO. What needs to be done to bring all sides together in the face of the toughest compounding circumstances in decades? It is apparent, from recent conversations, that noble Lords on all sides care and think deeply about this issue.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

The point I was trying to make on Tuesday—I am happy to reiterate it—is that the threat we face needs the country to respond as a whole. The Government’s responsibility, working with others, is to ensure that the population understand that threat and the increasing nature of it. I think that, in response to that, we can expect everyone to come together, as our country always does.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I say simply from the Liberal Democrat Benches that I cannot think how many times I have spoken to the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, in the last few months. We are fully engaged with this debate, as the Minister knows well. We are anxious that the defence review should be implemented. We regret that there has not been the national conversation led by the Prime Minister that we need. The idea that we are somehow not engaged with this is a little over the top, to say the least.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

On the noble Lord’s main point about the national conversations, as I have said to him and in this House on a number of occasions, that national conversation needs to begin as soon as possible, and plans are under way with respect to that. It is essential that it happens: we need to ensure that the British public understand the very real change in circumstances they now face compared with just a few years ago.

[Lord Macpherson of Earl’s Court (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the effectiveness of expenditure is as important as the level of expenditure? Can he tell the House what the MoD is doing to improve the efficiency of defence spending?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

As the noble Lord will know, there has been a defence reform programme, which has led to the establishment of a national armaments directorate and a new national armaments director. Certainly, at the top of his agenda is ensuring more effective procurement and better value for money—all the sorts of things that you would assume are essential. But it is not only effective procurement; the other challenge for us all as a nation, and indeed our friends and allies, is what appropriate equipment to buy for the changed nature of warfare. The lesson from Ukraine is clearly that it is air defence, new technology and drones. It is about how we ensure a balance between what you might call traditional capability, which of course is still essential, and the new technologies that are emerging. That is also a challenge, as well as the nature of the procurement itself.