Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to all the witnesses who contributed to this report, to the committee staff who worked so hard to bring it together and, not least, to the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, for his excellent chairmanship and clear and comprehensive introduction to the report. In the limited time available, I shall mainly confine myself to a few brief comments on one of the many important issues covered in the report: European security.

Before I do so, I want to register a quick point on the vexed matter of touring artists, on which others will no doubt wish to elaborate. A couple of weeks ago, I met with representatives of the European Parliament’s culture committee. They had just come from DCMS, where they had been told that the problems faced by our artists seeking to perform in Europe were not a priority issue for the UK. That is certainly not the view that Ministers have rightly expressed from the Dispatch Box. I suggest to the Government that we might do better in our negotiations with the EU if we sent rather more consistent messages.

I go back to the security and defence partnership. This was the area that seemed to hold most promise in the run-up to the UK-EU summit last May, since the threat looming over the European continent—not just over the EU—seemed to give us common cause despite any Brexit hangover on either side. In the event, it turned out to be the area of perhaps greatest disappointment.

Defence is, of course, not an EU competence, but neither is it strictly a national responsibility. Our necessarily corporate approach to defence in Europe is given substance through NATO, but even the alliance cannot address what is perhaps our most urgent military challenge today. This is not increasing the number of ships, soldiers or aircraft, important though those things are. The priority is to create an innovative, agile and rapidly scalable defence-industrial base across Europe. I am not just talking about traditional defence industries; we have seen in Ukraine how important the normally civilian-orientated sector can be in time of conflict. Without such an industrial hinterland, our Armed Forces will quickly become impotent in any sustained conflict through lack of the wherewithal to fight. Developing such capacity is where the EU can—and has started to—play a part. But it is about European defence, not EU defence. Frankly, the latter is a meaningless, not to say dangerous, concept.

It was therefore very disappointing to see UK companies excluded from full participation in the SAFE mechanism. This was a significant setback for the kind of integrated defence-industrial enterprise we shall need on this continent if we are to develop the strategic capabilities for which we are still overreliant on the United States and in which the UK should play a leading role. We must do better going forward. But if we are to do better and play a leading role, we must recognise that, in terms of defence, we are increasingly viewed as something of a paper tiger, even among our closest friends in the EU. We talk a good game but seem less and less able to play one. That is not exactly a leadership position.

In Munich recently, the Prime Minister said that European nations need to increase defence spending further and faster. Amen to that, but where is the UK action to match the rhetoric? We need to argue for a much more coherent approach to defence-industrial capability within Europe as a whole. But if we are to convince, we must at the very least put our money where our mouth is.