Lord Harper
Main Page: Lord Harper (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Harper's debates with the HM Treasury
Defence, Security and Resilience Bank
Lord Harper Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his Question. I am pleased to see that he has made a full recovery; I know he was battling a very heavy cold during our recent King’s Speech debate. I fully recognise that I am no defence expert, but I thought that the Prime Minister put this point particularly well in his recent Munich speech. He said that
“we must move forward together to create a more European NATO. As I see it, Europe is a sleeping giant … We have huge defence capabilities, yet too often this adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Fragmented industrial planning and procurement have led to gaps in some areas, and massive duplication in others. Europe has over 20 types of frigate, and 10 types of fighter jet. We have over 10 types of main battle tank, whilst the US has one. It’s wildly inefficient, and it harms our collective security”.
The noble Lord may well share that analysis and worldview. That is why the Government’s focus is, as I said, to work on the proposed multilateral defence mechanism with a core group of EU and NATO allies and partners, with the goal of establishing it by 2027.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, on a note of agreement, I agree with the Minister—I think—on his position on the defence bank, which may surprise him. He set out the importance of defence procurement. Given that there was much speculative briefing over the past few days about the Government’s defence spending commitments, is he able to update the House on the much-delayed defence investment plan, which is very important in making those commitments, particularly to the British defence industry?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
As I am sure the noble Lord knows, the defence investment plan is the first zero-based review of defence spending in almost two decades. It will set out the MoD’s plans to ensure that resources are directed effectively to meet its priorities. The Government are working hard to facilitate this and to ensure that it delivers the outcomes the UK needs for defence and for taxpayers, and it will be published shortly.