National Security Strategy

Statement

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Statement is as follows:

“Today, the Prime Minister attends the opening day of the NATO summit. That summit is expected to agree a new commitment to grow spending on national security to 5% of GDP by 2035, to be made up by a projected split of 3.5% on core defence spending and 1.5% on broader resilience and security spending. This will mark a new resolve among NATO members to make our countries stronger and, as we have always done before, the United Kingdom will play our part.

NATO’s member countries meet at a time when the security situation is more in flux than at any time in a generation—a time when Ukraine is in its fourth year of resisting Russian invasion; a time when we in Europe have been asked to do more to secure our own defences; and a time when security can no longer be thought of as just the traditional realms of air, sea and land but as technology, cyber and the strength of our democratic society.

As we have seen in recent days, it has been a time of renewed military action in the Middle East, with Israel and the United States acting to try to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb. News of a ceasefire is welcome, but, as we have seen even in recent hours, the situation remains fragile. The focus must now be on a credible plan to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.

It is of great pride to my party that NATO was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War with the strong support of the post-war Labour Government. Ernest Bevin, the Labour Foreign Secretary at the time, said

‘we must face the facts as they are’.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/1/1948; col. 386.]

Today, in this very different age, we too must face the facts as they are. The generation that founded NATO saw it as a powerful expression of collective security and solidarity: alliances abroad matched by capacity at home. Our national security strategy, published today and made for these very different times, is inspired by those same values and aims.

Every Member of this House understands that the first duty of any Government is to keep the country safe. That is and always will be our number one priority, and the national security strategy sets out how we will do that. The world has changed fundamentally and continues to change before our eyes. This is indeed an age of radical uncertainty, and the leadership challenge in times of such change is to understand, respond and explain. The British people understand that. They recognise that we are living in a world that is more confrontational, turbulent and unpredictable than most of us have experienced in our lifetimes.

When the Prime Minister spoke to the House in February, he promised to produce a national security strategy that would match the scale of the task ahead, and the published strategy does that with a plan that is both clear-eyed and hard-edged about the challenges we face. It sets out a long-term vision about how we will do three crucial things. First, we will protect security at home by defending our territory, controlling our borders and making the UK a harder target for our enemies, one that is stronger and more resilient to future threats.

Secondly, we will promote strength abroad. This means bolstering our collective security, renewing and refreshing our key alliances and developing new partnerships in strategic locations across the world. It also means a clear-eyed view of how we engage with major powers such as China, where we must protect our national security and promote our economic interests. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary will make a further Statement on the China audit shortly.

Thirdly, we will increase our sovereign and asymmetric capabilities. We are building our defence industries, training our people, focusing investment on our competitive strengths and using our exceptional research and innovation base to build up advantages in new frontier technologies.

All this will make us a stronger and more resilient country, but delivering on each of those commitments will be possible only if all parts of society are pulling in the same direction. Our manufacturing, science and technology industries have to be aligned with national security objectives. Our industrial strategy will help to play to the UK’s strengths and deepen our capabilities. The investments that we announced in the spending review also deepen our resilience and strength as a country.

A health service strong enough to cope, safe and secure energy supplies, modern housing and transport for our people—all these contribute to a strong United Kingdom. That is why it is so important that all parts of the Government and business, big and small, understand that cyber security is national security, and that our core systems and the revenues of business are being targeted by our adversaries. It is why we as legislators have to ensure that our own laws, from borders to trade, fit with national security. That will take a whole-system approach that reflects today’s reality. National security means strong supply chains, controls on immigration, tackling online harm, energy security, economic security and border security. It transcends both foreign and domestic policy, and it all plays a role in how we make Britain a safer, more secure and more sovereign nation.

The document provides the blueprint of how that fits together. The strategy brings together everything we are doing across the full spectrum of national security: the commitment to spend 5% of our domestic economic output on national security by 2035, meeting our NATO commitments once again; the more than £1 billion that we are investing in a new network of national biosecurity centres; how we are stepping up in areas like cyber capabilities; our anti-corruption strategy to counter illicit finance and corruption; the expansion of our legal and law enforcement toolkit; the largest sustained investment in our Armed Forces since the Cold War; our plan to unlock real benefits for working people from this defence investment; how we prioritise NATO explicitly in our defence planning; a vision not only for deepening our alliances with the US and the EU but for growing our relationships with other emerging nations; the money we are investing in our brilliant research and development base over the coming years, such as the £750 million to be invested in a supercomputer at Edinburgh University; and our ambition to gain a competitive advantage in cutting-edge technologies and to embed national security in our agenda for artificial intelligence.

We do not underestimate the size of this task. The world is a more dangerous place than at any time since the end of the Cold War, yet it is also a place where Britain’s values, capabilities and alliances can make a positive difference. Since we came to power, we have taken a step-after-step approach to prepare Britain for what lies ahead: record investment in defence, backing our allies and resisting the false choices put before us that would only have weakened and diminished our country. This strategy represents an important contribution to all that work. It recognises that our long-term growth, prosperity and living standards all depend on national security becoming a way of life for people and businesses in the UK. This is a plan for how we protect the British people. It is a plan for today’s times but rooted in long-held values, and it is a plan to defend our national interests, deepen our international alliances and increase our sovereign capabilities. I commend it to the House”.

My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. It was important that the Prime Minister should, in advance of the NATO summit, signal the priority the Government attach to defence and national security. On these Benches we support that approach, as we do the analysis by the Government of the perceived major threats confronting the United Kingdom. There is much in the strategy with which these Benches can agree. I am aware of the continuity of advice to successive Prime Ministers on defence and security from No. 10 sources. I think that is very helpful, and I pay tribute to that expertise.

Protecting our country and our people from threat is the primary responsibility of the Government, and that was explicitly recognised by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the other place. But that analysis and that primary obligation of government bring onerous and challenging responsibilities. First, I join my right honourable friend the shadow Home Secretary in the other place in thanking our security and intelligence services, and all our defence personnel, for the extraordinary work they do to keep us all safe.

Secondly, I say to the Leader of the House that over the last few months a pattern has emerged from the Government of a series of important announcements concerning defence and security intentions but with two glaring omissions: no specific detail and no specific funding. These omissions seriously damage credibility, and I shall touch further on these aspects in my questions.

Let me deal first with security and intelligence. The Statement and the strategy refer to the three pillars: security at home, strength abroad and increasing sovereign and asymmetric capabilities. These Benches welcome actions that build on the measures that my party put in place when in government, including the National Security Act 2023, which gives us increased oversight of adversarial action. It also introduced the foreign influence registration scheme. At home, protecting critical national infrastructure is paramount and there has to be a lead body for that. Is that the Home Office or the MoD, or is it a tandem operation? Are strategic discussions taking place as to who is taking the lead? It may be that there is to be a new joint task force, but any further information the Leader of the House can provide on that would be very helpful.

My Lords, I also thank the Leader for repeating the Statement. Most people in our country take for granted the liberties and freedoms we enjoy. In a way, that is a good thing, as they do not need to concern themselves with the need for vigilance against the threats we face. We enjoy our way of life as a result of the tireless work of those who have dedicated their careers to making us safe, and I pay tribute to them. Many distinguished servants of commitment are represented in this House, and I thank them too.

We therefore support a great deal in this strategy—its judgment on the threats we face and the changing security landscape, both in potential conflicts and in the emerging dangers through technological change, and the need to address them across all of government, the economy and society as a whole. There should be, of course, a high level of cross-party support. I hope the Government will bring regular updates with clear action plans of the many workstreams that fed into this strategy so that we can monitor and appraise for progress.

In many ways, the UK has a unique security need. But in many others, we can act as a global, open and interconnected country only if we secure the support and partnership of others. As an island nation, our shipping and data cables keep our economy alive. We were the first country to lay subsea communication cables, 175 years ago. Today we are almost exclusively reliant on them for communications. Shipping contributed to our growth in the Industrial Revolution, and today our consumers are reliant on shipped imports and key sectors on shipped exports.

This is why, for example, I was very happy to see Taiwan mentioned in paragraph 21. Taiwanese security and the openness of the South China Sea are critical to our technology industry and wider trade. I welcome the aircraft carrier task group currently in the region. It is a key shipping route, essential for our economy. I will refer to China a little later, but the Leader of the House may not agree with me on those aspects.

My Lords, I am grateful to both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their comments. I will do my best to respond to as many as possible in the time available.

Both were right to recognise the work of our security services but also of those in our embassies and diplomats overseas. The noble Lord rightly raised soft power. The soft power embedded in our embassies and the work that they do can never be underestimated; it is an absolutely vital part of keeping the country safe and improving relations across the world.

The noble Baroness was uncharacteristically a little uncharitable to describe this as “a wing and a prayer”. This is a serious strategy document, and it brings together numerous other documents that the Government have been working on—some of which have already been presented to this House. The industrial strategy is part of that, but there are a number of them. This is not a wing and a prayer; it is a serious commitment. Both noble Lords talked about the 5%. The noble Lord’s point at the end of his comments was important. In looking at our national security, what happens here at home—community cohesion but also the resilience of our infrastructure—is equally as important as what we do overseas. This is not a wing and a prayer; it is an absolute commitment to these figures.

The NATO pledge commits to hitting a headline ambition of 5%, and we are talking about the Parliament after next, in 2035-36. Some 1.5% of that is around security and resilience spending and homeland security and resilience, which is an important part of national security, and 3.5% is core defence spending. We estimate that we will get to over 4%—about 4.1%—the year after next, and that information will become clearer. What is important in all this is that it is a collective national enterprise, as I have said, across industry, business, our embassies and the work here. This is an overarching strategy, at home and abroad.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, describes Iran, North Korea, China and Russia as “a deadly quartet”, all of which have sanctioned Members of the British Parliament, including Members of your Lordships’ House. China, as we have just heard, continues to intimidate Taiwan, to commit genocide against Uyghurs, to incarcerate pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong, and to use slave labour and transnational repression, both of which subjects are currently under investigation by the Joint Committee on Human Rights of this Parliament. We should not use the deepening of trade as an excuse for diminishing our awareness and response to the threat China poses, which is why Parliament should have been able to see the findings of the China audit and why China should be in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme.

I have two brief questions for the Leader. First, is the planned £600 million investment in the intelligence and security services a direct result of the findings of the audit? If it is, surely that underlines the reasons for serious concern. Secondly, regarding the mega-embassy, the Prime Minister said in his meeting with Xi Jinping during the G20 last year:

“You raised the Chinese embassy building in London when we spoke on the telephone and we have since taken action by calling in that application”.

Will the Leader confirm that the call-in was as a result of the phone call with Xi Jinping?

The noble Lord has great respect in this House for his commitment to these issues. I cannot confirm his final point at all. However, I think that the heart of his question is how seriously we take the threat from China, which is absolutely clear from the document. Indeed, this was raised in the House of Commons this week by David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, when he spoke on the China audit and referred to a quote, which I will quote as well, on page 28 of the strategic defence review. I do not think that we can see this review alone: as I said, it is an overarching review. It states:

“China: a sophisticated and persistent challenge. China is increasingly leveraging its economic, technological, and military capabilities, seeking to establish dominance in the Indo-Pacific, erode US influence, and put pressure on the rules-based international order”.

I endorse and agree with that statement.

The noble Lord asks if our economic relationship undermines our commitment to security. I give him a categoric assurance that that is not the case. We have to manage both relationships, but security is first and foremost: it is of enormous concern, as he will know. We recognise, and I think it is highlighted in the strategy, that China is increasingly eroding the rules that have governed the international system. I do not think we have had a China audit before, but if we look at the history of our relationship with China, under a previous Government—I think it was in the Cameron era—it was a very close relationship. We then moved to not engaging at all. That is not a satisfactory way to proceed. It comes back to the Ernie Bevin quote: we have to deal with the world as it is and the threats that exist now. I give the noble Lord the assurance that we stand by what is in the strategic defence review and we stand by what is in the national security strategy to protect Taiwan.

My Lords—

My Lords—

My Lords, there are 20 minutes for these questions. We will hear from the Labour Benches.

My Lords, my noble friend the Leader will be aware that the National Risk Register, published in January, classifies a future pandemic as the catastrophic risk with the highest likelihood of happening. The defence review identifies engineering biology and new pathogens as a clear and present risk. The publication of the strategy came on the same day as the Foreign Secretary announced a contribution of £1.25 billion into the resources of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, we all now know about—or have had our memories refreshed on—the level of investment that the Government have promised to support the new network of national biosecurity centres. I consider all that to be security investment but, in the latter case, over what period will the £1 billion sustain these new centres?

I am grateful to my noble friend for reiterating that security is more than just foreign security; it is also health security. One of the issues with Covid was the lack of preparedness within the NHS. We are working on that at pace. A significant preparedness exercise is about to be undertaken and we will again test the emergency alert system. We inherited a number of laboratories in a very poor condition so that their future was in doubt. That is why the investment in biosecurity is so important. So, there is the new biosecurity centre at Weybridge, with £208 million committed to that work over the next two years, but there has to be a complete network of biosecurity centres around the country. That is about disease, but it is also about health and animal products, our imports, and ensuring that we can foster innovation so we know what is coming next and can work towards it, including productivity. The £1 billion is across the current spending review period, which is three years, and it will be reviewed at the end of that period.

Does the noble Baroness agree that the growing Commonwealth network, with its people involvement at all levels, its unifying soft power—and indeed, increasingly, its hard power, as we have recently seen—and its maritime data integration powers, is a key part of our national security, our influence and our adaptation to a totally changed security world that is going on around us? Can she direct me to the page in the strategy where all this is mentioned? I cannot find it.

I am sure the noble Lord has looked very carefully to find it, so this question of which page might be rhetorical. No, I cannot direct him to a page, but if he looks across the range of documents we have produced he will know how much we value relationships. He is right to emphasise the importance of soft power, including that of the Commonwealth. One of the problems we have had in the past is that our relationship with Europe has had to be reset and renewed. Our relationship with America is one that we value, as, of course, are those across the world, including with the Commonwealth. We must have, build and value those relationships. It is not just soft power; it is actually a harder-edged thing as well. I will find it in some documents at some point, I am sure, but the noble Lord has only to hear Ministers speak to know how much that relationship is valued.

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on the strategy, which is both considered and sobering. It is considered because it strikes all the right balances between reinvesting in the conventional deterrents through NATO—the deterrence of Russia by NATO—and building resilience domestically, on which it is strong. The defining feature of the strategy is that it is a fundamentally grim read. It cuts out any niceties or talk of values and looks as though it has been written to give society an enhanced sense of threat awareness and prepare it for some hard choices.

My first question is: has it been written for that purpose? If so, I further congratulate the Government on it, because the threat awareness of society needs enhancing. Secondly, does the Minister appreciate the degree to which the slowness with which investment is made—with, as the noble Baroness opposite said earlier, very little in the lifetime of this Parliament and most of it in the imagined world of the next—undermines that message? Is it too much for me to hope that somewhere within government there is a hope that this investment might be accelerated?

I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord. It is interesting to hear the cheers from the party opposite to his last point, because this is a generational increase in defence spending that the previous Government did not match, although their members are calling for us to go faster and further now, which we always want to do. It is worth noting that, under NATO’s new estimate, we think we will get to over 4% by the year after next.

The noble and gallant Lord made an interesting point that I had not thought of because I was not involved in the drafting of the document. The purpose is different, but he is right that we have to not only make this an issue for government but give a real understanding of how the nature of threats is changing and how we have to work across all branches of government, including local government, and society as a whole. He is right in saying that the document draws that out. It is a grim read, but in some ways it is also an encouraging read, because unless you recognise the threats and understand what you are facing, it is very hard to address them.

What came across when I read it was where the linkages are with other actions across government—whether it is the Department of Health looking at resilience or the industrial strategy looking at resilience, they link together. The strategic defence review has been so important to this country, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, and his co-reporters on this. Without that strategic defence review, this document would have been weaker. It has helped to define some of the threats we face and looks at ways to address them. But if assurance is needed, I can give the noble and gallant Lord absolute assurance that we will do everything we can to not only reach these spending levels but, through other avenues of government, enhance the impact they will have.