Contribution
I congratulate my noble friend Lord McCabe on his striking maiden speech. We look forward to hearing more from him in the future. He comes from Port Glasgow, like the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. Admiral West—the noble Lord, Lord West—comes from Clydebank, and I come from Dunoon, so the Firth of Clyde has become the new deep state in the House of Lords.
Secondly, I understand that the contribution by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, early in the debate, was her last speech in the House of Lords. Although she did not classify it as a valedictory, it actually was the last speech. On behalf of all Members of the House, I thank her for her service to the House and wish her well in her retirement.
I turn to the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. The Minister has dealt with him, and we welcome him back in this brief episode today. He was uncharacteristically unkind to the review by saying that it had no poetry in it. One of the characteristics of this review is that it is extremely well written. It reads well, even for the non-expert.
The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, came up to me the other day in Millbank House to say that he had read it completely. He said that it was very impressive, very readable and very effective, and, “There is not a single split infinitive in it”. So there we have the judgment of the former Archbishop of York on it. It really has been beautifully drafted, to make sure that we get the message over. We are passionate about the issues, warnings and threats and the need for what will have to be done, but our concern was that it had to be said in a language that people outside of this bubble could understand, and that has been done. I paid a tribute earlier to our chief drafter, Ashlee Godwin, who works for the House of Commons Library. She was the brain behind the readability.
We have talked about the money. I dealt with that at the beginning, and I believe that the Prime Minister has made it clear exactly what will have to be done. But the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, made an interesting point. He said that it is not about whether there is enough money or whether it will be executed, but that the question is: do we mean it? That is an important question. We are telling the British people that they are not safe. We are telling them that we are underprepared, and that we collectively have left them underprepared. They are underinsured, because defence expenditure is the insurance policy of the nation against the future. We need to get that in place and win that argument as well.
Sir Basil Liddell Hart, a great strategist of the Second World War, once said that the outcome of the battle is more likely to be determined
“in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men”.
Deterrence is therefore a matter of psychology. It is a matter of persuading any adversary, whoever that adversary might be—and there are adversaries out there—that we will defend ourselves, our nation and our values. That is what this report is about. It is a warning that we are not safe but also a prescription for how we can be safer in the future.
If the question, “Is there a threat?”, has to be asked, you have only to watch the television every night to see what is happening in Ukraine. Of course, I dealt with Vladimir Putin in the good days. I am one of the few people still alive who can stand by an open window and talk about Vladimir Putin’s sense of humour—something that seems to have completely disappeared as the megalomania has taken over. That is what it represents.
In many ways, Ukraine is the last war. We keep talking about how people are fascinated and obsessed by the last war, not the next war. Ukraine might be the last war. The next war will be nastier and more brutal, and we need to be ready for it. We must try, through building deterrence and war-readiness, to deter any future adversary from taking on the British nation, because the costs of war will always be much greater than the costs of preventing it and building deterrence.
That is what this review is all about, and we need to get that message over to the British people so that it becomes a much more important issue for them. It will be too late if the lights go out, the hospitals close, the data centres melt because the air conditioning has been turned off, and the people turn on us collectively and say, “Why the hell didn’t you do something about it before now?” This is a warning, but that warning has to be heeded. I beg to move.