L

Lord Harper (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 12 January 2026

Debate

Ukraine and Wider Operational Update

Contribution

My Lords, to take the Minister back to the question of resources, he will be aware that the Chief of the Defence Staff gave evidence to a Select Committee this afternoon and confirmed that there is a gap between the funds available and the ability to spend on current strategic defence programmes. For reasons I do not quite understand, he said that the size of that gap is a secret. Can the Minister be a little more open with us? The real point of my question comes back to what I said last week. The defence industrial plan is a signal of how serious the Government are about putting our money where their mouth is. Last week, the Secretary of State said that the Government were working flat out on it. There are indications that it will not be published until the spring. He will know that, in government, “spring” is an elastic concept. I would not want the Minister to have to work flat out for six months. Can he give the House a bit of an indication as to whether we are talking about something that will be here in the next few weeks, or is it months away? We will draw conclusions from his answer.

More from Lord Harper (Con)

Other recent Hansard contributions by the same speaker.

About Hansard

Hansard is the official verbatim record of proceedings in the UK Parliament. Every word spoken in the Commons and Lords is recorded and published — this page is a single contribution from that record.

Partner sites