Lord Coaker (Lab)

That is a really important question; I apologise if I have not mentioned undersea cables, because there is an important need and requirement for us as a country to protect them and the critical national infrastructure that flows under the sea. If the noble Lord has not had a chance yet, I suggest that he reads the First Sea Lord’s speech this morning at the International Sea Power Conference, where he talked about Atlantic Bastion, which seeks to deal with many of the points that the noble Lord has quite rightly just raised. These are new undersea technology vessels, for want of a better word, that can operate through the use of artificial intelligence and, as a result of that artificial intelligence, military personnel can make decisions about what they should do. They can stay under water for a considerable period of time and they liaise not only with ships but with aircraft and indeed submarines. That is the sort of thing that I was talking about in the earlier Question about the new warfare and new threats that we face, and the new equipment that we will need to deal with those threats. So, having these uncrewed vessels, alongside our submarines, our ships and our aircraft, as outlined in Atlantic Bastion earlier today, is certainly the way forward, and I hope that that reassures the noble Lord with respect to that threat that we face.