Lords International Relations and Defence Committee to publish report on UK’s defence policy

The cross-party House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee chaired by Baroness Anelay of St Johns will publish its report on Thursday 12 January. 

The Committee’s wide-ranging inquiry into UK defence policy focused particularly on how the aspirations outlined in the Integrated Review and the Defence Command paper would be translated into reality in the current dramatically altered conflict and economic environments since the Government published both documents in March 2021.

The report also makes several recommendations and urges the Government to adopt them when it conducts an update to both documents (currently scheduled for early this year) and explores other issues including;

• The impact and emerging lessons from the war in Ukraine;
• The UK’s allies - NATO, the United States etc and adversaries including the threat posed by Russia and China as a “systemic competitor”;
• Current defence capabilities across the armed forces;
• The role of new and emerging technologies; and
• Defence enterprise including structural reform of the Ministry of Defence.