Defence, security, Russia and China are on the agenda in the latest Lord Speaker’s Corner. Former Nato Secretary General, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, and former First Sea Lord, Lord West of Spithead, speak to Lord McFall of Alcluith.

In this episode, Lord Robertson, who was also Defence Secretary from 1997 to 1999, warns that the UK is “under-prepared and under attack”. He also discusses Russian-organised sabotage in Europe, explaining “They can’t do it themselves. So they are now contracting out, a good capitalist principle, to organised crime. Our undersea cables, which carry 99% of all the data we use, are vulnerable and they're watching them and, in some cases, attacking them.”

Lord West, the UK’s first Security Minister from 2007 to 2010, reflects on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “It’s quite difficult to see how one’s going to get out of this [conflict] because one doesn’t want a full war between Nato and Russia. They [Russia] would lose it. And the danger with them losing it is – would they then make that stupid mistake of going nuclear?” 

Both also share their thoughts and experience of dealing with China. Lord West discusses his experience commanding a battle group as he dealt with a challenging Chinese navy during the handover of Hong Kong: “out at sea it was very different from the pictures coming from Hong Kong. The Chinese Navy were trying to ram our ships. They were opening missile doors.”

Lord Robertson suggests a careful approach, saying “We've got to engage with China, but recognise that it is going to be the future challenge - militarily, commercially and diplomatically - and therefore be very, very cautious about what we do... I think it's probably better to call the Chinese a problem rather than a threat at the present moment.”

Lord West also discusses his experience in the nuclear chain of command on 9/11, sharing “I remember getting a phone call from our nuclear firing cell, the guys who finally - when all the codes go - press the buttons, and they said, unbelievably, on my red phone [linking to the UK deterrent]: ‘Sir... the Americans are starting to move to immediate readiness for nuclear weapon release in all three systems.’ That’s strategic air, intercontinental ballistic missiles and subsurface ...’What do you want me to do?’”

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Former head of MI5 Baroness Manningham-Buller joins Lord Speaker’s Corner to discuss the relationship between MI5 and MI6, reading upside down, meeting Vladimir Putin and whether Russia is at war with the West.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, Baroness Manningham-Buller, served in MI5 for 34 years, becoming Director General in 2002 before retiring in 2007. She spoke to Lord McFall of Alcluith on 22 July 2025 about her career, including how she joined MI5, her family connection with espionage and leading the Service in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings:

“I had learnt something from the military called ‘battle rhythm’, and I expected us to be flat out for some time on this, our role being to help the police in understanding this crime, this atrocity, this horror, and therefore I wanted people to come into work fresh.”

She also dispels a common misconception of the relationship between MI5 and MI6:

“The ‘Le Carré' view that the two organisations are constantly at each other's throats is entirely fictional. We both help each other, as we do with GCHQ. It's a close-knit community. The other very important partner for MI5 is the police.”

Baroness Manningham-Buller later explains she thinks it might be right to agree with foreign policy expert Dr Fiona Hill’s assertion that Russia is already at war with the UK and the West:

“Since the invasion of Ukraine, and the various things I read that the Russians have been doing here, sabotage, intelligence collection, attacking people, and so on… Fiona Hill may be right in saying we're already at war with Russia. It's a different sort of war, but the hostility, the cyber-attacks, the physical attacks, intelligence work is extensive.”

She also shares her experience of meeting the Russian President 20 years ago following the G8 meeting in Gleneagles:

“We all hoped that the past history of Russia wouldn't prevail, and, at the end of the Soviet Union, we would have a potential partner, and that was one of the reasons why Putin was with us for the G8 in 2005… I met him when he came back to London. But actually we were wrong in that, because Russia is extremely hostile to the West and we've seen it in all sorts of ways… I didn't anticipate that within a year, he'd be ordering the murder on London streets of [Russian dissident Alexander] Litvinenko.”

Listen to the full episode to find out more.

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Entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner as she sounds the alarm over the deepening gender divide in tech.

Martha Lane Fox is Chancellor of The Open University, and President of the British Chambers of Commerce. In 1998 she co-founded Europe’s largest travel and leisure website, lastminute.com. From 2009-2013, she helped create the Government Digital Service and, in 2013, she joined the House of Lords as a Crossbench member.

Baroness Lane-Fox is a long-time advocate for women in technology, telling the Lord Speaker she had “seen no change in the relationship between the sector and women, or in numbers of women” in over 30 years. 

She also gives a stark warning about entrenched sexism in the global tech sector, recounting how a CEO of a large company told her directly “We’re done with women” at a prominent US business event earlier this year.

Baroness Lane-Fox discusses the challenges of investment in the UK, explaining “we have a default in this country … (of) seeing the barriers to things as opposed to the opportunities.”

She also shares her opinion that the UK has an issue with scaling businesses, stating “We have the top three universities out of the top 10 in the world. We have amazing scientists, we have incredible inventors. But what we have is a stunning scaling gap, and experience gap … Only 10% of UK businesses even trade internationally. We are not very good at becoming big global businesses. So we need to keep having a push at the risk culture.”

Finally, Baroness Lane-Fox shares her take on regulating tech, smartphones for young people and even what her go-to karaoke song is. Find out more by watching or listening now.

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/ 

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‘War and conflict is not something that is not familiar to me. It is not an essay title, it is not a theoretical exercise. It's very real.’ 

Campaigner Baroness Helic is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner as she warns that society has become numb to sexual violence in war. 

Arminka Helic, Baroness Helic, campaigns to raise global awareness of rape as a war crime. Here she shares her extraordinary journey from fleeing the Bosnian war as a refugee to becoming special adviser to the then Foreign Secretary William Hague (now Lord Hague of Richmond) via a researcher job in the House of Commons library.  

‘It’s a weapon that is part of ethnic cleansing and genocide… Survivors are stigmatised. Perpetrators are not. That’s what we have to flip. Some of the victims are as young as two months old. And the world does nothing. We have become globally desensitised.’ 

While working for Lord Hague, she persuaded him to join forces with Angelina Jolie to highlight the proliferation of warzone sexual violence. The Hollywood actor and then UNHCR Special Envoy and actor had written, produced and directed a harrowing 2011 film ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’, which underscored the pervasive nature of sexual violence in war.   

Following this, the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) was created, which has continued across multiple governments and is now supported by Labour minister and special envoy Lord Collins of Highbury.  

‘I heard reports of some of my friends from school being detained in what became known as rape camps. We need to understand that war is not just about armies - it’s about lives torn apart. Peace agreements don’t end trauma.’ 

In this episode, Baroness Helic warns that rising global conflict, weakened international institutions, and public desensitisation have dulled reactions to atrocities that once would have mobilised urgent action. She also discusses Israel/Gaza, and raises concerns about Russian influence in the Balkans, describing the region as a potential ‘second front’ of destabilisation through proxy actors.  

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/  

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‘The demand for journalism is unprecedented in the whole of human history. But what's got much harder is to work out what the best media for it is, and where the money lies and where the future lies.’

Former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Lord Moore of Etchingham, is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner.

Charles Moore, now Lord Moore of Etchingham, also previously edited the Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph and is the authorised biographer of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

‘For the Conservative Party, Thatcher is the ‘big one’, as Churchill was and still is. It’s been very difficult for women leaders - of whom there have now been three in the Conservative Party. Should you be like Mrs Thatcher or not like Mrs Thatcher, as a woman leader?’

In this episode, Lord Moore talks to the Lord Speaker about Britain’s first female Prime Minister, his career and journalism today. He also reflects on changes in the style of government and former Prime Ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson.

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‘The US is just so obsessed about being big, it doesn't understand that by others becoming bigger, the US can become wealthier.’

Jim O’Neill, Lord O’Neill of Gatley, is an ex-Treasury Minister, former Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs and Crossbench member of the House of Lords.

In this latest episode of Lord Speaker’s Corner, Lord O’Neill shares his perspectives with Lord McFall of Alcluith on a range of topics, from China and the USA to AI, the risks of rising antimicrobial resistance and why Manchester should be prioritised as Britain’s second city.

At Goldman Sachs, Lord O’Neill coined the term BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) to describe the group of emerging economies. In this episode he shares his thoughts on how that has progressed, as well as President Donald Trump’s current tariffs approach by the US. He explains ‘the path which Trump seems to have embarked on, of aggressive confrontation, is not likely to be sustained because it is in America's interests for China to continue to do well economically.’

He also shares his thoughts on the current approach to AI, warning against letting tech sectors self-regulate: ‘this idea that just let the financial sector regulate itself and there'd be no problem…that didn't turn out too well, did it? And there's a lot of these AI guys wanting to do the same.’

Lord O’Neill also calls for greater devolution, with powers for regions to raise local taxes, suggesting ‘people here (in Westminster) need to have excitement about giving responsibility to local people in these places to make a national difference.’ He also calls for devolution on welfare-spending with health-linked budgets for local authorities: ‘There's a serious case for exploring devolving aspects of the welfare support budget as it links to critical health illness’

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Jenny Jones, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, speaks about why she is campaigning on topics including salmon farming and water company pollution in the latest episode of Lord Speaker’s Corner.

‘We’ve seen water companies polluting our waterways, our beaches, our lovely fishing streams… our chalk streams that are very rare and precious. And yet, we still can’t stop them doing it.’

Baroness Jones is one of two Green members of the House of Lords alongside Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle. In this episode, she speaks to Lord McFall of Alcluith about why she campaigns on a range of topics.

‘People carry on eating salmon, even though the way they’re produced in salmon farms is absolutely horrifying. It is the lice. The fish in the farm suffer, quite often die in their pens because the lice have eaten so far into their flesh. Wild Atlantic salmon going past these fish farms can get poisoned by the toxic stuff, all the antibiotics and so on, coming off the farm fish.’

Baroness Jones describes how members initially questioned the Green link to various issues when she first joined the Lords but how that has now changed. She explains ‘I had to explain to people everything is about the environment. If you build the wrong houses in the wrong place, then it's a disaster for future flooding, and so on.’

Baroness Jones also shares how she came to the Lords after training as an archaeologist and later serving as a London Assembly Member and Deputy Mayor.

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/ 

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Former leader of the Labour party Neil Kinnock, Lord Kinnock, is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner.

‘I guess that's what gave me my politics basically. The idea that many people working together could produce and provide at the level of quality that would've been absolutely impossible for the individual or the family.’

Lord Kinnock speaks about growing up in south Wales and what drew him to politics, his early years as an MP and the Labour party of the late 80s and early 90s. He also speaks about his regrets from his time as leader, plus how politics and public discourse has changed today:

‘I don't want deference. Deference is not part of my makeup and I don't want anybody else to show it. But respect, accommodation, compassion, those instincts are fundamental to human beings, and they're too often being discarded or suppressed.’

Lord Kinnock also explains that he wished he had challenged the President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Arthur Scargill, more forcefully about the need to ballot its members: 

'I told Scargill at the beginning of April 1984 that without a ballot, the strike would not succeed. And I said it publicly, I just wish that I'd said it more publicly (even), and repeatedly over the subsequent months as a way of simply telling the truth to men and their families who were showing superhuman loyalty to the cause and whose loyalty was being abused by someone who had a very peculiar, very odd interpretation of what he thought of as his socialist mission, which was misplaced and misleading and assisted in tragedy. I've said before that Scargill and Thatcher deserved each other. Nobody else did.'

The former Labour leader also gives a rare insight into private discussions between himself and Shadow Chancellor John Smith in preparation for the 1992 general election. Watch or listen to the full episode to find out more.

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Former top diplomat Simon McDonald, Lord McDonald of Salford, is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner.

Lord McDonald shares his views on a range of current international issues from President Trump and Greenland to the Chagos Islands and British soft power, plus changes to the global approach of the USA, China and Russia:

‘For most of my career, the reasons why the institutions of the late 1940s were fraying were because Russia and then China were not particularly happy with that post Second World War settlement. The surprise in recent years is the United States being a revisionist power, not liking the bill paid by the United States to underpin that settlement.’

Lord McDonald was previously Head of the Diplomatic Service, the most senior civil servant in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has served as Ambassador to Israel and to Germany. In this episode, he speaks to Lord McFall about what drew him to public service both in the Foreign Office and the House of Lords:

‘I think British public service is part of what defines our country and helps us through crisis. And I think it is a fact that in this House there are a group of people who are here to help, to help other people, not to help themselves. They are here to bring their expertise to bear. They're here to listen to other people. They are here to gather evidence before they make up their minds. And I think those are solid attributes of public service.’

Lord McDonald also talks about the role of the Civil Service and ministers, plus the challenges of planning for successive governments:

‘One reason why our projects across the board are worse than, say, similar projects in Japan or China or even France, is our planning regime, that every single road, bridge, railway has to go through a very protracted planning legal procedure. Every government I've worked for identified our planning laws as an obstacle, and every government so far has failed really to grip it. I note that the new Labour government is gearing up to attempt. I hope they succeed. But I note that every previous effort has failed.’

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/ 

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From politics to comedy to campaigning against anti-social behaviour, broadcaster Ayesha Hazarika is the latest guest on Lord Speaker’s Corner.

Baroness Hazarika grew up in Coatbridge, Scotland and is the first person of Indian Assamese heritage to join the House of Lords. She rose to become a senior adviser to Labour figures including Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband, playing a crucial role preparing them for PMQs:

‘I think Prime Minister's Questions gets a very bad rap, because it does often become quite Punch and Judy, but I think it's a really important function of our democracy. There are not many democracies around the world where the principal politician in the land is called to the same spot week in, week out, and faces questions on any topic from any Member of Parliament across the country.’

In this episode, Baroness Hazarika talks about her unlikely career path from politics to stand-up comedy and broadcasting, and back to politics. She also explains to Lord McFall how she will use her new political platform to campaign against anti-social behaviour and crime:

‘I don't like calling this low-level crime, because I don't think it's low-level crime. But I think this stuff is not easy, but the more we talk about it and the more we press government ministers, that puts the pressure on them to keep on keeping this a priority.’

Finally, Baroness Hazarika tells Lord McFall about receiving the phone call to offer her a place in the Lords, explaining ‘I really couldn't believe it, because if you're somebody like me from my background and you've loved politics your whole life, it's a real honour to be asked to join the House of Lords for the party that you have served and the party you love.’

She shares that this wasn’t the first thought that went through her head though, saying ‘The person said, “I'm calling on behalf of Keir Starmer. This is really serious. Are you by yourself? I think you better sit down.” And the first thing I thought was, "Oh my goodness, what have I been saying on my social media? Am I about to get cancelled, or am I about to get suspended from the Labour Party? Have I said something terrible?’

See more from the series https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/house-of-lords-podcast/ 

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