- Lords committee says UK-Poland defence treaty lacks “substance” and detail
- Warns it’s unclear how the UK will fund the treaty amid defence budget uncertainty
- The UK military is in crisis, with an army that cannot train and a navy that cannot deploy
The influential House of Lords’ International Agreements Committee has stated that ongoing uncertainty over the UK’s defence spending plans makes it “unclear” how the UK will fund its commitments under a recent treaty with Poland.
Signed in May 2026, the UK-Poland Defence and Security Partnership was described by the then UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “the biggest step forward in our defence and security relationship with Poland in a generation”.
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The subsequent ouster of Starmer by his successor Andy Burnham in July has done nothing to assuage concerns that the UK’s defence spending is in a parlous state, despite claimed budget increases.
Speaking prior to the fiscal settlement of the Defence Investment Plan, senior UK defence leaders raised their own concerns over the consequences to the country’s military should funding not be sufficient, among them the ability for existing personnel to train and deploy.
The Committee’s decision to go public with its concerns coincides with a visit to Poland by UK Minister for Defence Readiness Luke Pollard, who was attending the opening of a new facility for missile manufacturer MBDA at Czosnów.
Ironically, Pollard is currently overseeing a catastrophic collapse in UK military readiness, amid personnel shortages and ageing equipment urgently in need of replacement.
It was also recently revealed the British Army has been asked to suspend military training, amid a funding crisis.
The Royal Navy is down to just five active frigates and has not deployed a nuclear-powered attack submarine to sea for months. The service’s last two publicly known tests of the Trident nuclear deterrent have also failed.
Committee concerned over UK defence spending
In its 9 September report, the Lords’ Committee said it was “concerned about how the Treaty’s commitments on security and defence will be funded in light of the UK’s defence spending plans”.
It added that questions over defence funding may “not only undermine the UK’s reputation as a key partner in security and defence at a time of geopolitical uncertainty but also limit the UK’s ability to respond to increasing challenges from hybrid threats”.
The Committee report added that the Treaty is “largely expressed in high-level and general terms”, and lacks “substance and detail” to support its provisions.
It has also questioned whether the Treaty’s provisions on mutual defence create any significant commitments beyond those the UK and Poland have already signed up to as Nato members.
“We are concerned… about how this Treaty’s commitments on security and defence will be funded in light of the UK’s defence spending plans,” said Lord Johnson, Chair of the House of Lords International Agreements Committee.
Increasingly, it appears that the UK-Poland treaty could well be an exercise in public relations, as London finds itself unable or unwilling to reform defence spending and effectively equip the British military for combat operations, across all domains.
The two countries are also at increasingly opposite ends of Nato’s defence funding ladder, when determining expenditure as a proportion of GDP. The UK continues to drop down the rankings, while Poland is among the Alliance’s most strident members.
The latest Nato figures show that UK core defence expenditure as a share of GDP was estimated at 2.56% in 2026. Conversely, Poland was fourth in the Nato rankings, estimated at reaching 4.68% of GDP on defence, behind only the three Baltic states.
Indeed, it could be worse still, with the UK figures also incorporating the Single Intelligence Account, funding committed to the intelligence agencies including GCHQ and Mi5, previously assigned to the Home Office.
