The Bishop of Leicester asked a question on the need to protect citizens from internal as well as external threats during a discussion on defence funding on 17th September 2026:
The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, the best causally identified route of the rise of populist parties and extremist groups in this country is poverty, alongside deindustrialisation, austerity and perceived community decline. Does the Minister agree that the duty of a Government to protect their citizens includes protecting them from internal threats as well as external ones?
Lord Pitt-Watson (Lab, Treasury): I think I have made the Government’s position on that reasonably clear. Let us just look at the proposal we have, for example on housing benefit, from the party opposite to take £4 billion off the budget, which is something like £13.5 billion or £14 billion. Have we thought about how many people that would make homeless? Have we thought about how many of them would then turn up, of course with the right to be housed if they have children? Noble Lords can hear where I am coming from.
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