Legislation giving the government the powers it needs to respond effectively during escalation towards war is being developed and will be brought forward before the end of this Parliament, to be introduced when parliamentary time allows, according to an answer given in Parliament.
Damien Egan, the Labour member for Bristol North East, asked whether the Secretary of State plans to introduce new legislation on defence readiness and national resilience during the current legislative session.
Luke Pollard, the Minister of State for Defence, said: “The Government has accepted the 2025 Strategic Defence Review recommendation to introduce a Defence Readiness Bill to ensure the Government has the powers it needs to respond effectively during escalation towards war. Prospective legislation is being developed to be brought forward before the end of this Parliament and will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.”
The Strategic Defence Review published in June 2025 recommended the bill as part of its whole-of-society approach, and the powers under discussion cover the things a government would need to do quickly in a crisis: directing industrial production, requisitioning assets, mobilising reserves at scale and moving forces and materiel across the country without the peacetime consents that normally apply. Much of the existing statutory framework dates from the Cold War or earlier.
The timetable runs to the end of this Parliament, which gives the department until the next general election. This publication reported in the summer that the government was targeting the later part of the Parliament for the readiness bill, and today’s answer holds to that position while confirming that drafting work is under way.
Ministers confirmed in separate answers the same day that government messaging on defence and security will continue to build ahead of Exercise ALBISTON SHADOW, a major United Kingdom home defence exercise, and NATO’s Crisis Management Exercise in spring 2027, with the Security Minister and the Minister for the Armed Forces chairing chief executive threat briefings for critical national infrastructure and industry leaders.
A bill of this kind would attract scrutiny from across the House on the balance between emergency powers and ordinary liberties, which is the argument that slowed similar legislation in the past, and parliamentary time grows scarce in the back half of a Parliament. The department has roughly half of this one left to work with.
