Speeches by Ballinger.

“At that point, might we recognise Palestine as a statement, rather than as a process towards a two-state solution?”

“Continuing on Palestine recognition, everything we saw from our visit to Israel, in the rhetoric from the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee and when we spoke to the Deputy Foreign Minister, was about the two-state solution being completely off the table. Many of them were actively talking abo…”

“Will peace-building efforts be protected as we are approaching the UK’s cuts to the aid budget?”

“We have heard that Israeli public opinion is very difficult at the moment, as is, of course, Palestinian public opinion. You spoke a bit about your time in Northern Ireland. You will remember then that there was a big investment in peace-building by the Americans in the run-up to the Good Friday agreement. We met lots …”

“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate as the son of a local bobby—my mum worked for 20 years in the local police, serving her community, and I could not be more proud of her. My father, too, was a local bobby, as was his father before him, so my family have something of a reputation. I am, of course, delighted to se…”

“My hon. Friend and neighbour from the west midlands talks about there being 540 fewer officers in our area between 2010 and 2024, and I was also concerned to see that the highest level of knife crime in the country was reached in our part of the west midlands. Does she agree that since the Labour party has been elected…”

“Will the right hon. Lady give way?”

“My hon. Friend mentioned satellites. Does he recognise the massive benefits that satellites bring to the UK—everything from contactless transactions to supporting our defence and national security?”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“Does my hon. Friend recognise that the Ministry of Defence is a massive investor in the space sector, having invested £6.5 billion over the last decade? Does he welcome that investment as we are strengthening European security?”

“I share my hon. Friend’s concern about the addictive nature of social media. Is she also concerned about the addictive nature of gambling-type games that we see young children use, with loot boxes and microtransactions? Young people are being encouraged to get into a gambling mindset through technology.”

“I welcome the UK’s industrial strategy, particularly the defence industrial strategy. Many businesses in Halesowen, such as Somers Forge, work in the UK defence sector—primarily the Navy—given our engineering expertise in a heavily industrial part of the country, but there are opportunities for lots of businesses acros…”

“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) on introducing this important debate. The two-word change might be the most consequential change ever made in Parliament. I am pleased to support the Bill. Today marks the commencement of British Science Week, a celebration of science, technology, e…”

“Twenty years ago, I joined the Royal Marines. Roughly a year later, I was deployed to Afghanistan. I remember the challenges we faced: daily attacks from rockets and mortars and daily threats of improvised explosive devices, and the massive underfunding and disappointments with the Ministry of Defence’s procurement sys…”

“Absolutely. I think that those of us who have served would recognise that development and defence are completely complementary. When we reduce our development spending, our defence spending needs to go up. After leaving the Royal Marines, colleagues and I worked with civil society in Syria, helping to keep hopes of a d…”

“Last week, I was in the west bank, alongside other members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, on our wider trip to the middle east. While the world’s attention is rightly on the devastating humanitarian situation in Gaza, we met Palestinians in the Jordan valley whose schools were being attacked, whose mosques were bein…”

“Can the Minister confirm that her Department’s work is entirely consistent with the Government’s approach to China: co-operate where we can, compete where we need to and challenge where we must?”

“Finally, when we were in France, we heard about their work with Telegram. Obviously, the CEO was arrested after Telegram did not co-operate with the French authorities. We met the Brazilian ambassador and spoke a little bit about how they suspended Twitter, when it was not complying with disinformation requests from th…”

“Gosh—okay.”

“Thank you. I am glad that you mentioned young people because we were talking earlier about elections, and we were speaking to people from Romania about the cancelled elections a few months ago. They certainly believe that there was large-scale Russian interference through TikTok. Professor Tolz, could you say something…”