Speeches by Reed.

“That is exactly what the hon. Member just said. I will go back in Hansard to check what he just said.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I raised a point about clearances when we first started discussing the Bill, and that is one of the sticking points we need to get right. If people have secured security clearances—enhanced developed vetting—in the military, but then go into an organisation tha…”

“We are now blaming officials. If the original deadline for the DIP was October, and now the argument is that the delay is because so many problems have been identified, were the Ministers’ officials telling them inaccuracies about when it could be published?”

“There is a major inconsistency in this new line of attack. I do not want to fall into the blame game, because we need to look forward and be in a position where we can protect ourselves and our country, but we are essentially now blaming officials. [Interruption.]”

“I declare an interest: I am also a proud holder of a veterans railcard, as are many of my constituents. The new clause is modest in scope. It does not create new schemes. Both HM forces railcards and the veterans railcard are already in place. The purpose of the new clause is simply to give a clear statutory basis to e…”

“I rise to support new clause 16, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford. In the last 10 years working in the defence space—in the civil service, with industry, handing out defence contracts, running a small or medium-sized enterprise that worked with defence, and working for a defence prime…”

“I am not sure that I welcome that intervention. To say that I am aligned with the people who—”

“The hon. Member has a Royal Marines base and a large veteran community in his constituency. This has been an issue, and I want it to be quashed as quickly as possible. If Ministers in the Department for Transport have not been able to confirm it, I really hope that the Minister in this Committee can stand up and say th…”

“Thank you, Mr Efford; I appreciate that. I think new clause 3 is very sensible. I know from personal experience that life in the military is fast. A person may deploy somewhere and get a number of different inoculations, and they do not necessarily think about what they were getting before being deployed. When people c…”

“My hon. Friend has again laid out the argument in an extremely comprehensive way, and it will be difficult to add anything new to the argument that he has put forward, but I will give it a go. Ensuring that a victim is properly informed before being asked to state a preference on whether their case is heard in the serv…”

“We welcome clauses 18 and 19 on summary hearings and deprivation orders with the punishments available to commanding officers. They represent a serious aim and a proportionate update to the summary hearing powers available to commanding officers. Clause 18 would promote greater consistency across the services, by enabl…”

“We have talked a lot about the UK, but can the Minister give some clarity on when those offences happen abroad? Say, for instance, someone was on an overseas base in Cyprus, and the Cypriot police were to be involved. What would happen at that point and how would that affect the equation?”

“These clauses deal with entry for purposes of obtaining evidence, arrest and detention by civil authorities, pre-charge custody, and time limits for charging certain offences. It is right that service police are given clear and effective powers to obtain evidence, as the Minister has laid out clearly, and that such pow…”

“It continues to be a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. Clauses 21 to 24 cover powers to impose post-charge conditions on persons not in service detention. We welcome these clauses as sensible, technical enforcement improvements to the service justice system. They address a number of anomalies and gaps,…”

“I welcome the clause, which seems a sensible and practical strengthening of the duty of commanding officers to report serious offences. The Minister, as a former commanding officer, will have experienced this duty at first hand, so I respect his judgment and expertise on the matter. It is right that responsibility shou…”

“It is difficult to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley—he is a former Army officer, a doctor and a barrister—but I will attempt to add to the debate. This issue is clear: under the present framework, a service court can only impose protective orders—such as a sexual harm prevention order, a s…”

“I will make that intervention now, and then we can carry on that conversation. If there is zero tolerance of drugs, and if the person who has committed a crime knows they will be kicked out—as they should be—it would be good to hear from the Ministry of Defence if there is a loophole in which someone could say, “I will…”

“We want to strengthen the Bill by working with the Government and taking a collaborative approach. Having a shared reality, in any aspect of life, is massively important. Among Opposition Members, there is alignment on the shared reality that we heard about, when we went down to Portsmouth, from the people we empower t…”

“I will add to the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull West and Shirley, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford and the hon. Member for North Devon. The Opposition’s recollections align very closely with those of our Liberal Democrat colleague. Although we did not hear about a system t…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. As we all know, drones and other uncrewed systems are rapidly reshaping modern defence and are already central to surveillance, logistics and frontline operations. Their importance will only grow in the years ahead. For our armed forces, they offer speed, preci…”