Speeches by Williams.

“I will pick that up. For me, it is a question both of the level of capital investment and of providing a degree of confidence and certainty about that enduring over time as a pipeline. Although we have allocated additional capital investment to the accommodation aspects of the estate over the last two years, it is shor…”

“I am not sure I have a plan to reveal, but we can certainly set out the facts and figures.”

“If we take last autumn as a baseline, which would be around 59,000, and if we look to get down to 2019 levels, that would be a reduction of around 10%. In order to create the headroom for permanent recruitment where currently we rely on professional services, or to create headroom for civilianisation, we need to take s…”

“Yes, leaner in a number of ways. There is a range of processes and bureaucracy that we need to reduce and streamline to make sure that we are making more effective decisions more quickly and then delivering against them. That kind of streamlining, simplicity and clear accountability is at the heart of the defence refor…”

“That is the intent. If you leave, go out and gain different, additional skills and then look to come back, we should reflect that in the roles and responsibilities and the rank that you get when you come back in.”

“Mr Roome, you will appreciate that we did not get to formally publish a Government response to the Haythornthwaite review before the election was called, but work within the Department to take forward its recommendations has focused, in the first instance, on the engineering cohort. As the Secretary of State said, one …”

“We have shifted over 165,000 tonnes of earth to dig trenches for Interflex, which is not a bad start, but I take the point.”

“We have talked quite a bit in this hearing about recruitment and retention. To get to the heart of your question, one of the other important metrics we track is whether personnel are medically fit to deploy. This autumn, the number of regulars classed as medically fit to deploy is at around the 100,000 mark. That does …”

“Let us imagine not.”

“Holding risk? Well, generally speaking, the Department is better for parliamentary scrutiny, but that needs to be within appropriate parameters. As the Secretary of State has said, we will come back and look at that particular question once the inquiry into Afghan events has concluded. In the end, that will be a politi…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on securing this important debate. Food bank use is on the rise across my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove. Local food banks and food pantries include the Kid…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on securing this important debate. Barriers to learning and skills development affect not only children and young people in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgr…”

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am really pleased to follow the excellent maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell), and I look forward to many more such speeches as the afternoon goes on. It is an absolute honour to represent Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove, an area…”

“My hon. Friend talked about driving instructors, and there is also a significant backlog in the driving tests required to qualify as a driving instructor. Does he agree that it is important that we look to address that backlog as well?”

“I extend my birthday wishes to the Leader of the House. One of my Stoke-on-Trent North and Kidsgrove constituents recently told me about the difficulty they were having in securing a test to qualify as a driving instructor. We have a dire need for more driving instructors to tackle the backlog of those waiting for test…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Will he join me in recognising the excellent work done by organisations across our area to help young people access higher education? For example, my former employer, the YMCA, received the Queen’s award for promoting opportunity for the work it does with the U…”

“On that point, will my hon. Friend give way?”

“Over the recess, I met the Hubb Foundation in Stoke-on-Trent, which has delivered yet another fantastic holiday activities and food programme over the summer. I have seen the impact of its work at first hand over many years, and it was a bittersweet moment when it handed out its 1 millionth meal a couple of weeks ago. …”