Speeches by Twigg.

“Order. A lot of Members wish to speak and I will begin to call the Front Benchers no later than eight minutes past 5, so at the moment we are looking at roughly two minutes for each speech, but it may even be less than that. I will not waste any more time—I call Jim Shannon.”

“What are the shortcomings in the covenants and what particularly has prompted you to want to update the law?”

“Unless I misunderstand you, you are basically saying that we have the covenant, but a lot of people have just ignored it for whatever reason. You are going to make them not ignore it and implement it. Is that what you are saying?”

“You change the law and what if they then do not do it? What sanctions are going to be put in place?”

“If they do not do it to the extent that is intended? That is my question.”

“It needs a whole-government approach and it means a buy-in from the Cabinet down, and that has not happened so far.”

“If the comments from across the Atlantic this week have reminded us of anything, it is that we should always keep at the forefront of our minds the bravery of our service personnel, not least in recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan when serving alongside the US and other allies. I therefore ask my right hon. Friend…”

“Is it a serious problem or a moderate problem?”

“You touched on security clearance earlier. How easy is it to get, and what problems is it causing if it is not easy? Has it got worse?”

“Before I come to the issue of security clearances, you have not really said anything about materials. What is your assessment of the availability of materials that we need to grow this defence industry at the speed required? We already know and it has been reported in the press, but, from your perspective, what is the …”

“Just so that we are clear, we get that there has been a challenge, but how significant is that in terms of being able to grow quickly? What are we talking about—a year, two or three? What does it mean on the ground in practical terms? That is what we are after.”

“It is hampering our efforts to rearm. Is that right?”

“But in terms of what was said about the increase in missiles?”

“He said in the announcement that the significant increase in missiles is going to be a very big challenge for the industry, because you just do not have the people.”

“What are the greatest challenges to the UK defence industry in terms of resilience and security of supply, particularly in relation to materials and people? Has that got worse or better in the last two or three years?”

“I am like the rest of the Committee, in that we are very happy to take on the MoD and deal with its shortcomings. But, if you will forgive me, it seems to be all the MoD’s fault. What is it that you could do better? We have heard about the primes being a bit cumbersome, etc, but what is it that you could be doing bette…”

“I assume that there are other areas where you have challenges on security of supply and resilience.”

“The Prime Minister’s actions this week demonstrated again why UK leadership in defence and security and on Ukraine is crucial. I also agree with him that it is important to strengthen our relationship with the United States. In the coming months, will he consider whether we should be proposing to hit 3% spending before…”

“Order. As time is tight, I remind Members to keep interventions succinct.”

“Order. A lot of Members want to speak, so I will have to impose a time limit. I will first call Iain Duncan Smith, and then could Members bob for a few seconds longer than they would normally so that we can get everybody’s name on the list?”