Speeches by Thomas.

“My hon. Friend speaks passionately about Estonia. Britain has troops deployed in Estonia providing a tripwire, as he well knows, having no doubt spent some time with them recently. Will he join me in encouraging the Government to make every effort to arm and equip those troops with the capabilities necessary simply to …”

“I speak to parents in Plymouth on this topic regularly. Ninety-two per cent of parents are concerned about the impact of social media, but many just do not have time to take part in a lengthy consultation. I also note concerns raised about the framing of some of the questions in the consultation, including prompts to c…”

“4. What steps her Department has taken to help ensure that parents and children are able to engage with the consultation entitled “Growing up in the online world: a national consultation.””

“As you said, it has only been quite recent—the last few weeks. Who made the decision to stop providing the assistance that we were providing and to rely on this self-move model?”

“So that individual did not do anything wrong; it is the system’s fault.”

“I am sorry, but on the record keeping, it is clear from the court documents revealed a year ago that, very quickly upon investigation of those applications that were turned down, many of them—I have asked you how many, but we know it is many of them—were found to be valid applications, so I challenge the idea that this…”

“Minister, you spoke about people having some success with self-moves. There are some people in-country who have been deemed to have the right to come to the UK, but it would appear from a distance that they are not able to do a self-move, for whatever reason. What is the advice to those people? What do you think they s…”

“But do you accept that, for whatever reason, there are some people for whom the physical risk might be too great for them to move around the country to get to Pakistan or whatever it is? Do you accept that some people will be slightly stranded by that, or do you think that everyone will be able to get out?”

“Minister, since you assumed office in July 2024, the Government line has changed several times on the situation regarding the Triples. We have had a correction to a PQ that the MOD acknowledged was wrong, and the High Court has acknowledged that UKSF did have veto rights over applications. The current Government line, …”

“Minister, we know, because the MOD had to reveal documents in a judicial review in May 2025, that the MOD conducted at least two internal investigations into the process by which UK special forces officers or liaison officers were involved in approving or turning down applications from people who said that they were Tr…”

“I thought the MOD had now accepted on record that UKSF did have veto rights over applications, but you are saying that maybe they didn’t.”

“When you say “the system”, do you specifically mean the fact that UK special forces had a veto right over applications?”

“Do you agree with that?”

“In Plymouth I represent very many veterans, lots of whom served in Northern Ireland, and I reflect on the fact that the state asked our people to do incredibly difficult things, at enormous personal risk and sacrifice, in a very particular context and with a particular political direction that they were deciphering at …”

“I join colleagues across the House in strongly condemning the ongoing campaign of attacks and intimidation against our British communities, and I thank the Minister for his leadership on those and other security matters. He said that he has initiated a review of the national threat level system, which currently capture…”

“Am I right in thinking that there are islands in the High North that, technically, belong to Norway? I might be wrong so I want to clarify this. They are basically uninhabited. There are other islands in the Baltic sea and so on, but there are islands in the High North that, theoretically, Russia could test our resolve…”

“I want to pick up on a couple of points you made, and dig into something we are really interested in talking about. If there is to be further action from Russia beyond its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where is that most likely to be? There are various points across the NATO border with Russia where that could happen…”

“Do you want to come in as well, Professor Blagden?”

“Thanks for those answers. Professor Zysk, we are quite au fait with what is going on in the UK military. Perhaps you will be able to comment on what is happening in the Russian military as regards uncrewed systems, particularly in the Russian navy.”

“On both.”