Speeches by Thomas.

“Yes, I am familiar. Mr Stringer, Russia is continuing to, sometimes quite subtly and sometimes very overtly, seek to influence democracies and political events in a range of countries, including our own and some much nearer Russian borders. Recently, in September, we have had the head of the CIA and our own Secret Inte…”

“That is really helpful, thank you. I will just add that we call our nuclear deterrent the continuous at-sea deterrent and we have other forms of deterrence.”

“Dr Lewis, I am very grateful for that response and I am sure you are right with what you say. I am trying to ask what the next things are that Russia might do to cause consternation in the west about continuing or increasing support to Ukraine, not what it has done already. What are the next things it may do, according…”

“Dr Lewis, you brought us on there to talking about this idea of activity sub-threshold and the deterrence balance. I would like to discuss Russia and Russia’s potential future activity. Clearly, Ukraine’s incredible resistance has been enabled and supported by western support and there is a complicated matrix and calcu…”

“Who do you think should be on the inquiry, Air Marshal?”

“The context is that we are an island nation. We are part of the Joint Expeditionary Force. There is, of course, a sea channel from here to Russia, and we need to think about the future. What would be absolutely catastrophic and unforgivable is if, in five, 10, 15 or however many years’ time, we are dealing with a diffe…”

“For full disclosure, I am an MP for Plymouth. Air Marshal, I wanted to come back to what we were talking earlier about making sure the UK can learn lessons and produce the technology that is having an effect on the battlefield and has had the effect on the battlefield in the past two years. It is open source that marin…”

“Lastly, having been Defence Secretary, taken a further career and now here you are doing a review outside of the Government, do you think we in the UK are positioned well to innovate quickly enough to keep pace with what is happening in modern warfare in Ukraine?”

“I hope so. To follow up on that, some defence commentators say that the types of organisation that are able to learn very quickly and iterate capabilities that are having effect successfully in Ukraine at the moment tend to be smaller or medium-sized businesses. You will have had hundreds or thousands of submissions fr…”

“Lord Robertson, we hope that this SDR will leave this country in a better place in decades to come and better equipped. There is a war going on in Ukraine, and we hope that at some point the forces of democracy will force out Putin. What will be left then is a large amount of learning about modern warfare. At the momen…”

“It can feel, with Russian submarines recceing our waters, with North Korean troops fighting for Russia and with Iranian drones causing the death of Ukrainians, that Russia wants a bigger war. We must deter it. That is why we must absolutely drive a victory for Ukraine—a total victory. Does the Minister agree with me an…”

“Is the skills crisis that you allude to, General, to do with tech and the ability to move forward? Or is it to do with more traditional skills, such as building things made of steel?”

“Lord Robertson, you said just then that you are looking at every aspect of defence. Yesterday we had a statement of intent around the defence industrial strategy, which is from the MOD rather than from you. Can I ask about skills? As part of every aspect of defence, are you finding that we have a severe shortage of ski…”

“In the interest of full discretion, I represent Plymouth, which would be a potential place for a centre for marine autonomy development. The reason why I ask is that we need to innovate quicker. In the SDR, are you going to recommend how we do that practically, as opposed to just strategically saying that we need to in…”

“No, I have no link to it whatsoever.”

“I want to go back to the question about the overall strategy and what we can expect to see from the SDR. Will you be getting into as much detail as to recommend particular centres of excellence or clusters, for example around marine autonomy?”

“Mr Williams, you are the permanent secretary. You have previously been a director general in different Departments. You have held a lot of risk. From your understanding of Whitehall, and having seen other Departments being scrutinised in Parliament, do you consider that the MOD is holding risk by not allowing UKSF to b…”

“Thank you. To continue on the theme of parliamentary scrutiny, we are able to ask you an array of questions, some of which you cannot give us the answers to here because they are at a high classification. We understand that. The parliamentary establishments of Five Eyes friends of ours are able to ask about their respe…”

“Secretary of State, you are a champion of parliamentary scrutiny, but last year the MOD did not publish—or partially published—an equipment plan, which should give insight into £300 billion of spending over the next decade. Are you able to commit to saying that the MOD will publish that this year and every year that yo…”

“Okay.”