Speeches by Norman.

“The Leader of the House may not have been in his place, but I suggested that it might be possible to have two debates—a digestive debate and then a debate with a decision. Even if one of those is a Backbench debate, would that be something that he would support?”

“And he is from Northern Ireland to boot. He is an honest man facing his demons and triumphing. What a contrast with the Prime Minister’s failure to answer, or even to engage with, the question at Prime Minister’s questions. The last four Prime Minister’s questions have focused on the Iran war, fuel duty, North sea oil …”

“Are there interventions that you have tried that have not worked?”

“You are a learning organisation. You are going to try some stuff. It might work; it might not.”

“Thank you. Sam, do you want to comment?”

“I notice that you do not mention the Treasury, but thank you for that. The question I want to focus on in relation to the inquiry is about the interventions that make a difference in retaining and developing female members of the Armed Forces. General Walker, can you talk a bit about what interventions have worked in i…”

“Is it the units with critical mass that then spread the word?”

“I think I have a minute left. Harv, you have been raising your hand, did you want to say something quickly on this?”

“This is an incredibly important topic, but we could be criticised as a Committee if we did not ask at least one of the service chiefs whether they agreed with Lord Robertson. Can I ask you, General Jenkins, whether you think he was right to say that there is a “corrosive complacency” at the top of the defence establish…”

“That is something you have seen in your previous experience. Can you give us an example of where that worked out well for you or did not work out well and caused you to think about it?”

“You will understand that we are sensitive on this because the Government have taken measures to restrict the power of the defence chiefs to speak publicly, and they have also briefed privately against the Chief of the Defence Staff. We are sensitive to issues about freedom of speech being appropriately exercised within…”

“Of course, it would be open to you to make a private recommendation in relation to a particular role that did not necessarily become explicit in the report.”

“You wouldn’t be frit about it.”

“You would name their jobs; you would not necessarily name the individual.”

“Thank you for that. A mischievous suggestion on my part is that the Secretary of State really has no choice, so you can set your terms now before you finally accept the appointment when it is offered to you. If there is anything that comes out of this hearing or if you have any further thoughts, I think he will have to…”

“Thank you very much.”

“It is also about the process, so they can improve the process going forward.”

“You will be protecting those sharp edges when the civil servants try to knock them off.”

“But it is also about naming things and assembling evidence where everyone knows what the problem is, but no one has quite got to the point of being able to state it authoritatively.”

“So if you were going to do some work, for example, on issues affecting service families as well as service personnel, you would regard yourself as bound by internal concerns of integrity, as well as the formal role, to pursue that to the best of your ability, almost as a matter of justice for the families.”