Speeches by Norman.

“I agree.”

“Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?”

“On behalf of all Members, I thank the Leader of the House for giving us those recess dates, which will be widely welcomed. Today is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the greatest of all United States Presidents, so perhaps this is a fitting moment to talk a little bit about public service. I congratulate the Cha…”

“But they are going to go through the Danish straits, which are shallow, contested and controlled water.”

“First a comment: it is odd that the European nations do not understand their strategic dependence on pipelines coming into the UK—that seems to be a surprising aspect of what you have said, Professor Roberts—and data. My question is about the Baltic. I take it that the Baltic is now effectively closed—or semi-closed—to…”

“Something goes off.”

“Thank you very much indeed.”

“Brett, do you have anything more you want to add on that from a technology standpoint?”

“The sea has, but I am thinking particularly of the seabed.”

“There is a whole raft of things coming out of that. There is a series of asymmetries that you have already touched on, but let’s talk about the asymmetry in industrial manufacturing and automation. How will that and AI start to change the nature? It seems to me that they potentially turn the seabed into a battlefield i…”

“Our overseas territories essentially give us a global footprint that we will be under enormous moral obligation to defend.”

“Quite. That answers the question I was going to ask, but let’s go a little bit further on that. Many of the things you mentioned are sovereign capabilities, but we have lots of interests that are potentially soft targets to a hybrid aggressor.”

“I was going to ask you about that.”

“Is there anything we should know about what GUGI is doing now that is not in the public domain as we think about trying to raise the level of discussion?”

“The Russian ship Yantar has got a lot of attention doing similar kinds of things.”

“It is a demonstration of capability and a reputable model for people like the Chinese.”

“Do we have the ability to track shipping that drags anchors in the merchant marine even if they have turned off their transponders and are trying to be as innocuous as possible?”

“We have covered a series of potential threats, including to pipelines and data streams, to surface shipping, to subsurface armed combat vehicles of different kinds. Brett just touched on undersea importation of drugs. Are there any other threats to the UK that you see coming through this domain as an emerging matter? H…”

“Is there a posture implication for that in terms of moving assets around or changing investment levels?”

“I do not think that this is a moment for normal business. I am sure that you, Mr Speaker, and the Leader of the House and all Members, will join me in taking this moment to remember the victims of Jeffrey Epstein: the young women and girls who were systematically trafficked and abused by him and his associates over man…”