Speeches by Sullivan.

“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) on securing this debate and speaking so powerfully. Last Friday, we had the honour of welcoming the Baton of Hope to Bathgate, Blackburn, Armadale and Linlithgow as it made its way across West Lothian. The county was Scotl…”

“Last Saturday, the Linlithgow Union Canal Society celebrated its 50th anniversary with a flotilla from Winchburgh to Linlithgow, marking five decades of volunteer-led preservation and promotion of Scotland’s inland waterways. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the society and its volunteers on that …”

“Churches across the country are struggling to manage their estates, with many buildings going up for sale. Last Sunday, I attended a service of union, with the Bo’ness Old Kirk and St Andrew’s parish church uniting to form the new Bo’ness parish church. While there can be sadness at leaving a church behind, there is mu…”

“As a mother who at one point had three children under four and had to take time out of the workplace, I welcome the great strides made by this Labour Government to support parents and children. In Scotland, parents have access to 1,140 funded hours, but for too many parents—particularly those who want to work in the ho…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Does she agree that the normalisation of violent porn can mean that these horrors come out of the screen and into real life, particularly when defence counsels argue that consent was given to crimes of strangulation? Does she welcome, as I do, the Government’s steps to m…”

“I thank the right hon. Member for that point, which he made very well. Indeed, my grandfather served in Burma, yet that story is not really known in our family as it was a story not told at the time. It is important to bring those stories into the light and to hear about the sacrifices, which are quite unimaginable to …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for making that powerful and important point: people did not come home from war and people came home from war changed, not the same person who left. We owe them a debt of gratitude and we owe it to them never to forget the sacrifices they made and the legacy that they left for us in securing our …”

“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and one that I will come on to. I agree wholeheartedly with his sentiment. Gerry wrote to me in a plea to shine a light on the tragedy when the Lisbon Maru sank, which impacted many families. I spoke to him last week in my office and the message he wanted me to convey this e…”

“I thank the Minister for her time and attention on the debate. On 1 October 1942, an unmarked Japanese freighter called the Lisbon Maru was carrying over 1,800 British and allied prisoners of war—hundreds were from the Royal Scots regiment. The prisoners had been captured after the fall of Hong Kong and were destined f…”

“As I understand it, there is a weighting towards quality and cost, but you feel that social value should play a stronger role in that?”

“I appreciate that you want to focus on the future, because that is really important in increasing confidence in your abilities, corporately speaking, to get your pipeline in place. It is also important that we understand where the failures were so that lessons are learned. I am keen to understand more about the governa…”

“I appreciate that that work will take place at some point in the future. Assuming that the forecasts hold, what do you estimate the total combined cost of delivering both boats will be?”

“To pick up on your previous point briefly, I wonder how much of the investment in new technology could help attract new contracts, so having more of that up front to directly help you to attract more work into the yard.”

“Mr Chant, you mentioned that there is currently no concept of managing civil and defence pipeline together. Am I correct in thinking that you believe there would be a benefit to doing that? Would there be synergies, economies of scale and opportunity for more strategic partnerships across stakeholder groups in both tho…”

“We have touched on this in some questions already this morning, but how important do you think public procurement is in sustaining UK civil shipbuilding?”

“Would you say that now is the time to be looking at the value in a broader way, to perhaps give more weighting to the social value? Particularly thinking in terms of the jobs created, the development of skills—we have heard a lot about skill shortages—and then the direct investment that goes into communities from the c…”

“What is your assessment of how social value was assessed in the recent contract that that was lost to the Polish firm?”

“That will be £324.5 million.”

“With the new governance measures that you have in place, do you have confidence that those timelines will work in your favour and that you are able to do that work in parallel?”

“Back in 2015, the original contract cost for the two ferries was £97 million. You have said that the projected cost to complete the Glen Rosa has now risen to £172.5 million, so it is almost double that just for one of the boats. What factors have contributed to that increase? I do appreciate that you were not there at…”