Speeches by Jopp.

“Could the Minister tell us when he last met a farmer?”

“They’ve gone up in smoke! [Laughter.]”

“May I begin by paying a huge tribute to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for her testimony to the House today? It was a privilege to be here to hear it, and it will last long in the memory. I do not have a huge amount of experience of jury trials; in fact, what I have experience of is the antith…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. At the same Dispatch Box about half an hour ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer perhaps unwisely delved into the world of military strategy and said a couple of things that were slightly alarming. First, she upbraided the shadow Chancellor for not calling for the de-es…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, which I read and listened to very closely. Is it fair to summarise the Secretary of State’s statement by saying that he is not going to do anything differently as a result of the conflict in Iran? I listened to and read the statement very closely, and it does not appear…”

“What about China?”

“Why did the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons) resign as a Cabinet Office Minister at the weekend?”

“May I thank the Minister for his statement, and express a certain amount of sympathy? Like him, I ran evacuations under fire, and it is pretty chaotic. He and his officials will inevitably attract some criticism—that is the nature of the beast, as he knows. At Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, the Prime Minister li…”

“Does the Minister think that that will expand or detract from the commissioner’s personal responsibilities and accountabilities?”

“I note that the House rose three hours early yesterday, yet we each get three minutes to speak about the defence estimate. Radically, I want to talk about the estimate itself; much as I would love to do some soaring Churchillian rhetoric, I will instead limit myself to the MOD’s supplementary estimate memorandum, which…”

“I am grateful to my constituency neighbour for giving way on that point. Would she like to give us a couple of examples where overseas development aid has prevented crises in the way that she describes?”

“Does the hon. Lady remember who led on the international response on Ukraine?”

“I know that I am risking the wrath of the rest of the Committee, but, as I understand the Minister’s explanation, moving the functions from a corporation sole to a body corporate slightly dilutes the personal role of the Information Commissioner inasmuch as it spreads responsibility to a board. The last time I checked,…”

“Do you think that as a nation we know where the British interest is in the High North?”

“Good morning, Professor, and thank you for coming in. Is the High North becoming more strategically important, or is it that it has always been strategically important and we are just waking up to it?”

“I seem to remember that about 10 years ago there was a flurry of interest in the world of anti-submarine warfare. People were saying, “The ability to make the seas translucent is just around the corner, so we will always know where all submarines are.” I don’t think that was Tom Clancy; I think it was real science, or …”

“So a major chunk of the grey zone is actually white—that is what we are saying.”

“I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. I agreed with parts of it. I agreed with him when he said that the regime was an abhorrent one, that British civilians, British service personnel and British sovereign bases had been attacked, and that, “You cannot shoot all the drones out of the air; you have to attack the…”

“2. What steps her Department is taking to support grassroots sport.”

“I thank the Minister for his statement. Will he reassure the House that the team who have negotiated the draft treaty that he has brought before us today have had nothing to do with the team that negotiated the disastrous Chagos deal? That deal is, I believe, as of yesterday, on pause, although No. 10 appears to be gai…”