Speeches by Jopp.

“When the Prime Minister sacked Lord Mandelson as the American ambassador, Ministers came to the Dispatch Box and I pointed out to them that for the whole time he was our ambassador he had been subject to politically fatal kompromat, which left him open to leverage—as it finally played out. I said that if we had found o…”

“Defence and aerospace make up a huge element of our export business. As the Minister knows, plans without resources are hallucinations. The defence investment plan was promised to us in the autumn, and then by the end of the year, but it is still not there. When will the Government get their act together and stop dithe…”

“My hon. Friend will have heard the Minister for the Indo-Pacific, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), list the preconditions before treaty ratification can take place. I am pretty sure that I asked about America, and she said that there needed to be an exchange of letters. The position of the Ameri…”

“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). With his final words on self-determination echoing in my ears, I have no doubt he will be reflecting on whether he is going to afford the people of Romford the same rights that he is demanding for the Chagossian people.”

“I thank the hon. and gallant Member for his intervention. If he wants to do so, I suggest that he takes it outside, as they say. I am very time-constrained, but I want to pay tribute to my hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches who have informed the debate with incredibly detailed research and knowledge. I have been …”

“I thank the and hon. and incredibly loyal Member for giving way. Does he realise that, as the result of a UN judgment in 1965, the United Kingdom was required to enter into negotiations with Argentina over the future of the Falkland Islands? Those negotiations continued until 1982, when they were concluded in a rather …”

“Does my right hon. and gallant Friend agree that this could well be a case of, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it is possible that you have failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation”?”

“I listened to the criteria that the Minister expressed before ratification is possible. Is American agreement one of the criteria that she considers essential?”

“rose—”

“I will not go into inability to take stuff out of welfare and all that because that would be too political. But I really do recommend—it might save yourself some angst in year three of being Secretary of State for Defence—that you go and watch their evidence.”

“In answer to the Chair, I think you said, “I do not recognise the characterisation of some sort of security deep state which is attempting to keep secrets from Parliament.” So with my irony claxon still ringing in my ears, can we talk about the superinjunction that was put in place by the prior Government and maintaine…”

“On Friday, I visited Primark in Staines, in my Spelthorne constituency, where the team, led by Luke, is doing a fantastic job in creating a vibrant retail experience. However, the British Retail Consortium has said that the Chancellor’s jobs tax is pushing up prices and raising the cost of living, and that the Employme…”

“18. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of her policies on inflation.”

“I agree; you are keeping your side of the bargain, but it comes back to Mr Norman’s earlier question, I do not think anyone else across Government thinks that they need to put down arrows in their budgets in order to make them safer.”

“That would be the same one.”

“Secretary of State, you are a busy man so you may not have had the opportunity to see your two predecessors and the former Minister for the Armed Forces giving evidence a week ago today.”

“That would be incredibly helpful.”

“A very quick one. General, whose job is it to protect the moral component of fighting power?”

“Permanent Secretary, hopefully a very quick one. We had one of these sessions with the Secretary of State and your predecessor in about November 2024, at which the then Permanent Secretary said that he would reduce the number of full-time equivalent civil servants in the Ministry of Defence by 10% over the course of th…”

“Okay. In the summary, particularly Sir Ben Wallace and James Heappey outlined the following thesis. From the mid-90s onwards, Governments of both parties took a capability holiday; they hollowed out defence. What enabled them to do so was the fact that the perception of threat is run by the information flow that comes …”