Speeches by Jopp.

“For the record, why did the hon. Member vote against lifting the two-child benefit cap when the SNP proposed it earlier?”

“I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way a second time. The Chancellor said on Sky News, “It’s on me now.” I would be grateful if he could set a date for when this Government are going to take responsibility for the country. I have plenty of things I could be doing in Spelthorne, so I will go away and come back …”

“Does the hon. Member acknowledge that whether parents get their money from income or from benefits, the Government, having inherited 2% inflation, have taken it up to 3.6%, which reduces the value of that pound in parents’ pockets?”

“I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. What is his message to the people who have been made unemployed since the Labour party came to power?”

“You’re in charge.”

“I completely agree with my right hon. Friend about the inherent contradictions. Would it be fair to characterise this Budget as the left hand not knowing what the further left hand is doing?”

“I will try to speak really slowly and ask not multiple questions but just the one. How much cash did David Kogan give the Prime Minister?”

“Is Surrey going to get a mayor?”

“Very good!”

“Thank you very much indeed for coming in. Could you set the scene as to the circumstances in which your review took place? To what extent were you happy with the terms of reference? Was there anything that you could or could not put into it? Subject to the Government having not yet published the review—and within the r…”

“Please do.”

“I think you said, in your answer to the first question, that you did not think that the two new Prime Ministers and President had had a conversation about AUKUS—a three-way conversation.”

“Thank you very much indeed. That was very helpful. A lot of the things that you were talking about chime with what the Committee saw during our visits to Washington, Norfolk, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra earlier in the year. Do you have any sense of when the Government are going to publish a redacted, declassified vers…”

“Similarly, when we were in Australia, someone floated the idea—no pun intended—that, when we have a fully Australian-crewed Virginia-class boat, a British boat and an American boat alongside one another, surfaced in the Indian ocean, that too would be another drumbeat in building that strategic narrative.”

“If there is not even a trialogue, it is hard to build a narrative. When I think of AUKUS, I am like one of Alex’s voters—I think of that picture in San Diego with Albanese, Sunak and Biden. In order to reinforce all the messages about AUKUS being epoch-changing, multi-generational and politics-proof, would it not be a …”

“The Defence Committee recently visited Canberra in Australia. For Members who do not know the geography of the place, the old Parliament building looks down a row of trees and across a lake to the national war memorial. When the new Parliament building was built in the 1980s, it was pushed back so that it had exactly t…”

“A constituent wrote to me asking whether I could get a wriggle on with his EU settlement scheme application. We checked with the Home Office and it turned out that he was subject to a live deportation order. It was issued in 2017, and we did deport him. Somehow he got back into the country and made his application. I s…”

“I understand that the permanent secretary at the Home Office recently appointed a single senior official to be responsible for asylum hotels. Will the Home Secretary please use her good offices to encourage that official to come to the Stanwell hotel in my Spelthorne constituency, so that they can see for themselves ho…”

“I thank the Minister for her statement, although it will have caused some consternation in my constituency. Spelthorne is in Surrey, which is being carved up into two unitary authorities, and recent so-called clarifications by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have stated that there are no promi…”

“It would make things so much simpler for the House if the hon. Gentleman would put a date on when those on the Government Benches will take responsibility for running the country. I do not mind if it is in six months’ time or a year’s time, but we can then all go home—I have lots of things to do in Spelthorne until the…”