Speeches by Jopp.

“If a club has lost its licence, has it not therefore been taken beyond the purview of the regulator? How is the regulator still empowered to pursue the owner?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I rise to support amendment 110. I suspect the Minister might say that we do not need to cover everything and that there is a general catch-all measure in the clause, so we do not need to make this amendment. I will draw the Committee’s attention to a simila…”

“The shadow Minister is making a completely reasonable amendment. We have the emblem, colours and name. Does he agree that it would be helpful if the Minister explained why the name has been taken out for different treatment from the emblem and the colours?”

“I welcome the fact that the Minister is saying, “Let’s trust existing organisations to do it”, rather than bringing it within the purview of a higher regulator. On the basis that the FA has exercised such responsibilities when it comes to names, why cannot it be trusted to have the same consideration for emblems and co…”

“I guess we are all asking the same question in different ways. If, as a result of future decisions, defence expenditure stays at 2.5%, how much of the SDR should I tear up?”

“You would effectively extend the dates, rather than bring them in, if spending were to remain at 2.5% and we were not to achieve the nationally stated ambition of 3% by the next Parliament.”

“Obviously it is a fairly sensitive process, but you said that some of the assertions you made were less popular than others and you got pushback. Can you give us an idea of where those areas were?”

“Lord Robertson, just a quick one on defence reform and the Department’s huge challenge in following through on what it wants to do. They say that culture eats strategy for breakfast. My understanding is that part of the reform is to try to make the Department of State function more strategic and more policy-focused, le…”

“General Barrons, I distinctly remember that at the launch of this process you said two things that struck me at the time and have remained with me since. You said that the reviewing team were not required to seek consensus and that you were not required to take heed of or pay attention to holes in the legacy programme,…”

“We read in the press that what we have in the SDR is version 14. Is there anything in version one that you initially delivered that you regret not seeing make the final cut?”

“On the point you just made about ambition and timelines, Lord Robertson, we had the Chief of the Defence Staff here yesterday—I have to choose my words incredibly carefully, because he implied nothing; I inferred this from what he was saying—but he made the point of saying, “You will notice that in the recommendations …”

“I thank the Chancellor for her statement, but I fear that she may have misunderstood the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) asked about the River Thames scheme. He asked whether the scheme is included in the £4.2 billion TDEL—total departmental expenditure limit—over three …”

“Just on the military strategic headquarters, Admiral, is it going to still be in the MOD?”

“Admiral, I used to work in the Ministry of Defence. When one of these was produced, my boss, General Simon Mayall, always used to ask, “Lincoln, where are the down arrows?” I have read this, and there are not any. There clearly will be down arrows for certain capabilities and structures, but it is very difficult to get…”

“If I may, Chair, when we had Lord Robertson and General Barrons sitting there at the beginning of this process, they said two very important things. The first was that they had been told that they were not required to seek consensus in the building. Secondly, they had no obligation to fill in holes in legacy programmes…”

“If I could summarise what I think it means, people are going to get into and stay in their lane a lot more. The military is going to do military stuff, and the Department of State is going to do its policy stuff. Is that a fair way of putting it?”

“On the model that you now have, the CDS is actually legally in command of the other three. Running alongside the three service pillars, you have the joint staff. I remember that 20 years ago there was a big push to make the younger generation more joint in order better to support the integrated force. Is that still the…”

“Just for the record, you are not ancient at all, CDS, because I was on ACSC 4.”

“When you say we are not in deficit, I get the impression you are talking about in strategic terms. If I were to ask you how many working tanks we have, you are not going to know that figure off the top of your head, but one of your brilliant team will pass you a note in a minute. I would be fascinated to hear the answe…”

“Just on resilience, Admiral, the Health Secretary and the Education Secretary said the other day that they were putting more funds into schools so that children developed much-needed grit. That is key clearly to part of national resilience. What is your experience? We met the captain of HMS Duncan when we went down to …”