Speeches by Jopp.

“Professor, good morning and thank you for coming this morning. You were required reading at various courses that I did throughout my military career, so it is a great pleasure to see you in person. Could we set the context for our discussion and invite you to give us your assessment of where we are currently at in Ukra…”

“I can see that Dr Alexandra is desperate to get in, but I want to ask one more supplementary question. Have you made any form of assessment of the impact of the North Korean contribution to the Russian forces?”

“Dr de Hoop Scheffer, is there anything you would like to add?”

“Does the Minister have full confidence in the chair of the NHS Business Services Authority?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing this debate. In my constituency of Spelthorne, we have 2,500 veterans, and I want to talk about one of them—Alderman Robin Sider, who was awarded the British Empire Me…”

“In Ashford and Staines in my constituency we have a real plague of shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. Inspector Matthew Walton of the North division is doing a great job with his team to tackle it, in combination with the community and the retailers, but still the problem is getting worse. After the success of the f…”

“We may disagree about what we heard earlier on today in the spring statement about whether the economy is growing, but we are certain that this Government will grasp ever more desperately at the will-o’-the-wisp of growth in the months and years to come. Does he agree that—unlike the hon. and learned Member for Folkest…”

“I am tempted to say, “Thank you, Mr Hacker”, but I will not. We visited the National Cyber Force and Strategic Command. At one stage, there was the phrase “Whitehall customer group”. This question is about our own grey zone within Whitehall. If bad guys attack NHS IT systems, that is the defensive play part of the nati…”

“I am glad that you said that last bit, because the way in which we have been talking up until now suggests that the hybrid activity stops when the war goes hot. It seems from the outside that, in a period of relatively low military activity for the last 10 years, defence has side-slipped into this. It is unerringly can…”

“I am sure that that phrase meant a lot to you when it came out of your mouth, Minister, but I am a simple soldier.”

“Minister, you said that the defence review will reflect its terms of reference, although the Robertson review is a 2.5% review. It has been slightly overtaken by events, because the Prime Minister has now said that it will be 3% in the next Parliament. Are you going to have another review to work out how to spend that …”

“Listening to you talk there, Minister, it strikes me that we have a bit of a problem in as much as our messaging is not quite as clear as it could be. You said that it would not be helpful to come in and tell the people that they are under threat, because that would be counterproductive. Equally, you want to take the p…”

“Are the Government considering sending failed asylum seekers to overseas return hubs?”

“We are shortly to appoint a national armaments director with a salary of more than £600,000 a year. I hope that that colossal salary comes with the mandate to be able to tear up the book on defence procurement as we rearm the nation. Will the Minister reassure me that when we get the national armaments director back to…”

“The people of Spelthorne are very hard-working and do not mind their taxes being paid for a safety net for the most vulnerable in our society, but they really do get annoyed when they see their taxes going to people who are scamming the benefits system. What assessment have any of the Ministers on the Front Bench made …”

“The Minister says that the situation is completely clear, so I feel like a bit of an idiot for asking for more clarification, but I will anyway. Pre-sentencing reports are allowed to take in further background on the lives of offenders from an “ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community”. What …”

“7. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of incentives to seek employment.”

“It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance). She is such a compelling advocate that I am tempted to go on strike myself. I do sense a certain amount of antipathy between the two sides of the House, so, before I come on to make a fair point in support of amendment 292, I wa…”

“There are 24 Members sitting on the Government Benches. Would my hon. Friend like to issue an open invitation to them to name a single small business that has been in touch to say that it supports this legislation?”

“I think the hon. Lady has slightly missed the point of what I was saying. Reading the body language of Members on the Government Benches, I think they all wanted to hear how this story ended up. It did help that the then Secretary of State for Defence was a friend of mine, with whom I served in the Scots Guards. We did…”