Speeches by Jopp.

“In some people’s view it is as dangerous as teaching a 16-year-old to disassemble an Armalite.”

“Funnily enough, in another part of this building a discussion is ongoing about whether we should ban people under 16, or 18, from having smartphones.”

“On the whole-nation approach and the digital edge, if we were talking about teaching 12-year-olds how to disassemble an Armalite, we might end up in controversial conversations with the National Union of Teachers, but because we are talking about digitalising our youth, those skills can be generic. That suggests to me …”

“To follow on, I guess the other side of Calvin’s coin is cost and cash. I do not want to probe around the operational out of bounds box, because this is pretty much an area of policy. We have taken the decision internationally to skim off the interest from the seized Russian assets. Does there come a time—have you done…”

“Having been to Wolves versus Chelsea last night, I completely agree.”

“I do not want to misquote you, but I just want make sure that I heard you correctly when you said that we had no hope of deterring a country such as Russia in cyber-space. Is that because of policy or capability?”

“But is the genie out of the bottle? Can we only go in one direction for a liberal democracy, or can we re-instil that security culture?”

“We are going to come to the nation’s response in a minute, but I want to explore the nature of the threat. You said something about culture—I cannot remember the word you chose—but when it was the cold war and treated as a war of national survival, do you think we were better at keeping secrets than we are now?”

“It strikes me that we would all love the certainty of being in a condition of absolute peace or absolute war, because then things would be clear. The trouble is that we are not, at any one time, and that—to me—is the grey zone. At one end, that is actually just life; it is sub-state or inter-state competition, which so…”

“Because “The war is coming” seems like a very binary, on/off, “peace or war” sort of language. It almost does not hit the mark when it comes to this constant state of conflict narrative. We were talking earlier about deterrence and subsea infrastructure. It would seem slightly de trop, if someone pulls up a cable with …”

“Our Secretary of State for Defence is one of the most classic talk show guests I can imagine. With that, I will hand you back to the Chair.”

“You have a range of adversaries out there, and you have seen them develop these new techniques onto the surfaces that you refer to. There's nothing new under the sun but national character. To what extent does that inform the way in which they develop their own offensive capability?”

“That is very much looking at it from our point of view, and how we protect against said attacks, but I want to invite you to explore the nature of the threat. You have described it as autocratic, as if that covers the spectrum, but is there a nuance within that in terms of our adversaries’ national approach to the way …”

“In our last session, we were discussing how we loved the clarity of the ideas of perfect peace and perfect war, because then our rules kick in and we know where we stand, but this “grey zone” that we are talking about really just represents life. The gap on the spectrum between competition and conflict is another grey …”

“We are going to come to the nation’s response in a minute, but I want to explore the nature of the threat. You said something about culture—I cannot remember the word you chose—but when it was the cold war and treated as a war of national survival, do you think we were better at keeping secrets than we are now?”

“But is the genie out of the bottle? Can we only go in one direction for a liberal democracy, or can we re-instil that security culture?”

“I do not want to misquote you, but I just want make sure that I heard you correctly when you said that we had no hope of deterring a country such as Russia in cyber-space. Is that because of policy or capability?”

“Having been to Wolves versus Chelsea last night, I completely agree.”

“I also congratulate the Secretary of State on coming to the Chamber with such a massive capital expenditure announcement and eliciting a saving with his answer to the first question from the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). One of the plans that went by the board in May, for reasons I have n…”

“I will say it, because no one else has: many happy returns for tomorrow. I genuinely thought that you were in your mid-30s—that the Secretary of State was in his mid-30s.”