Speeches by Jopp.

“Yes. If you could break that down by service, that would be very helpful. What can you tell us about retention? Is the situation improving or worsening?”

“With that in mind, it would be helpful if you could write to the Committee. I think your phrase was “time of flight”, so where are we with rejoiners? What is their 10/30 equivalent? How long is it taking to get back in? What gets measured gets resourced, and if you knew more about it, and could tell us more about it, I…”

“This is what young captains think of when they sit in the back of armoured vehicles for hours on end—this always struck me. On the basis that you are right that it is the establishment figure of each of the armed forces that gets voted on annually, yet you undershoot it and have a shortfall, the armed forces are still …”

“What is that as a percentage?”

“One of the critical interfaces is between the potential recruit and the NHS—the GPs’ world. The GPs are clearly not subject to your contract, but how are you going to incentivise them to prioritise more highly military applications in order to speed up that bit, because that really is the cost elbow in the arrangement,…”

“It was zero before, so it would be an increase.”

“It would be helpful to know. The recruiting reorganisation means that recruitment will all come under the same private provider, but not until 2027. Is that correct?”

“In writing that contract, the service level agreements that you have with the contractor are going to be key. Given that the Secretary of State has set that 10/30 rule, is the SLA going to be set to say, “We want 100% of people applying to achieve that 10/30 rule”?”

“Lieutenant General, you are a soldier, so you know. Which was incorrect: the operating parameters, or what they were asked to do in the exercise?”

“Thank you. In 2024, the Secretary of State said that he was imposing a new 10/30 rule, namely that any applicant would receive a provisional decision within 10 days, and that they would receive a date of starting training within 30 days. Can you tell me what percentage of applicants across Defence are hitting those mar…”

“How are you doing with the transitional arrangements from other contractors and services doing their own thing into one swept-up, fully assured contract with the new provider?”

“So the commanders on the exercise either were ignorant of or chose to ignore the operating parameters of the vehicle system.”

“In retention, trying to find that relationship between inputs and outcomes is critical. There is a world of good ideas coming from the Department and the services, and that’s great, but you need to weigh it against the overall picture of what is happening outside the wire and the attractiveness of staying in the armed …”

“Air Marshal, are you the right person to ask questions about recruiting and retention?”

“Permanent Secretary, in answer to the Chair’s question about why you think you can handle the defence brief you said that you had six years of experience as a permanent secretary. Can I take you back to your time at DESNZ and the ECO4 home insulation scheme, about which I think the Public Accounts Committee said it pro…”

“A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a student roundtable, with two pupils from my eight secondary schools and two from my further education college. I agree with the Secretary of State in that I was left incredibly excited for them and by their hopes and aspirations for the future. However, we also had a discussion about h…”

“I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement. I am slightly struggling to see what it adds to the answer to the urgent question we had yesterday, but it is always nice to see the Foreign Secretary. When she asks the US Government to de-escalate, what do they say in response?”

“I think what the Health Secretary is actually doing at the moment is paying people to fudge the waiting lists. I want to be very clear, because there are slightly mixed messages from the Justice Secretary: are there any circumstances in which he would consider the reintroduction of jury trials for those cases that are …”

“I am reminded of that great fictional character Sir Humphrey Appleby, who once observed that a party with 300 members gets to form a Government, but 100 are too young and too callow, and 100 are too old and too silly, so the Government pretty much select themselves. I congratulate the Minister on making it into the mid…”

“13. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his proposed changes to jury trials on the criminal justice system.”