Speeches by Western.

“Well, they obviously both have their real merits, but what I would say is that I think—”

“Thank you. Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi made representations.”

“That is very kind of you, Emily. Chair and Committee, I thank you very much for your time. It is a rarity for me to come before you, and certainly to do so on behalf of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. It is a Committee that very few people in this place know much about. It has on its books my rig…”

“The four to five minutes was not kept to as tightly as I would have hoped, so we will have to go to a formal four minutes for speeches because of the number of Members who have indicated that they wish to speak.”

“Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak in the debate. Clearly, there are quite a few Members so, on the basis of what I have seen, I ask Members to speak for four to five minutes—an informal application of a time limit—and we will see how we get on.”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his service on the Committee over so many years, which was hugely valued, and his point is absolutely fair. I have not seen the specific report that was published today, but it echoes the points that we have made in this report. We do not want to be alarmist, but we cannot accept an…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and it is absolutely true. We did not specifically look at the situation in Ireland. We will be doing further work on this in the coming months, because I think that is required and will be welcomed by Departments, but, yes, we need to meet the EU and Ireland to talk about th…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for serving on the Committee and for the work he is doing in chairing the Defence Committee, and he is absolutely right. There are several elements to this. One is, as we have seen in the Baltic and around our shores, the nature of the threats. The attacks on cables are proving provocative, and w…”

“Various organisations that have been established have interests in this area. Of course, much of this is in the private sector. The Committee is concerned about how much of it is in the private domain and how much influence the Government can have. Collectively, there is a need for Governments to work much more closely…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I do not know about the timings—I am not close enough to the Government for that—but the United States did something interesting, which was to have a scheme to lease two ships, costing them $10 million a year. There are ways around this, but having a sovereign capabili…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I will keep my comments brief. I absolutely agree that the legal side of this urgently needs to be addressed, and I understand from the Government that they will look very closely at it in their defence resilience Bill.”

“It is a pleasure to present the first report of this Parliament of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this statement on the United Kingdom’s resilience and crisis preparedness in relation to subsea telecommunication cables. Subsea cables…”

“I remind Members that if they wish to be called in the debate, they should bob.”

“Thank you. Your point of order is noted.”

“Given the right hon. Gentleman’s extensive experience, it is very interesting to hear what he says. If he had his time again—this is not to criticise the previous Government, but to ask about the here and now—would he think that this area needs an absolute focus from across Government and across society, because it is …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for sharing his lived experience. I can relate that to when I have spoken to organisations through the Business and Trade Committee and through my role on the Joint Committee for National Security Strategy. I have heard from organisations that have been impacted about how paralysing the immediate…”

“I start by welcoming the Bill, which is a serious step forward in protecting the United Kingdom from the great number of cyber-attacks that we face each day. As we have just heard from my right hon. Friend the Minister, this legislation is long overdue. A consultation started back in January 2022, and in April of that …”

“There is clearly no question about the illegitimacy of Maduro’s presidency, but there are questions about President Trump driving a coach and horses through the global rules-based order. How should the UK now view the United States national security strategy in the light of this recent action?”

“I want to pick up on my hon. Friend’s point about the paucity of the aid getting in and to highlight the utter ridiculousness of how Israel is frustrating not just the quantity of aid but the basic elements of aid, such as tent poles, tents, razor blades and generators, by claiming that they are somehow dual use and th…”

“As Chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement following the case of Nathan Gill. There is nothing worse than the enemy within. It is quite clear that there are significant loopholes in the current system. Money is flooding in. In fact, we have taken evid…”