Speeches by Scrogham.

“In January 2023, children at Sacred Heart Catholic primary school in my constituency were forced to evacuate their building after inspectors warned that it could collapse. I am pleased to welcome its headteacher, Simone Beach, to the Public Gallery today, and I know that the whole House will join me in thanking her for…”

“9. What assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the progress of the school rebuilding programme.”

“In the interests of time, I would just like to ask the Minister this question: what are your priorities on seeing the survey from last year on sexualised behaviours?”

“I do understand. That was the point I made earlier—that we are putting people in a known situation of risk. What are your priorities and what do we need to do to change, really briefly?”

“Okay. So, clearly, it is not just the people who are coming in at the lower-level ranks who have not had the training to understand what is wrong and what is not.”

“There are other people in positions of power. I will now move on to General Jenkins, if I may.”

“Brave choice, given that that has been listed as one of the worst and most toxic places to work for women. I would love to have a conversation about her experiences. To move on, with all those things in place—with all the changes that we are making and that you say you are making within the forces—why is sexual harassm…”

“But it is not. If we are still getting the same numbers five years after the report came out, that has not changed. Clearly, whatever we are doing, whether it be right at the start when people are coming in, is not enough, because nothing has changed in five years.”

“It is differentiating specifically between the Armed Forces and civilian life that I was interested in. Are they more at risk within the Armed Forces, Air Chief Marshal?”

“Do you think the guardrails need strengthening if it is still happening in those very early days? If we are throwing in a mix of younger recruits with a mix of vulnerable young women, and if we understand that that is where there is a big risk, why are we still doing that?”

“Last year, when we had all three chiefs in front of this Committee, I asked a really simple question: are women in the Armed Forces as safe as they would be in civilian life? I did not get a single yes or no response. Nobody would answer the question. I will again put that question to all three chiefs. I would like to …”

“Do you think women in the Armed Forces are as safe as they would be in civilian life?”

“I understand that. Are you aware of how many in those early positions of leadership have been fired for wrongdoing— for sexual misconduct?”

“There is an awful lot of pressure on whoever does this job. We have seen some horrendously tragic cases. Looking particularly at Jaysley Beck, despite a lot of the changes we are bringing in, her mum is not at all convinced that anything has changed or is likely to change. What will you do within this role to change th…”

“It is a huge role.”

“Something that I have learned from being part of this Committee with fellow members who have served is that this is a really small and tight-knit arena, so it does not surprise me at all that you have worked with Calvin. However, when you have worked as part of that really tight-knit and well put together team and been…”

“Thank you for being here. You have spent much of your working career, until quite recently, in the armed forces, whether regular or reserves. How would you persuade people who do not have any faith or trust in that system that you, having been a part of that culture until very recently, will be able to challenge that s…”

“We have a very strong focus in this Committee on women in the armed forces, and the many issues we have seen and uncovered over the years. When I look back to one of our inquiries last year, when we had the head of each of the three armed forces in front of us, none of them could give me a straight answer to a question…”

“First, I should note that, for all their chatter outside this Chamber on defence, there is not a single Member of the Reform party here. They are utterly incapable of having a serious conversation when it comes to defence. I would like to congratulate the shadow Defence team. I did not believe it was possible to reduce…”

“Bob, jumping back in on the decommissioning side, many boats have been waiting for decommissioning and waiting for funding on that. We have also had issues with areas to do the decommissioning or maintenance. We have a couple of graving docks. An Astute boat is sat there waiting for maintenance with no graving dock to …”