Speeches by Martin.

“In the same vein, we see the Bill as part of our constitutional duty, and one that will help us to deliver the best for our service personnel—an aim that we all share. I echo the shadow Minister’s thanks to the Clerks and you, Mr Efford. I, too, look forward to working collegially across the Committee to ensure that we…”

“Well, they will hear it anyway.”

“I agree with the hon. Lady. In the spirit of cross-party working, I say that we all support our veterans, and I think that the strides that the Government have made are fantastic. The previous Government had a Minister who was passionate about this issue, and he also made strides in this area. We are all trying to move…”

“The shadow Minister is exactly right. We have used a few metaphors today, including that of mental health as a journey. Another metaphor is that mental health is a garden that has to be tended. Each of us has a responsibility to introspect and check in with ourselves to see how we are doing, but the garden also needs t…”

“I know that the Minister will listen carefully to this question because he used to live in Tunbridge Wells. Elena is a Ukrainian woman who works in our local hospital. She has not been able to advance her career because her visa restrictions mean that she cannot study. I know that the Government do not want to give the…”

“12. If she will take steps to provide Ukrainian refugees with a route to permanent settlement.”

“I just want to pick up on Derek Twigg’s point about NATO capability targets. Air Marshal, could we deploy a heavy division to Europe if the need arose?”

“Yes, it is about co-ordination.”

“Finally, do you have any brief thoughts on clause 9, on the extension of MAPPAs, or multi-agency public protection arrangements? Is it enough? Does it need to do more, or is it in the right place?”

“That is really helpful.”

“Thanks very much for coming today. To dive into the details, clauses 5 and 6 give new powers to the service police and courts to protect individuals from sexual harm and domestic abuse. Could you speak a little about that? Does the Bill go far enough? Does it give adequate protections? Is there more that we could do th…”

“One of the reasons that you reduce headcount is to cut costs. The other reason is the chefs in the kitchen idea: that things are much more efficient, and decisions are made quicker, when you have fewer people sticking their oar in. We have all heard the stories of the Zoom calls with 30 people where each of them has a …”

“Any idea on timescales?”

“You are saying that there will be a reduction in headcount of one-star officers and above?”

“I am sure you are doing a great job. I mean in the abstract, of course.”

“Permanent secretary, will you answer the same question?”

“One final question: can you state categorically that no tanks will be withdrawn from Estonia?”

“To give you an example, I may be slightly out of date, but at one point last year, my understanding was that the brigade pencilled against Estonia was 4 Brigade. You will remember that pre the accession of Finland and Sweden, we offered security guarantees to those two countries. In the interim between them saying they…”

“Provided that those promises are not all called in at the same time.”

“Air Marshal, as you would expect we have a number of commitments all over the world. Some of those will be physical commitments, such as in Estonia where we have troops, and some of them will be promises for further troops. To use Estonia as an example, we promised a follow-up of the rest of 4 Brigade to reinforce that…”