Speeches by Martin.

“The accountability would go from you to the director of Defence Digital to the project lead—one, two, three—and then the portfolio approach, which might bring together a whole bunch of stuff, sits at your level, which is the interface.”

“I have a final point on organisational design. Incentives are important. Organisational design basically aligns personnel and teams’ incentives towards outputs. With the portfolio approach you are talking about, we could have a digital bucket and so on—perhaps in your answer you could give us some examples. Are you the…”

“So that portfolio approach is held at your level?”

“That is very MoD, because you only get four cups of coffee in those carriers, rather than five.”

“Many of these programmes were started a long time ago. To what degree are we locked into stuff that means that we cannot open up the architecture, for instance, and get these different elements to work together better, inhibiting that systemic thinking you are extolling?”

“To pick up an earlier theme around simplicity—I like the phrase system of systems, as that is exactly what it is—many of these projects started out at different times. In the old way of working, the specification would be set, there would be something bolted on, and so on and so forth, so we ended up with a bit of a me…”

“One of the significant linchpins of the SDR was this idea of a digital backbone. That integrates our whole force from reconnaissance surveillance and all the other sensors to effectors, shooters and all the rest of it. It is fair to say that, without that backbone, the individual elements of the force do not work. Ther…”

“My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for his constituents. Does he agree that this is a problem not just for the Isles of Scilly, but for the Isle of Wight and the Western Isles? We are an archipelago. Those who live on the outer islands suffer from this inequity; they are as British as us, but they do not enjoy th…”

“Thank you. That is actually very clear.”

“I will take that as a no. How about a heavy brigade?”

“Yes or no?”

“A heavy battlegroup?”

“TEK Military Seating in Tunbridge Wells designs and exports military seating. It risks losing a £400,000 order to a customer in the United Arab Emirates because it lacks the permissions in the export licence, and my understanding is that the Department for Business and Trade is waiting for an answer from the MOD. Will …”

“Contrary to what some less well-informed voices from the Conservative Benches have been saying, short of putting ground troops into Iran, there is no military solution that enables us to open the strait of Hormuz. The Iranians are effectively placing civilian shipping at risk with missiles, drones, subs and fast boats;…”

“That is an excellent point. It is very much something that the Government can do, because they understand where capital can be found and how to create the legal and regulatory ecosystem that enables these companies to thrive. Let me touch briefly on access to capital—I am thinking of slightly larger amounts than those …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her comprehensive intervention, which speaks to exactly the issues that I will raise. The key example is DeepMind, which was the world-leading AI company. We, the Brits, failed to create the ecosystem, funding and risk-taking capital to enable it to scale fully. It was then bought by Google, …”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) on securing this important debate. We have heard from both sides of the Chamber that the British tech sector spreads into all our constituencies, so it concerns us all. When the Government…”

“That is very clear. Thank you. You have both given a good picture of the progress that has been made. Kristian has just mentioned something that he thinks will be improved by clause 12. Nina, will the Bill bring in anything else that improves the picture and drives further progress, either for victims or for the other …”

“Was that not the case before?”

“Thanks for coming. We will start with you guys marking your own homework. Since we established the Victim Witness Care Unit and the Defence Serious Crime Command, what progress has the service justice system made in the treatment of victims?”