Speeches by Carns.

“I will hand over to Marc who has the detail. That is a really important part of the Bill. One of the analogies that I have been using to describe it is that, at the moment, under the current Votes A system, we are not only fielding the football team, but we are telling you exactly how to divide that football team up in…”

“As we simplify our Reserve force, we would like to see a position in the future where an individual can leave full-time service, join the Reserves, do anything from two days a week to two days a month and then rejoin with the minimum amount of bureaucracy or administration. That does not exist at the moment because, un…”

“The contract does not need amendment because it is an administrative process. As the Bill moves forward with its clauses, it will remove the legal requirement to leave the Regular force to join the Reserve force. Therefore, it will become an administrative move in whichever service you are in, and also to come back in.…”

“Correct.”

“I would just like to say that we are on a journey. We are moving as fast as we can. It is about simplification and modelling the Reserve system and our armed forces system on today’s society to make sure we have the methods in place. The service justice system is moving forward well, and it is welcomed both by previous…”

“Zoë, Emma and Ahmed, thank you very much for everything that you are doing to champion this cause and push for a meaningful change. Zoë, I want to get your reflections on the work that you are doing on the violence against women and girls taskforce that we are setting up and trialling with your organisation, and on wha…”

“Thank you very much for your evidence, Mary. It gives me great confidence when I hear someone speak with such conviction and with all the information and experience behind it, not only from the service justice system but from the civilian system. While we are discussing concurrent jurisdiction, can you talk us through …”

“Thank you very much for your evidence. It is super-useful and always well thought through and balanced. And thank you for your work in collaboration with the MOD to make the system better. This is a broader and more holistic question. Do you agree that there is a need for a service justice system, and if so, why?”

“As we speak, there will most likely be fast jets flying in the middle east or around Cyprus, tracking, identifying and engaging with drones that pose a direct threat to our British interests, our allies and partners and, potentially, British citizens. I take my hat off to them, and I fully support them. We will maintai…”

“As the right hon. Member will know, we continue to support Ukraine with almost as much capability as we can. Through leadership of the Ukraine defence contact group, through capability and through industrial working groups backed by the United Kingdom and across Europe, we will continue to support Ukraine, and do every…”

“I have attended every staff college in the military—initial staff college, advanced command staff college and higher command staff college—and they all say two things: “First, you must have a legal mandate before putting people in harm’s way; secondly, you must think through to the end.” We will continue to work in a c…”

“There are two key roles that the Ministry of Defence plays within this legislation. The first is to ensure that we protect veterans throughout any legal process to do with Northern Ireland, and the second is to ensure that no one corrupts the system to try to rewrite history with a different narrative. There is a third…”

“The first hundred pages or so of the SDR are about better industrial collaboration between the MOD and our industries. Work on AUKUS will create over 7,000 additional jobs at UK sites and across the supply chain, with over 21,000 working on the programme at its peak. We must do more to work with SMEs. The annual innova…”

“Since arriving in this House, I have been droning on about drones—it is one of the reasons I came into politics. There are three key lessons that we need to learn. The first is to adapt a process to give us a high-low mix of fifth-generation capability supported by cheap mass. That mass must be dumb hardware with sophi…”

“The hon. Member is absolutely correct. We took a six-week programme of deep refit and rearmed in six days—a remarkable effort from both the industry and the Royal Navy. I doff my cap to what they have done. That ship is now sailing to the middle east. At times of crisis, we can move things faster. We made a decision as…”

“I thank the hon. Member for the field promotion—he, obviously, has not had one. We have two roles: protecting veterans and ensuring that no one can rewrite history through the courts. We will push hard on that and deliver it for the veterans who deserve it.”

“Alongside the conflict in the middle east, the war in Ukraine continues to rage. Russia is taking more than 1,000 casualties a day, and has launched more than 55,000 missile and drone attacks against Ukraine in just the last year. At the latest meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group, the Defence Secretary announc…”

“The Secretary of State has been in discussions with the National Security Agency and with key individuals in Ukraine. I am a firm believer that the Ukrainians need the west now and that in the future we will need them, given some of the technological advances they have made. It is also worth doubling down on some of th…”

“We continue to lead, both in the coalition of the willing and in the Ukraine defence contact group, which the Secretary of State attended recently, raising billions of pounds-worth of equipment support in weapons, air defence systems and everything through to female body armour. Ukraine absolutely remains a focus. This…”

“Our sovereign base in Cyprus is not in question. When the Secretary of State for Defence visited Cyprus, the Cypriot national guard reaffirmed that our relationship is closer now than ever before. We must always remember the complexity of dealing with air defence. When it involves high and fast ballistic missiles combi…”