Speeches by Ballinger.

“The cuts are enormous: up to a quarter of staff, on top of a 40% cut to the ODA budget, which is even more represented among what the FCDO spends on ODA. Could we get your reflections on how that will impact the UK’s role on the world stage? If you are going to continue to be effective, which bits will we be deprioriti…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for organising this important debate. The catastrophic situation in Gaza has meant that much of the media’s attention has been on the death and destruction there, but the situation in the west …”

“Yes—there are a number of things we should be doing. Others have spoken about the issues I meant to cover, so I will come straight to the point: I think is appropriate to have a response from the Government to the ICJ ruling. We have been waiting more than a year for that. It would be great to hear from the Minister wh…”

“Rob, you said that many banks and insurance companies will not invest in defence companies. What proportion is it, what type of banks are they, and how big of a problem is it that these companies are not getting support from British institutions?”

“I am from the Foreign Affairs Committee, and we have been doing an inquiry into the EU reset. A lot of that is predicated on what is going on in Ukraine. It was great to see the security and defence partnership being such a flagship part of the reset at the recent summit. That had a lot of important stuff around collab…”

“Thank you, Rob. I was in Brussels a couple of months ago and I met the Belgian equivalent of the Chief of the Defence Staff. He was talking about using his increase in defence spending to build bridges. There is a role for that, but there is a concern that more of that money would be spent on it than we would like. I h…”

“There have been Israeli Ministers who have said similar things about the population in Gaza and Tehran, if we are picking out individual statements.”

“It would of course be a disaster.”

“That is very helpful. Another criticism that has been made in the international community is around international law and the initial strikes made by Israel in this round of conflict. Many people have said—we have spoken about this—that Iran may have been months or years away from developing a nuclear bomb, so there is…”

“You mentioned the JCPOA, Mr Lapid. Thank you for that. In 2018, when the last Trump Administration pulled out of that agreement, it was understood that that was because of Israeli pressure. I wondered whether you thought that that was the right decision at that time. Do you agree that we now need a negotiated situation…”

“Too often, the question of whether local authorities, combined authorities or police forces are responsible for funding speed cameras comes up. That has led to horrible delays in places like Thorns Road and Manor Way in my constituency, where, despite fatalities and decades of concern, we are still no closer to getting…”

“One issue that we have across Dudley is street racing. We often have groups of young men coming from Birmingham, racing up and down the A456 and through the back streets of Halesowen, terrifying some of my residents. Unfortunately, despite the excellent work of Operation Hercules and the police, we have not really been…”

“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s focus on building up our armed forces in this more uncertain world, but is it not also vital for our national security that we focus on preventing conflict? Bringing sides together to negotiate and mediate can stop conflict spilling over and allow our armed forces to focus on the seriou…”

“What compromises were we not willing to make?”

“I should declare that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on conflict prevention. Last week saw the launch of the Global Peace Index, which is in its 19th year, and it said things that I think no one here would be surprised by. There are currently more separate state conflicts than at any other time sin…”

“I think we can all agree that the UN Security Council has become much worse at conflict prevention, with the Americans and the Russians becoming quite obstructive. There are other actors outside the UN system, though. NGOs do a lot of work on the ground. There is a risk at the moment, with the Americans stepping away a…”

“Could you tell us a little more about the Chagossian trust fund—how it works and what it will be used for?”

“I want to ask about the costs. We saw this week the strategic value of Diego Garcia—all the negotiations around how useful that would be for any conflicts happening in the region. Do you think that what we are paying for it is good value for the taxpayer? Also, how might it compare with other bases in the region that d…”

“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his measured approach to this crisis. In past rounds of violence, Iran has often leaned on its proxies to conduct retaliation. They include the Houthis of Yemen, who until recently had been attacking UK and international shipping in the Red sea. What steps is the Foreign Secretary taki…”

“The Black Country forged the steel that built Britain. Places such as Cradley Heath in Halesowen still have that pride and passion in their towns. Does my hon. Friend agree that the industrial strategy should focus on aerospace, defence and manufacturing so that places like ours can be revitalised because of this Labou…”