Speeches by Maynard.

“We want the UK to be taken seriously, where what we say is what we mean and we will enforce it. On your point about granular detail, Minister Doughty, it is very logical to say, “If I’m exporting weapons to you, one of the commitments is that you’re not going to forward it on to somebody I don’t want you to forward it …”

“As I understand it, gifts exceeding £300,000 in value are notified to Parliament before the gift is made. What other information is made available? If there were a whole load of £295,000 gifts that were under that bar, what information would be provided for the public to get a sense of what had been going on inside tha…”

“The annual report was released last night.”

“Lord Coaker, Israel’s ambassador to the United States has confirmed that the number of flight hours that Israeli pilots have on the F-35 is greater than that of all the pilots of the other foreign countries that were partners in developing this aircraft. Apart from maybe our country’s interpretation and evidence for it…”

“So the UAE is one of those countries you are talking to, because it is a country that is fuelling this conflict.”

“It would have been ideal to have it a day or two earlier so we had a chance to read it, as opposed to getting a 66-page report the night before we all meet.”

“Minister, just so I am clear what we are talking about, is that with regard to the data for the first quarter of 2027, or data for 2026 that you are reporting in 2027?”

“But not by country. Is that right?”

“Next time, could we just make sure we have a window so that that is not the case?”

“Next year, could we have a 48-hour window for the report, please?”

“That pilot scheme that my colleague Richard Foord is asking for would provide teeth to that. I am interested and intrigued as to why it is not in our national interest to explore a pilot scheme to demonstrate that we have some teeth and backbone, to make sure that what we want to happen happens.”

“Mr Doughty, I just want to go back to the beginning. I am not talking about any other countries; I am talking about the UAE here. Is it arming the RSF, given the widespread reporting in international press? Is that something you accept; do you not know; or is there insufficient evidence? Whether it is The New York Time…”

“We all accept that there are tens of thousands of people being killed in Sudan now. The RSF is, in large part, responsible for that murder. Under the SELC, criterion 1, paragraphs (a), (b) and (f) are about our obligations as a country for governing conventional arms transfers to the UN and the Organization for Securit…”

“Do you accept that we have obligations beyond that? We have prima facie obligations under criterion 1 that we should not break our obligations to the United Nations arms trade treaty.”

“Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. Minister, following on from our 9 June conversation, the Committee was very heartened by your commitment to transparency, particularly around delivery information. We understand that there are some IT issues, but where are you with regard to the commitment to implem…”

“On behalf of the Committee, you have made our day.”

“That is no problem at all; it is clear. Lord Coaker, let me follow up on that transparency trend. There is a Crown exemption: “Where the Crown owns the controlled military goods, technology or software being exported, and has similar rights over disposal, then an exporter acting on the Crown’s behalf may carry out the …”

“Absolutely. The consumers are getting the raw deal, and there is no end in sight. To qualify as an ultimate controller—it is a defined term—a party need only have material influence over Thames Water. The creditor consortium right now is negotiating bilaterally with the company, and has put in £3 billion, but somehow t…”

“I thank my hon. Friend. Rather than having customers pay hundreds of millions of pounds of debt at ludicrous interest rates of nearly 10%, Thames Water should be taken into a special administration regime, which is commonly known as bankruptcy on insolvency grounds. I urge the Government to pursue a SAR on the basis of…”

“I completely agree, and Thames Water’s full-year accounts are out at 7 am tomorrow morning. We will see just what they tell us. It is going to be ugly, not least because the company’s equity is worthless. The largest equity shareholders wrote down their shareholding to zero value and withdrew their board members more t…”