Speeches by Twigg.

“You would have thought that a new Government comes in, in July, and there is an opportunity. Why do you think they didn’t take it then?”

“You feel from what you knew and what the judge said that the risk had changed, but the Government did not feel that the risk had changed.”

“But there is no evidence that they knew before then.”

“Do you think that, from the previous Government to this Government, the issue about misleading Parliament and Parliament being kept in the dark was never the main consideration in this?”

“I am talking about Ministers.”

“It could be convenience at any point in time, even now that it has come out.”

“Sorry—obviously, you know more of the detail than we do. At that point in 2024, given what you have said that the judge said, why would the Government then continue with it? What was the purpose for them to do that, if you believe that there was an opportunity at that point to say, “This is what happened”?”

“Keeping this in the scope of misleading Parliament and what you have said so far—we will not go into the Rimmer review; other colleagues will come on to that—I think you said early on that they had the original injunction in place and you understood why that was in place. At what point do you think they should have lif…”

“Are you suggesting that the sensitivity around small boats, asylum and people coming to this country illegally coloured the Government’s view about how they would handle this?”

“Was that October or November? There was a HEA meeting—”

“That goes back to the original question. Was that a part of the narrative—the worry about the issue of immigration?”

“Right. It is a bit, also, “new Ministers being caught in headlights” type of thing—“What is going on here?””

“Will the Minister please leave a minute or two for the hon. Member who secured the debate to wind up?”

“I remind hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”

“A final point: is the Government doing enough to attract private capital into pillar 2? That builds on the point you were just making.”

“Mr Timms, in response to the first question that Michelle Scrogham asked you, you outlined some of the issues that need to be addressed. I was a little underwhelmed by your answer’s lack of enthusiasm for doing that. Maybe I can give you a second chance: do you feel that the improvements and changes that need to take p…”

“My question is whether you believe that these changes that you have talked about—and that we have discussed in this Committee—can be achieved in the timescales that you need to deliver them.”

“Can you tell us why you have that confidence?”

“Let us remind ourselves what pillar 2 could include. As you know, there was a statement made in September 2021 about deeper co-operation and interoperability. It could include undersea capabilities, more in terms of artificial intelligence, cyber-capabilities and—I don’t want to give a full list—hypersonic and counter-…”

“But my question is, does that not give an advantage to the Chinese, who do have a route map and a plan?”