Speeches by Thomas.

“That is interesting, and it brings us back to the domestic politics in the US. This Committee visited DC not so long ago, and in the Pentagon one of the questions that we asked is, “What do you guys want to see the British do? Do you want us in the Indo-Pacific or not?” Note that our aircraft carrier was about to go th…”

“A UK deployment?”

“Good morning to you both, and thank you for joining us. I want to start by asking about geopolitical considerations, noting that AUKUS has been around as a concept for a long time and as an agreement for a number of years now. In that time, there have been changes of Government within the three countries in the agreeme…”

“They say all politics is local. Thank you for that; we will come back to you. Specifically, I am personally interested in hearing more about your views on the Colby review and what the mood is in America. Sid, I will come to you for the geopolitics.”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate argument for the hospitality sector in our coastal communities. Plymouth has some of the best pubs in England, and I am convinced that beer tastes better in pubs in Plymouth than in any other place in the UK. I have a question for my hon. Friend: does he not think it is importa…”

“I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his service on those Bill Committees. I do not agree with what he said, but that is the nature of this debate, and I am willing to have it. To close, it has been alluded to that we are yet to see from the Government what the safeguards will be for veterans. I will say this o…”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) on introducing this important debate. I pay tribute to the strength of argument and strength of feeling that we have heard from hon. Members so far. I would like to put on re…”

“Not quite yet. The bigger context is that the world is extremely insecure at the moment. We all hope and pray that this country never has to go to war again. Personally, I think we might have to in the foreseeable future. We hope that does not happen, but when and if it does we need the moral, legal and total legitimac…”

“I have just taken an intervention, so I will not. Context is king. We have had peace for a generation. Hon. Members have passionately laid out the wrongs, ills and evils of the IRA, going through operational detail, which I appreciate. No one is suggesting that any of those things were justified—that is not the argumen…”

“To clarify, I said there are 500 veterans in Plymouth Moor View who signed the petition, so I am not sure that I can answer the hon. Member because I did not meet with them recently to talk about this issue. I do not think that anyone is suggesting that veterans themselves are naive.”

“Thank you. I appreciate you were busy this morning; I doubt the action plan was written this morning. Let us turn to cadets and reserve forces. I was really interested to see a lot of focus on them in the SDR. That is built on the whole-of-society approach—how do we communicate to the wider public that we are in a heig…”

“Thank you. We will come on to the whole-of-society approach—I think we are interested in that—but I just wanted to understand a bit more about the division of responsibility and accountability. Who would you say is in charge of national resilience in the UK, at the political level?”

“If the answer to this is no, I think you can safely point to the previous Government and what you inherited, but would you say that, currently, we are upholding our article 3 responsibilities in NATO?”

“Minister, homeland defence and resilience takes up a whole chapter in the SDR, and I believe it is part of your ministerial portfolio as well. I will ask a few questions around how plans are progressing, but I would first acknowledge that this Government inherited a homeland defence plan from the previous Government. B…”

“Have you been briefed on it personally?”

“Does having those different stakeholders concern you from an accountability point of view, or do you think that is good as a system?”

“Does it work?”

“I understand that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is making a statement shortly in the Chamber about the resilience action plan. Have you been briefed on that already?”

“Okay. I think there is a concern that some of our national resilience is too stovepiped. The idea that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is making a resilience action plan statement in the Chamber today and the Armed Forces Minister has not been briefed in detail on it sort of suggests that there might not be ve…”

“Okay, fine.”