Speeches by Thomas.

“What do you think is going to come out of the review, if we had to push you to make a prediction?”

“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.”

“A UK deployment?”

“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…”

“Thank you for your answer. I have taken up a lot of time with my questions. Could you talk specifically about the domestic situation politically in America and the Colby review—your views on that, and your expectations?”

“Much has been made of the ability of treaties and organisations such as these to knock down export-import barriers and make doing business easier and more efficient. I want to ask about ITAR restrictions in particular, which is the dominant question in defence import-export. There have been efforts to make ITAR restric…”

“Sophia, I want to hear your views on ITAR, but we were also discussing AUKUS visas and security clearances with Sir Stephen last week, and we reached widespread consensus that that is one of the major logistical barriers to the delivery of even pillar 1. Could you also touch on those items please?”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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?”

“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…”

“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…”

“Have you been briefed on it personally?”

“Does it work?”

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