Speeches by Thomas.

“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…”

“So if you were running UKDI and you were the person in charge of that, would you be a two star or a three star?”

“Sure. We all understand that the Chancellor is very supportive of the defence agenda. I meant more within the defence team, and particularly by comparison to the American model, where DIU, Defence Innovation Unit in the Department of Defense in America, reports and is championed by the Secretary of State and was establ…”

“Secretary of State, we have had 40 years of peace dividend, with successive Governments enjoying that. You have inherited an alarming situation, and you have laid out during the session lots of strategic aims over the next 10 years to rectify that, including increased spending. I am grateful for all that detail and we …”

“General, let us say there is a 32-strong coalition deploying in 2025—I am talking about 2025, not the future, with future spending. Britain, as the Secretary of State said, has roughly 1,000 troops in Estonia. What kind of numbers can Britain deploy in 2025 as part of an imaginary NATO coalition? We have mentioned 1,00…”

“No, just the question that I have asked you.”

“Okay, fine.”

“Secretary of State, you are very committed to innovation and enhancing and modernising our capabilities—that is clear in the SDR. As part of defence reform, you have created and established UK Defence Innovation, UKDI, which you announced some months ago—there was a press release yesterday about that. Just to get some …”

“Who will it report to? Will it be the NAD?”

“Directly to the NAD; okay. In terms of ministerial portfolio, I assume that the NAD belongs to the defence procurement and industry Minister. Would that be correct?”

“If you were running UKDI and someone asked you the question, “Who do you see as your political champion? Who is the elected politician of the people in the Defence team who is driving this and championing this agenda for you?”, who would be the one person?”

“That is good. Thank you very much.”

“I am going to come to all three of you and ask about other Government Departments. We have mentioned the Treasury a few times, but I think it is important that other Departments help with the issue of access to the right funding for the right companies, for the right kind of growth in the UK. I will frame this by menti…”

“It seems wild to me how quickly other Departments can move companies on to contract, whereas the MoD cannot, unless it is for Kindred to go out the door to Ukraine. We cannot use it ourselves for our own forces. I want to ask about DSIT, and perhaps I can come to you, Nicholas. There are dual-use capabilities. We all k…”

“It is obvious that with companies like Palantir— originally a defence company—providing huge services to the NHS, the lines are going to get more blurred as we go forward. Rob, would you like to come in on any of this?”

“Do you think this Government will deliver that?”

“I have a very short question for Fenella; if possible, I would like a very short answer. You spoke about desire from Governments to make quite sweeping and quite deep reforms to change some of this, which we have talked about for the last hour and a quarter. Do you think the current British Government will have the pol…”

“Many new mothers in Plymouth are claiming maternity allowance, not because they are unemployed, but because they do not qualify for statutory maternity pay; they may be self-employed, have recently changed jobs or have had a pregnancy-related sickness. Many of them have contacted me with concerns that maternity allowan…”