Speeches by Thomas.

“I have a very brief yes/no question for you, Rupert. When you are going about doing procurement and you are looking at companies to potentially acquire from, are you under any policy or direction to bias towards British companies?”

“It might sound like I am being pedantic, which you find amusing, which I understand. As you will be aware, the criticism from around Europe and the world is that the UK does this phenomenally badly. It is quite a serious point, actually. When we field a force at some point in the next few years, and they do not have th…”

“It is. So it is not part of MSHQ’s responsibilities?”

“When you say, “Peering over our shoulder and making sure that we spend the money wisely,” how does that work?”

“I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend’s leadership at this time. One of the defining characteristics of the UK’s response to the crisis when Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was the political unity that this party, the Labour party, offered our country. Does he find it extremely disappointing…”

“The hon. Gentleman mentions that, given what has happened in the past few days in the middle east, the country needs to spend more on defence, but does he agree with me that the country needs to spend differently on defence? When drones cost barely tens of thousands of pounds, we need to start buying or making capabili…”

“And among allies?”

“Thank you. Marc?”

“Thank you.”

“Ed, I want to pick up on something that you said about Government responsibilities, which harks back to something I read from you in the press recently about the High North and Scotland. You were talking about how although in the UK defence is led by the Government, resilience is devolved. You talked about how Lossiemo…”

“Reflecting on the capabilities point, I have a personal reflection to balance the things you were saying about the UK divesting itself of its abilities. When I finished Royal Marines training in 2018, my first action after three or four months was being sent, straight off the bat, into Arctic warfare training. That was…”

“For sure. This is the last question from me. Ed, your colleagues on the panel have been clear about the need for collaboration and leadership in the High North outside of NATO constructs. What is your view? Does NATO have clear policies for security and defence in the High North?”

“We are going to come on to JEF in a bit. Sorry to cut you off, but I totally recognise what you are saying. While I have the mic, I want to ask you something else, Dr Marc. I know that you have done a lot of work on military innovation. Obviously, NATO has DIANA, the NATO Innovation Fund and a whole innovation team tha…”

“We talked a bit already about NATO. I would like to pick up on something, Professor Kennedy-Pipe. As Ed set out, there is clear potential for NATO policies on land, with that route up to Murmansk and Finland now a part of NATO. How clear is NATO’s operating model and policy for joint maritime operations across NATO cou…”

“I do not want to get into other people’s questions; I just wanted to pick up on the point about resilience being devolved.”

“That is a very interesting way to finish your point about risks to UK capability, and you have highlighted people skills. I will move on to the other panellists, but I might come back to that at the end of my questions. Commodore, can you give us a loose sense—maybe only theoretically—of what the UK is able to field to…”

“How is that utilised? What is its benefit?”

“We are all clear about the outstanding capabilities—potentially world beating—of the UK submarine fleet. We also know the challenges of availability of that same fleet. You described tens of thousands of kilometres and miles of subsea infrastructure. We will not get into quite how unavailable some of our submarines are…”

“Thank you. Can I bring that question to Commodore John? For context, you work for Thales now. I am sure that, during your military career, you will have worked with French counterparts at various points. Can you give us a sense of the potential for further collaboration?”

“Thanks so much to the panel. We have heard a lot about the state of play, adversaries and threats, but I want to bring us on to the UK and our own capabilities. Brett, what does the UK currently have, and what is it developing, to counter some of the threats that you have outlined? We have a clear picture of China and …”