Speeches by Smith.

“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio. Sadly, later that day, just after lunch, I discovered that it was not just …”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I have always thought that a zero-hours contract was a terrible name for what is actually flexible hours. There was always an ideological opposition to it, but in practice over two thirds of those who were on the contracts—adults as well, often with caring responsibilities—loved the idea of being able to work when they…”

“It is all about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I fully understand that the Government want to regulate some of that employment to ensure that people are protected, but the Employment Rights Act is so all-consuming and far-reaching that there is not just the cost—estimated at about £5 billion—for companies an…”

“It is always great to have the Minister at the Dispatch Box; we always have a lot of fun. I have had to juggle this issue myself, so I want to ask him a very important question: does he honestly think that making the starting rate for national insurance payments almost half the previous rate has no effect on part-time …”

“It is always good to speak with the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on the Front Bench. Were we discussing the threats that we face or the problems we have with China and the desperate way that they have undercut the market using slave labour, we would be on the same side of the House completely. My…”

“The Prime Minister agreed that he would use all his might to tackle the shadow fleet tankers that were coming through British territorial waters. Since then, one has been taken, and just under 200 shadow fleet tankers have passed through our waters with nothing happening. Are the Government serious about stopping these…”

“Is it not the reality that the plan the Defence Secretary has put forward barely scrapes into 2.7%? It is not 3%. It leaves us £9.3 billion short, every single year of the process. If he is not going to achieve 3% by 2030, how in heaven’s name will he ever achieve the NATO minimum by 2035? It is not going to happen in …”

“It seems that whoever comes into government, the Foreign Office’s weak policy on the UAE persists. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the UAE has incarcerated a British citizen for more than 19 years—illegally, according to the UN. The UAE provides the rebels with significant amounts of arms and weaponry, without which t…”

“Yes, that is quite correct, and my right hon. Friend is exactly right to make the point now. We really must understand that, if the first priority of Government is defence of the realm, then the second priority is defence of those they send to fight to protect the realm. If we cannot defend them, we are not worthy of b…”

“That is exactly the point. I hope that we will be able to drag this point out again on 4 September and make it very clear that if we in this House do not stand by those whom we order to go to war or to bear arms for the sake of the country, who is going to do that? We have the power to sweep things away or to make them…”

“I do; it was difficult and we stuck to the task. We were not very popular at the time, but that has been a constant in my life. [Laughter.] I think you only know you are successful when you are not popular, and we were not popular on that. What we were trying to get was not perfect, but it was better than what we now h…”

“The hon. Member talks about 2014 and the invasion, and he is quite right. I was in Cabinet at the time, and one of the points that I and some others raised was what our position was over this. But the EU got this badly wrong because the President of France and Mrs Merkel headed over, on their own decision, to set up a …”

“It is a tremendous privilege to take part in this debate. It has to be clear to us on both sides of the House that this is the most critical debate that we will be involved with. This is the most critical thing that we face but it often escapes our notice, and I credit my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln …”

“All these things are a great shame when we look back at the past, but no matter how much we fight the issues of the past, we always lose, because we cannot alter them. What we have to do is learn the lessons of the past. By the end, the previous Government had learned the lessons, were committed to spending more, and w…”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. [Laughter.] In those conversations, we decided that there was clearly no future for us in the Army. Now, I did stay on a bit longer, but many left who I knew were very competent and very good people, and it is difficult to fill those posts. That is the bit in the armed f…”

“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he recall that at the end of the cold war a paper was written by Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History?”? Does he agree that on the basis of that, everybody believed somehow that no longer would there be war, no longer would there be pressure and no longer would we…”

“Could we get a commitment today that the Government will look carefully at what countries that are well in advance of us, such as the United States and some European countries, are doing, to make sure that we urgently get on to resolving this issue, rather than delaying with another review and more debates? We know wha…”

“It is always a blessing to have you chairing a meeting, Mr Dowd. It is particularly a blessing today, as we would not have this debate were you not here, so thank you. I have been active on this subject for some time. I have been sanctioned by China because of the issues that we raised over modern-day slavery. I remind…”

“This is the problem again; it is another example of somebody in a country that we seek to have alliances with who is not facing a fair and reasonable process under the law. That is the point that amendment 3 makes.”