Speeches by Jopp.

“This morning, eight four-star generals and an air chief marshal took the unprecedented step of writing to the newspapers. Their letter deserves to be heard in full and to be entered the public record. They write: “Having held the honour of leading the United Kingdom’s armed forces, we do not speak out lightly. Yet on A…”

“I am grateful to the hon. Member, who I like very much, for giving way on that point. He is clearly a massive fan of the Employment Rights Bill. The people of Falkirk are watching him, so would he like to commit to them that if, having passed the Employment Rights Bill, unemployment goes up and therefore we have fewer …”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“Would the hon. Member like to put his money where his mouth is and tell us whether his faith in the Employment Rights Bill is such that he is prepared to make a commitment to his constituents in Ellesmere Port and Bromborough that if, having passed this Bill, unemployment goes up, he will resign his seat?”

“It was early June.”

“Part of the reason we are looking after the Afghans is that this will not be our last rodeo and we want to be able to go down range and rely on consent, to a certain extent, to be able to operate among the people. Among your contacts both still in Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the military bases back in the UK, have …”

“But no one ever considered that the soldier might have done it deliberately. That is my question.”

“I want to go all the way back to the breach itself. Can you give us a sense of the extent to which, in your investigations and dealings, it was just assumed that it was a cock-up? Did anyone entertain the notion that it was deliberate?”

“Now that the Secretary of State has warmed up a bit by calling the SNP a threat to our national security, will he have another go and say whether China is a threat to our national security?”

“The Secretary of State baulked at the word “equivalence”, so I will have a go with another one. Does he believe that Northern Ireland terrorists should be treated equally to Northern Ireland veterans? If he does, why does he not issue letters of comfort to those Northern Ireland veterans?”

“On the point of global context, will he give way?”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“On that, will he give way?”

“When the Committee held its one-off session on investment in life sciences, did it unearth the reasons why Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Merck have recently chosen to disinvest in life sciences in the UK?”

“I sympathise with the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell); my Spelthorne constituency is on the southern side of Heathrow airport, and the residents of Stanwell Moor, a village of some 520 homes, are half a mile away from the southern perimeter. They have put up with a lot, including appalling b…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I met an SME at DSEI that asked me, “Does the British Government know it is being legged over by the primes by simply adding margin and no value on to the invoices I send them?” So there are other perspectives.”

“Andrew slightly touched on part of the answer to this question. Forgive me, I do not know whether you were in the first session, when we had BAE, Rolls-Royce and Babcock. I do not want you to bite the hand that feeds you, but are our 18 primes doing enough, or investing enough, in the skills they need in order to deliv…”

“It is nice to see the Union represented so well in the accents on display from our witnesses today.”

“That might be a question we can ask when we are out there, in order to get a comparison.”