Speeches by Jopp.

“Who knew?”

“Does the hon. Member acknowledge that whether parents get their money from income or from benefits, the Government, having inherited 2% inflation, have taken it up to 3.6%, which reduces the value of that pound in parents’ pockets?”

“You’re in charge.”

“I will try to speak really slowly and ask not multiple questions but just the one. How much cash did David Kogan give the Prime Minister?”

“Is Surrey going to get a mayor?”

“Very good!”

“Thank you very much indeed. That was very helpful. A lot of the things that you were talking about chime with what the Committee saw during our visits to Washington, Norfolk, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra earlier in the year. Do you have any sense of when the Government are going to publish a redacted, declassified vers…”

“I think you said, in your answer to the first question, that you did not think that the two new Prime Ministers and President had had a conversation about AUKUS—a three-way conversation.”

“Similarly, when we were in Australia, someone floated the idea—no pun intended—that, when we have a fully Australian-crewed Virginia-class boat, a British boat and an American boat alongside one another, surfaced in the Indian ocean, that too would be another drumbeat in building that strategic narrative.”

“If there is not even a trialogue, it is hard to build a narrative. When I think of AUKUS, I am like one of Alex’s voters—I think of that picture in San Diego with Albanese, Sunak and Biden. In order to reinforce all the messages about AUKUS being epoch-changing, multi-generational and politics-proof, would it not be a …”

“Thank you very much indeed for coming in. Could you set the scene as to the circumstances in which your review took place? To what extent were you happy with the terms of reference? Was there anything that you could or could not put into it? Subject to the Government having not yet published the review—and within the r…”

“Please do.”

“What was your motivation for copying in an Opposition Minister?”

“Got it. And you got a reply from Pollard but not from Heappey?”

“This is absolutely gripping. If we could rewind a touch: you informed Heappey, the Minister, and did not get a response for four days. The press reports suggested that you also told, at some stage, Luke Pollard?”

“So in the original email to Heappey, you cc-ed Pollard?”

“What year did you start your XXX?”

“Do you know which unit the 65 guys who had been left behind were from?”

“Just so I have the chronology right, the leak had happened but no one in the MoD knew about it. You are now getting involved and helping out. Who was the colonel who said, “Sixty-five of my guys have been left behind—can you help?”?”

“The Defence Committee recently visited Canberra in Australia. For Members who do not know the geography of the place, the old Parliament building looks down a row of trees and across a lake to the national war memorial. When the new Parliament building was built in the 1980s, it was pushed back so that it had exactly t…”