Speeches by Jopp.

“It is worth giving you the feedback—I have to be very careful to launder my sources here—that on one of our visits we got the impression from a NATO perspective that, to a certain extent, JEF activities represented buccaneering privateers and were not altogether helpful in the NATO construct. That is what was suggested…”

“I want to be clear: Minister, you described it as coming in for “ministerial sign-off”, and Mr Wyatt describe it as requiring “political direction”. I just note that distinction.”

“Minister, fairly recently there was a major incident where three electricity substations caught fire and Heathrow airport went dark. Could that happen to any of our UK airbases?”

“Okay. I do not know whether I can take from that that you know the answer to the question I asked or not. I will turn to Mr Wyatt to ask a slightly different question in the context of defence reform, a more muscular policy shop, a military execution arm and an armaments director. Bear in mind that the Minister said, “…”

“Wonderful, thank you.”

“One of the recommendations in the strategic defence review was for further investment into an integrated air and missile defence system for the United Kingdom. Obviously, the defence investment strategy is going to cover the detail of that, but could you just give us, in policy terms, a sense of any capability choices …”

“Mr Roome is not in his place, but he told a horror story about an SME in his constituency that was on a down select to a prime from eight to seven, and it was being charged 100 grand to do the testing for that down select. Leaving aside the fact that a down select from eight to seven is not a down select, surely the Na…”

“We had a long discussion in Committee about assessing how much this regulator was going to cost and how big it was going to be, but all the amendments we put forward were voted down. When will the Minister know that this thing has grown too big and costs too much?”

“The first line of defence in national resilience is us, the citizenry. The Health Secretary and the Education Secretary wrote recently lamenting the absence of much-needed grit among many of our young people. Now that that risk has been identified at the highest level of Government, does it appear on the risk register?”

“The Mercure hotel in Stanwell in my constituency is used to house asylum seekers, and I have had multiple reports of asylum seekers there working illegally. Will the Department please put that on immigration enforcement’s radar, so that it can take the appropriate action?”

“I regret that the Pensions Minister, the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell), is no longer in his place; I wanted to pay him something of a compliment for getting the Bill here today with typical ambition and enthusiasm. I should, however, remind him of my grandmother’s favourite saying: an ounce of experience …”

“I was just googling “dirigiste” and my right hon. Friend’s everyman quote. Will he comment on the fact that OMERS, which he would probably agree is one of these megafunds that he thinks are slow and unwieldy and invest in infrastructure and illiquids, returned a 7.1% net return over the last 10 years and the London Pen…”

“The way in which the Minister is talking about insurance buy-out suggests that, in the Government’s mind, insurance buy-out is still in some way a gold standard. Can he reassure the House that he is seeking to flatten the playing field, such that the increased choice available to defined-benefit pension schemes will me…”

“Before the general election, the Chancellor said that this would be the most pro-business Government ever. She spoke recently at The Times CEO summit. Before she was introduced to the CEOs, the host asked how many of them thought that this Government are still pro-business, and not a single hand went up. Why does the C…”

“Secretary of State, was the recent US military action against Iran legal, in the view of MOD lawyers?”

“So you are prepared to welcome the ends but not the means.”

“Permanent secretary, when you came to speak to us in November, you said that over the course of this Parliament you were going to reduce the number of permanent civil servants by 10%. I wonder, seven months on, how you are getting on.”

“When you speak to your opposite number in the US, how understanding are they about the fact that the Government have not been able to support them publicly?”

“Secretary of State, I like you, but I also like Mr Twigg, because Mr Twigg asks great questions. He asked you, on the tactical nuclear capability, why did we not go for a sovereign capability? Why did we go for a dual key? You gave him a very long answer, but you did not answer that question. Will you give it another g…”

“If we are totally as one with the US—that is the phrase you just used—why can you not say publicly that you support the US’s actions?”