Speeches by Jopp.

“You have a range of adversaries out there, and you have seen them develop these new techniques onto the surfaces that you refer to. There's nothing new under the sun but national character. To what extent does that inform the way in which they develop their own offensive capability?”

“That is very much looking at it from our point of view, and how we protect against said attacks, but I want to invite you to explore the nature of the threat. You have described it as autocratic, as if that covers the spectrum, but is there a nuance within that in terms of our adversaries’ national approach to the way …”

“In our last session, we were discussing how we loved the clarity of the ideas of perfect peace and perfect war, because then our rules kick in and we know where we stand, but this “grey zone” that we are talking about really just represents life. The gap on the spectrum between competition and conflict is another grey …”

“We are going to come to the nation’s response in a minute, but I want to explore the nature of the threat. You said something about culture—I cannot remember the word you chose—but when it was the cold war and treated as a war of national survival, do you think we were better at keeping secrets than we are now?”

“But is the genie out of the bottle? Can we only go in one direction for a liberal democracy, or can we re-instil that security culture?”

“I also congratulate the Secretary of State on coming to the Chamber with such a massive capital expenditure announcement and eliciting a saving with his answer to the first question from the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh). One of the plans that went by the board in May, for reasons I have n…”

“I will say it, because no one else has: many happy returns for tomorrow. I genuinely thought that you were in your mid-30s—that the Secretary of State was in his mid-30s.”

“Speaking of that, I noticed in your report that three complaints were raised against your office, and that one of them was upheld and an apology issued, which is a pretty shocking strike rate and worse than all three of the services, as far as I can work out. Can you please describe to us the nature of that complaint a…”

“T8. Tower Hamlets planning officers have rejected China’s application to build a super-embassy there, but rather than put this through the appeals process that anyone else would have to go through, the Foreign Secretary has got the Deputy Prime Minister to call in that application. My question to the Foreign Secretary …”

“I am interested in this phenomenon you are describing of the complaining culture increasing rather than the behaviour declining. Is there any clustering effect around a unit or trade? Could you do the analysis from the information you get to see whether that one is becoming traditionally much more complaining than that…”

“I was struck earlier when you said, “There are a million areas that I would love to get into”. I just remind you of that.”

“Rommel said that the best form of welfare is better training, because better training means fewer widows. The commissioner, by looking at the welfare brief, could be exploring equipment, as the German commissioner is. She interprets it pretty broadly, and it is a sort of “go anywhere” pass so to do.”

“You could be quite broad in your application of the word “welfare”, could you not?”

“The German model does not allow armed forces personnel’s family to approach their commissioner. They have to funnel it, as your remit currently is, via the serviceperson. What are the pros and cons of extending the remit of the commissioner to service families?”

“What interaction have you had with service families, if any?”

“There was only one of three, and you cannot tell us what it was about.”

“I do not know whether the Secretary of State has had a moment to read The Times this morning, but it reports that the Chancellor is using a new AI tool to answer her emails. It is 70% accurate and is “performing as good or better than existing processes”, which does not say a great deal for the ability of the Chancello…”

“I have a certain amount of sympathy for the hon. Member for Widnes and Halewood (Derek Twigg), whom the Minister slightly fobbed off with his answer. Now that he has had a chance to calm down and check his notes, I will ask the question again on the hon. Member’s behalf: what have the Government done to advance the cas…”

“We have an anomalous situation in Spelthorne whereby someone can get six London red buses on an Oyster card, but they cannot get the train out to the stations at the end of the line. Major employers, such as BP and Shepperton Studios, are sending buses up the line to bring down those people who cannot use an Oyster car…”

“When the Secretary of State appeared at the Defence Committee recently, he was sitting alongside his permanent secretary when the permanent secretary announced that it was his aspiration to reduce the number of MOD civil servants by 10% within this Parliament. Does the Secretary of State recognise and welcome that aspi…”