Speeches by Jopp.

“May I thank the Minister for his statement, and express a certain amount of sympathy? Like him, I ran evacuations under fire, and it is pretty chaotic. He and his officials will inevitably attract some criticism—that is the nature of the beast, as he knows. At Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, the Prime Minister li…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, which I read and listened to very closely. Is it fair to summarise the Secretary of State’s statement by saying that he is not going to do anything differently as a result of the conflict in Iran? I listened to and read the statement very closely, and it does not appear…”

“Why did the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons) resign as a Cabinet Office Minister at the weekend?”

“I am grateful to my constituency neighbour for giving way on that point. Would she like to give us a couple of examples where overseas development aid has prevented crises in the way that she describes?”

“Does the hon. Lady remember who led on the international response on Ukraine?”

“Does the Minister think that that will expand or detract from the commissioner’s personal responsibilities and accountabilities?”

“I note that the House rose three hours early yesterday, yet we each get three minutes to speak about the defence estimate. Radically, I want to talk about the estimate itself; much as I would love to do some soaring Churchillian rhetoric, I will instead limit myself to the MOD’s supplementary estimate memorandum, which…”

“I know that I am risking the wrath of the rest of the Committee, but, as I understand the Minister’s explanation, moving the functions from a corporation sole to a body corporate slightly dilutes the personal role of the Information Commissioner inasmuch as it spreads responsibility to a board. The last time I checked,…”

“Do you think that as a nation we know where the British interest is in the High North?”

“So a major chunk of the grey zone is actually white—that is what we are saying.”

“I seem to remember that about 10 years ago there was a flurry of interest in the world of anti-submarine warfare. People were saying, “The ability to make the seas translucent is just around the corner, so we will always know where all submarines are.” I don’t think that was Tom Clancy; I think it was real science, or …”

“Good morning, Professor, and thank you for coming in. Is the High North becoming more strategically important, or is it that it has always been strategically important and we are just waking up to it?”

“I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. I agreed with parts of it. I agreed with him when he said that the regime was an abhorrent one, that British civilians, British service personnel and British sovereign bases had been attacked, and that, “You cannot shoot all the drones out of the air; you have to attack the…”

“2. What steps her Department is taking to support grassroots sport.”

“At 3 o’clock on Saturday, Windsor & Eton football club will play the Ashford Town (Middlesex) team in the north of my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) is coming over with 100 of his closest friends. Will the Leader of the House join me in encouraging as many members of my Spelthorne…”

“St Nicholas church in Shepperton in my constituency made an application under the listed places of worship scheme to get £16,000 of VAT back on essential repairs that it has made. It got an auto-reply saying that the scheme has been used up and that there is no money left. On behalf of the Church Commissioners, will th…”

“I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. In Spelthorne, we love our sport. I was playing walking cricket last week with the cricket club. I have been in the ring at the boxing academy and I have been to the dance academy. We also have Spelthorne FC, Staines & Lammas FC and Ashford Town (Middlesex) FC. I am i…”

“I thank the Minister for his statement. Will he reassure the House that the team who have negotiated the draft treaty that he has brought before us today have had nothing to do with the team that negotiated the disastrous Chagos deal? That deal is, I believe, as of yesterday, on pause, although No. 10 appears to be gai…”

“Does the shadow Minister agree that if Labour Members vote against new clause 5, it would be a classic case of “Do as I say, not as I do”? If they are happy to go on the record as voting it down on that basis, does the shadow Minister agree there would be an element of what is politely termed “variable geometry”? The m…”

“While we are talking about resources and the application of the Bill, I raise with the Minister that, on page 102 of the impact assessment, it states that the going rate for a contract lawyer is £34 an hour. To my mind, that is out by a factor of probably 10. In the 10 days since our last sitting, has the Minister had …”