Speeches by Martin.

“I will make a comment and then hand back to the Chair. When you talk about European partners, and you list a series of bilateral arrangements, perhaps we need to do larger-scale, more multilateral co-ordination about how we are going to co-ordinate that. All this money is going to flood into the marketplace, and it if …”

“So you have one investment plan?”

“It saves us money, if we get it right.”

“On co-ordination with European allies and other allies, their spending is going up as well. We are going to be buying off many of the same firms. Are we trying to get ahead of that curve, so that we speak with one voice?”

“Are you going to sit on that defence investment advisory group?”

“With its NI rises, among other measures, last year’s Budget skewed the tax burden on to small companies. My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) has just laid out some measures that would skew that burden towards bigger companies and multinationals. Given that the Government’s No. 1 priority is growth, c…”

“What about your strategy?”

“Does the Minister think it more or less likely that, as a result of the American airstrikes, Iran will get a nuclear bomb?”

“Less than three weeks ago, the Home Secretary whipped her Back Benchers against new clause 43 to the Crime and Policing Bill, which had cross-party support and would have criminalised the harassment of women and girls. Her Ministers promised at the Dispatch Box and elsewhere that the new clause was not necessary becaus…”

“In effect, because you do not have Bs in your training unit.”

“With the purchase of the F-35As, we are in effect talking about ending up with broadly 90% of the carrier variants of the F-35s that we were going to purchase. Does that decision, which I support, in any way impact on the capabilities of the carriers, their ability to deploy full air wings and all that kind of stuff?”

“Was that the £30,000 RAF one?”

“Sure.”

“So you would argue that there is some jam today.”

“You probably have the same briefings that we have. We have received briefings that some of our NATO allies are concerned about Britain’s ability to meet the targets, particularly when other NATO allies are also failing to meet theirs. The beauty of the alliance is that we all work for each other in collective defence, …”

“How well does the UK measure up against targets?”

“That is a great segue to my last question, which is really about the philosophy of the SDR. The SDR is about a transformation of defence to a hybrid force and increasing lethality. In conceptual terms, it is a great document. In reality, however, with the resource profile, the inputs—inputs of course do matter—we are r…”

“As you know, Secretary of State, the UK, as with all other NATO countries, has to meet NATO capability targets. How would you say we are doing against our NATO capability targets at the moment? And when do you think we might meet them?”

“It is actually worse than just importing goods from the settlements. We are receiving tariffs from their import, so the British Government are making money from that import of goods. Would the Minister speak to that in his closing remarks?”

“It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth on bringing forward this Bill. By reducing the funding termination agreement period from seven years to two, the Bill aims to make secure 16-to-19 academies more cost effective and adaptable, givin…”