Speeches by Martin.

“Recently, General Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff, said that he was “ashamed” by the stories of sexual misconduct—predominately crimes committed against women in service. He also said that lots of these crimes go unreported, so lots are unknown as well as the terrible ones that are known. How can we have a …”

“This defence review gives us a long shopping list of technological advances—the cyber command, digital backbone, drones, AI—and that is right and proper, but the British military is tiny. Recently, the Select Committee heard that if we had to fight tonight, we could scratch together five ships and 30 planes. The person…”

“I am in favour of this new method of delivery, which gives us more options and probably makes it less likely in the long run that nuclear weapons will be used. However, cost is key, and with 20% of the defence budget already taken up by the defence nuclear enterprise, it is clear that our conventional capabilities are …”

“It is not just the House as a whole; the Defence Committee also was not given advance sight of the report. Committee members were left texting journalists over the weekend to find out what was going on. At the beginning of this Parliament, the Defence Secretary committed to the Defence Committee that he would be more o…”

“In Tunbridge Wells, buses are not a luxury: they connect schoolchildren to their classrooms, the elderly to their communities, carers to patients, and people unable to drive to jobs, shops and healthcare. When those links are weakened, lives are disrupted and communities start to fracture. If lockdown taught us anythin…”

“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous, although I might suggest that he works on his queuing system a little bit. I understand that the timetable issue is a difficult one, and most things seem to be arriving in the spring with this Government, but could we talk about the format? Are we…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“rose—”

“Very few issues in politics, particularly international politics, are black or white, but this is one such issue. The Israeli Government are using collective punishment of the civilian Palestinian population, which is illegal under international law and contravenes the Geneva conventions, to which Israel is party. Does…”

“Have they changed their structures, processes and personnel to facilitate that speeding-up?”

“Looking at those three domains, as well as space and cyber, we do okay in cyber; in space, we significantly underperform; and we have discussed the three physical domains. We have a strategic defence review coming out. Where would you put the balance of investment effort across those five domains?”

“As a final question, you mentioned that we have not been in this situation since the 1790s, when there was something approaching national panic. Why do we not have national panic about this at the moment, and should we?”

“You said something earlier about a wargame and a simulated attack on the United Kingdom. What was the outcome? Did they win?”

“Well, blow me down.”

“I was really struck by your comments on what you called the commercial guy and these conversations that you have with them. I just wonder whether we are recruiting the right kind of person to be the commercial guy. We are bringing in a national armaments director who is the commercial guy or girl in the system. What so…”

“Would you argue that we need to change the fair procurement rules in order to rearm?”

“If the UK had to fight tonight against a peer adversary, what would go out the door and how long would it last?”

“How many ships—three?”

“Would that be 30?”

“We are just exploring this, so 2,000 troops, five ships and 30 aircraft. Is there any point in British history at which we ever had such a poor ability to field a fighting force?”