Speeches by Martin.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. The amendment and the new clause are designed to do the same thing in two separate pieces of legislation. Essentially, this is about making sure that defence home standards cover both service family accommodation and single living accommodation. That is importa…”

“I know of what the Minister speaks. A four-bedroom house may have four servicepeople living in it as single living accommodation—the defence equivalent of a house in multiple occupation—but does that not speak to the point that SLA and SFA should be treated under the same standards?”

“In the light of the Minister’s words— I know him well from before we came into politics—I am happy to take him up on his offer, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Amendment proposed: 3, in clause 3, page 8, line 16, at end insert— “(6A) The standards in subsection (6) must…”

“Because you report to Parliament, you are going to have to use politicians—“use” is not the right word—and their platform, alongside your own in order to drive through the change that you want to bring. Have you had any experience of operating in that space?”

“I thank Philip Rycroft for his review and the Secretary of State for the announcement today. I am particularly happy that we have this idea about it being retrospective and applying the measures from today because we do not know when the Bill will come through. May I encourage the Secretary of State to consider, both f…”

“On the 10th?”

“This is a comment rather than a question, but you can sometimes shape the media narrative by getting ahead. You will enjoy doing that.”

“I think we would hope to work really closely with you, so thank you. I have a final question about media scrutiny. The media are interesting. They are like a placid lake—they ignore you—and suddenly there is something, you become the story of the day, and intense scrutiny comes from all angles. Have you had any experie…”

“I see you have started already—very good.”

“How do you work with politicians?”

“You mentioned Cyprus, which I thought was a really interesting example. What sort of issues were you grappling with there in a public-facing sense, with you having to speak to the media? How did you solve those challenges?”

“You touched on this before, but I would like to delve into some of your experience. As you said in relation to your priority, this is a major public-facing role, and you are going to be setting it up from scratch. Have you had experience of doing that sort of thing before? Are there things in your past that you can dra…”

“Accountability often comes from straight lines through organisations, rather than diffusion. Diffusion often leads to the opposite of accountability. Do you see part of your role as making recommendations to the Secretary of State where lines of accountability have been diffuse or blurred—where they need to be straight…”

“I am really interested to hear you use the word “accountability”. It is such an important word when it comes to the MoD. As a Committee, we have seen repeatedly that many of the MoD’s woes lie in that word “accountability”, whether it is procurement, for example, over who is accountable for Ajax; losses of data, where …”

“One way of summarising what you have just said is that you are going to bring greater coherence to it, so that there is just one channel, and you have dealt with all the recommendations. What would be your top one, two or three priorities over the next year?”

“Thank you for coming today and for your time. I have a quick question on independence. I noticed that you are a reservist. Are you going to be resigning your commission before taking on this role?”

“That is great, because you have done every role in the system. What are the problems with the system, and what needs fixing?”

“Perhaps it would be helpful to explain that it is a floor, rather than a target.”

“In the same vein, we see the Bill as part of our constitutional duty, and one that will help us to deliver the best for our service personnel—an aim that we all share. I echo the shadow Minister’s thanks to the Clerks and you, Mr Efford. I, too, look forward to working collegially across the Committee to ensure that we…”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that, since the heart of the covenant is about establishing parity and equity of service provision for all serving personnel and veterans, we must establish exactly what that means as a minimum? Without establishing what services must be provided—as a floor, not a ceiling—how can we have equit…”