Lincoln Jopp MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 24 Jun 2026 · Draft Local Government (Structural and Boundary Changes) (Control of Disposals etc.) (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  indicated assent .

• 24 Jun 2026 · Draft Local Government (Structural and Boundary Changes) (Control of Disposals etc.) (Amendment) Order 2026 · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way on that point?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  I do not know whether my hon. and gallant Friend has yet had the opportunity to go down to Speaker’s Court and meet the armed forces representatives there. I met the very improbably titled Fungus 1, who is an F-35 pilot, and I was appalled to hear that he had spent nine years in training and has only just done three months on the frontline. As well as all the other things we are giving Defence Ministers to think about, surely pilot training has to be one of them, if we are going to be ready.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  I thank the former Minister for his intervention. There is a huge challenge to us, in that we have to turn our ploughshares into swords rather than the other way round. We need industry that is sufficiently flexible to flick the switch and turn the lawn mower factory into the drone factory in double-quick time.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  The other group that has been bypassed, and which I did not mention, is the 18 prime contractors. This is direct to the SMEs. I am afraid that the model that we have developed since the end of the cold war has seen the 18 primes getting rich off defence pounds and SMEs getting legged over. The national armaments director should look seriously at the way in which that is done, in order to capture the innovative nature of SMEs that are doing some wonderful stuff. Ironically, they are not selling that to the MOD; it is all going overseas. To the point made by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar about showing honesty about the threat, I agree that we must be very clear about the threat and express it outside this place at every opportunity. The Prime Minister of Norway talks about defence about once a week in all his radio and television interviews. We met Norway’s joint forces commander, and even he goes on once a week and talks about the threat. Okay, Norway is nearer Russia, and it has a small land border and a very large sea border with Russia. The strategic defence review mentioned starting a national conversation; it seems to be a conversation of one line. If we are to get the investment that defence needs, we need to talk much more openly. One other thing that happened during the cold war, I am afraid, is that the MOD became much more secretive. The Defence Committee always used to get things such as the major projects review and the equipment plan to see how the pounds were being spent. We do not get those any more. Similarly, James Heappey came to give evidence to the Committee on the Afghan data breach, but he got quite lyrical and started to say that he felt uneasy that, as Minister for the Armed Forces, he was getting lots of documents that said, “You can’t tell Parliament this” and “You can’t tell Parliament that”, because it was all highly classified. He claims that he wanted to be able to tell Parliament more but was constrained from so doing by the classification system. The Defence Committee used to do its own redaction. It used to get the full threat picture and was grown up enough to redact and not release secrets to the public. That would be a much healthier way of doing things as we go forward. I turn finally to the moral component of fighting power. We have talked a lot about the physical component, and the moral is to the physical as three to one. We know that is true because Napoleon said it, and he was brilliant. I have had conversations with both former and current Ministers about the undermining of the moral component of fighting power with the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. That is why, when I came tenth in the ballot for a private Member’s Bill, I took the opportunity to attempt to put in law that there should be no further investigations, inquests, inquiries or prosecutions of Northern Ireland veterans unless, in the view of a Supreme Court judge, there is new, compelling evidence. The Bill comes to the House of Commons on 4 September and I very much hope that I can get cross-party support for it. I fear deeply for the stain on the moral component through the constant hounding of our veterans; indeed, I declare an interest as I spent three-and-a-half years of my life in uniform trying to bring peace to that place. I was not shot and blown up there but somewhere else. When the children of the schools in my constituency hear that I have been shot, they all look at me and say, “Where?” I always say, “On the roof of the Mammy Yoko hotel in Freetown.” [ Laughter. ] The moral component must be reinforced; it does not need resourcing. I hope that the new Secretary of State for Defence was only prepared to accept the job because he had some deal over Northern Ireland veterans. I look forward to finding out whether that is indeed the case, because our veterans need protecting from those prosecutions.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  May I say what a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie), who was speaking a great deal of sense? He mentioned the threat that we face in the High North. He might be interested to know that the Defence Committee was in Norway last week. We went up to the Arctic circle, to the Combined Air Operations Centre at Bodø, where we were told an extraordinary story. When the forces there were doing a security exercise, they put a baddie on the roof of a sangar near the air base’s gate, and took a dog round to find the baddie. The dog did not want to know about the bloke they had put on the roof of the sangar; he would not stop indicating an issue with the sangar itself. He kept on indicating, “There’s something there.” They thought, “Oh blimey, we’d better go and get the keys.” They got the keys and found a Chinese spy, who had been in there for a week. He was arrested and is doing time in prison in Norway—pre-trial, I believe, on remand. That brings home exactly what the hon. Member said: we are talking about real threats and real enemies, and in that case, they were are literally at the gate. I joined the Army in 1986, and it generously paid for me to go to university to study theology and philosophy—that was very broad-minded of it at the time. I went back to Sandhurst to confirm my commission in 1989. That was a significant moment. I was on college guard, polishing my boots, as I watched the Berlin wall fall. I did not really understand that the geopolitical glue that had helped keep the world safe for the last 40 years was coming unstuck, or what the implications might be for Officer Cadet Jopp, but the implications were certainly there. Those bonds, which had kept the cold war in stasis, did indeed start to melt, and that meant that I had a very busy military career. I went to war when the Conservatives were in power, and when Labour was in power. I have had poor equipment. Both sides of the House have been responsible for part of what happened following 1989, as we started to manage decline. Do not get me wrong: I am so proud of the men and women of our armed forces, particularly those I led. I buried men from my regiment, and I try not to forget to always pay tribute to them and what they did; it enabled me to stand here and be their voice today. Essentially, from the end of the cold war, successive Governments started to take risks. This ticking time bomb has been passed on from Government to Government. Bad luck, Labour: it has gone off on this Government’s watch; that is the fact of it. Essentially, a very big lie has been told to the British public; they have been told that we can have the defence we want at the price that we are prepared to pay for it.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Given what he is saying about Northern Ireland, would he support a private Member’s Bill that would set out in law that there should be no further investigations, inquiries, inquests or prosecutions unless, in the view of a Supreme Court judge, new and compelling evidence has come to light? If so, I can only recommend that he come to the Chamber on 4 September, when my Northern Ireland Troubles (Criminal Investigations etc) Bill will have its Second Reading.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend and fellow Scots Guardsman makes a good point. The zeitgeist throughout that period of time was to say, “Look, wars are a thing of the past. We can take risk against defence.” That risk has rarely crystallised, so people have been tempted to take more and more risk. We have also seen it in the hypothecation of defence spending. I get an Army pension, which contributes to the 2% of GDP being spent on defence. The last time I checked—despite the Minister for the Armed Forces having threatened to mobilise me more than once—my pension was not making a huge contribution to our ability to face down a resurgent Russia. Everyone was taking risk and passing on that risk to one another. Now, I am afraid, that risk has crystallised in that we do face real enemies, and those enemies are very close. We do have to rearm—I should declare an interest as a founder of the all-party parliamentary group on rearmament—but unfortunately our record on that is not great. The numbers were run the other day and of the 32 NATO members recorded we came 31st for rearmament. The only trouble is, in 32nd is Iceland, which does not have any armed forces. That is not a great record for going over to Europe and trying to convince our European and NATO allies that we are pulling our weight. One or two other things happened in that period of time. First, the MOD got pretty bloated, in particular in procurement. It is deeply unhelpful that we are now on our third Procurement Minister in less than 22 months, which makes it look like we are not taking it seriously. Equally, it shows no consistency in the building of approach. When the Government came in, they appointed the national armaments director, who will be the second-highest paid civil servant in the country. I hope that he is a massive success. I tried to set up the national armaments director up for success before his appointment by asking two Procurement Ministers whether the director would be given carte blanche to tear up the book when it comes to procurement. One of them said not only would he be given the ability to tear up the book but that they would hold him to account for doing so. I said, “The last thing anyone on the Defence Committee wants is for the national armaments director to come in front of us, after being in post a year, to say, ‘Well, we did want to change things, but I wasn’t really allowed to.’” The way is set fair: the national armaments director can rip up that book. When the Defence Committee went to Ukraine last year, we were briefed on its procurement structure, which is extraordinary. Ukraine has put together an Amazon-like marketplace with 1,700 sovereign Ukrainian defence companies as suppliers and the customers being the fighting brigades, who simply write a requirement for a new bit of kit. For example, let us say that the Russians have got a new screen so the brigades cannot fly their fibre optically guided munition right into the Russians’ command post and have it blow up on the general’s desk. The brigade simply writes up that requirement, saying “I need a pre-charge of some sort to burst through that screen so I can fly my fibre optic guided missile in and get the baddies.” That gets put out to industry, which churns the problem; the record, from flash to bang—from requirement to kit delivery—is five days. That is what can be achieved. Hon. Members must look at what is being bypassed to achieve that level of agility: the whole of the military chain of command above brigade level, bypassed; the Ministry of Defence, bypassed; the Treasury, bypassed; and equally, all the regulators, bypassed. That should give the national armaments director a sense of where we have to go to generate the relevance. I think I heard the Armed Forces Minister—I cannot remember whether it was the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) or the current one—say the other day that it is rather tricky buying drones, because as soon as we have them they go out of date, so we will not buy any. That is pretty defeatist. We should redo the way in which we are thinking about things so that our land forces in Estonia have drones.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Members of a mini-Parliament from Town Farm primary school in Stanwell, in my constituency, visited me here this morning and asked me some very good questions. I was, for instance, asked for my view of the new right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), but we will leave that one where it is. The school’s head, Mr Bhatti, has just been given the OBE in the King’s birthday honours. These things do not come up with the rations. Will the Secretary of State please put on record her thanks to Mr Bhatti and all the team at Town Farm primary school for the outstanding job that they do?

• 22 Jun 2026 · G7 Summit · Hansard source

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  This is a joke, right, Madam Deputy Speaker? We have got the Deputy Prime Minister here giving a statement on a G7 summit that he was not at. I am embarrassed to point that out in front of the Public Gallery and the world. Can the Deputy Prime Minister name a single Prime Minister who has gone to a G7, a G8 or a G20 and not come back personally to make a statement to this House?

• 11 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. The Secretary of State will be aware of the provision in the national planning policy framework that if a proposed development is within 800 metres of a train station, it is a presumed yes from the planning inspector’s point of view. However, that creates a planning loophole in my Spelthorne constituency because Kempton Park station is the first one outside the Oyster zone, so no matter how many houses are built there, no one will use the station because they will all go one stop up the line to Hampton to travel much more cheaply. As a result of that loophole, Barratt Redrow is planning to put in a planning application to flatten Kempton Park racecourse and put 2,000 homes on it. Will the Secretary of State look at the planning loophole in the NPPF to ensure that it is not abused? How would she feel if she were indirectly responsible for the destruction of an internationally famous, iconic racecourse?

• 11 Jun 2026 · Freedom of Religion or Belief: Sudan · Hansard source

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  When these things take place, it is abhorrent to the whole House. Laws mean nothing when the state lacks even the most basic capacities to enforce them. Among this chaos, bad actors are thriving. We have long known that Russia deploys mercenaries in Sudan in return for a free hand to smuggle gold and a Red sea port for Putin. There are reports that the Houthis are using the chaos in Sudan to smuggle weapons to their terrorist forces in Yemen. In keeping with the topic of this debate, Iran is using its links to Islamist paramilitaries to perpetrate Sudanese civilians’ suffering. For example, the Al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade is a Sudanese Islamist militia that has contributed tens of thousands of fighters to the civil war. The US has placed sanctions on the BBMB, but the United Kingdom has not. BBMB fighters have reportedly been involved in arbitrary arrests, torture and summary executions. The BBMB has benefited from training and weapons provided by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—the same organisation that the Minister’s party, when in opposition, promised to proscribe. The Government are almost two years into their time in office, and only this week did they publish the text of the legislation that will make that happen. With that in mind, will the Minister tell us whether he has considered following the US’s lead and sanctioning the BBMB or even proscribing it? How do the Government plan to use the global human rights sanction regime created by the previous Conservative Government to crack down on religiously inspired Iranian agitation in Sudan? Indeed, does the Minister see a wider role for the human rights sanctions regime in cracking down on abuses of freedom of religion or belief in Sudan? Will the Minister tell us how the Government are pursuing accountability for the religious abuses we have heard about today? How are they gathering evidence of those abuses? Since Sudan was last raised in this House, what have they done to support the collection of evidence of war crimes, so that those responsible can be held to account? How is the UK using international courts to pursue those responsible for such atrocities? On the big picture, I know that the House is united in wanting to see the immediate end to hostilities in Sudan. We are all aware that pressing the warring parties into a ceasefire, and hopefully an eventual sustainable peace, will require combining our efforts with those of our international allies. How is the Minister using the UK’s role as the penholder for Sudan at the UN Security Council to ensure that humanitarian aid is reaching those in desperate need? How is he using that role to tighten the screws on the warring parties, pressing them into a ceasefire and ending this barbaric conflict? Finally, when did the Minister last engage with his US counterparts on their peace efforts in Sudan, and what specifically is the UK contributing to those efforts? Has he, or any of his colleagues, had discussions with other members of the Sudan Quad about their push for peace? How is the UK supporting the Quad in achieving the goals we hold in common: securing a humanitarian truce followed by a permanent ceasefire, securing a commitment to protect civilians and supporting an inclusive Sudanese transition to establish a civilian-led Government in Sudan? The war in Sudan is a stain on the world’s conscience. The freedom of religion or belief abuses being carried out are utterly barbaric. Britain must exert every ounce of influence and leverage to get the warring parties to lay down their weapons immediately, to secure lasting peace and to hold to account those responsible for the crimes being committed in the name of, and against, religion.

• 11 Jun 2026 · Freedom of Religion or Belief: Sudan · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate, and Members from across the House for their thoughtful and heartfelt contributions. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) has actually been to Sudan, which is a rarity in this place. I have not been to Sudan, but I have known the horrors of war. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford for securing the debate because, jostling for attention with other terrible conflicts across the world, Sudan is often forgotten, despite the catastrophic situation there; indeed, it is experiencing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. More than 150,000 people have been killed, nearly 15 million have been displaced, 33 million need humanitarian support, and 40% of Sudan’s population faces severe food insecurity. Yet, the warring parties continue. The Rapid Support Forces and the Sudan armed forces constrain aid deliveries to those most in need. They continue to commit massacres on scales that beggar belief. Appalling acts of sexual violence are being perpetrated daily against women and girls. Of course, among those barbarous acts, worshippers are being abused, minorities targeted and places of prayer levelled. The religious freedoms of the 2019 draft constitution have collided with the reality of war. The warring parties have attacked religious sites. In particular, the RSF appears to prize places of worship because of their strong walls: fighters take churches and mosques, often threatening and killing clerics and pastors to do so, and then violently clear the area of civilians. In turn, the SAF bombards those places of worship, targeting the RSF and other rebel groups. The destruction of religious sites is a terrible thing, but worshippers pay the highest price when good and evil collide. We have seen that far too many times: the drone attack on the El Fasher mosque that killed more than 70 people; the airstrike, days before Christmas, on a church in Al Ezba in 2024, which killed 11, including eight children; and the visit without notice of SAF fighters, accompanied by police officers and religious extremists, to demolish the Pentecostal church in El Haj Yousif. It is not only places of worship that are being targeted. Practices that have been prohibited post al-Bashir are being carried out with impunity. Religious discrimination is reportedly rife. Vulnerable minorities are being forced to convert. Many are denied work, food or education until they abandon their faith. Hudud laws are being used to target minorities, yet the Sudanese authorities are in no state to prevent or prosecute public floggings, which had been outlawed.

• 9 Jun 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement. What exactly are the Brits going to contribute to the multinational maritime mission in terms of hardware? Has Ukraine offered up its two Sandown-class mine-clearing vessels and crew, which are currently in Portsmouth?

• 9 Jun 2026 · Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  This is not my specialist subject, so I ask the Minister to bear with me. Thames Covers in Shepperton in my Spelthorne constituency, which is a boat fitter, has been told that the cost of stainless steel tubing will go up by 50% from 1 July because of a new tariff kicking in. As I understand it, the tariff is to encourage people to buy British Steel, but the trouble is that British Steel does not make stainless steel tubing, so it will add a huge cost. The Minister says the Bill is not about individual businesses, but about overall governance. However, the Government may be causing unintended consequences, and perhaps the impact assessments we are calling for in new clause 7 would be a good idea.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Digital Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. A few moments ago, I asked the Minister why he came to the Floor of the House to answer an urgent question rather than bringing forward a Government statement. I believe his answer was that he thought Home Office Ministers had made a statement earlier today. The Minister and I are both new to this House, but given that statements tend to follow oral questions— I sat through Home Office questions—and there has not been one, the Minister may have inadvertently misled the House. What opportunities are there for the record to be corrected?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Digital Safety: Children · Hansard source

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  Why is the Minister answering an urgent question rather than bringing forward a Government statement?

• 4 Jun 2026 · Clean Waterways: Thames Valley · Hansard source

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  One of the sources of contamination that the Minister did not mention is human waste being discharged over the side from slum boats on EA land. The EA claims that its statutory obligation is only to register boats on its land when an application is received, and that it is discretionary. It basically does not police slum boats on its land. Will the Minister have a look at this issue and discuss it with the Environment Agency, so that slum boats on EA land can either be registered properly and policed, or moved on?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Replacing the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 · Hansard source

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  In the Secretary of State’s wide consultation, did he consult General Sir Nick Parker, who suggested that there should be no further criminal investigations, inquests, inquiries or prosecutions unless there is new and compelling evidence that was not available at the time of the event?

• 3 Jun 2026 · Replacing the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 · Hansard source

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  6. What steps he is taking to replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Have the Minister and the Veterans Minister now seen the defence investment plan?

• 2 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my fellow member of the Defence Committee for giving way. If he supports new clause 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), will he vote for it?

• 1 Jun 2026 · Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his statement. The media are going to have a frenzy over the tittle-tattle of all this stuff during the next three days, but to my mind the whole Mandelson affair represents a very serious breach of national security. Can the Minister reassure me and the House that the Foreign Office and the security services are turning over with a fine-toothed comb every minute of Lord Mandelson’s time as ambassador to make sure his actions in that office were in the national interest?

• 21 May 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The pubs in Spelthorne are under the cosh. The Minister, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), said that a review of pubs and how they are valued for business rates purposes is ongoing. She will know that the review will not be relevant until 2029. Pubs are closing today. Young people are losing their jobs today. Will those on the Government Front Bench please do more to lobby the Treasury for our pubs?