Lincoln Jopp MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Apr 2026 · Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives · Hansard source

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  As the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend is only too well placed to talk about that. As his Whip, I can only say that his jokes get better too.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of alternatives to ground mounted solar panels. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I sensed the people coming into the Chamber in the last couple of minutes and I felt a quickening. It was like energy coming together, which is completely appropriate given what we are here to debate: alternatives to land-based solar panels. The context in which I wish to couch this debate is twofold. One aspect is local and one slightly more geostrategic. People say that in politics, where you sit defines where you stand. Hon. Members may or may not know that I am the proud Member of Parliament for Spelthorne. I sometimes feel the need to remind hon. Members that Spelthorne is not in Lincolnshire or Lancashire; it is, in fact, everything south of Heathrow airport until hon. Members get to the River Thames. When I was elected, at the last election, to be the Member for Spelthorne, I looked at a very big map of the constituency—hon. Members will be very surprised to learn that I used to be in the Army, and there used to be a very good saying in the Army: “If you don’t know what’s going on, get a bigger map”—and I identified four enormous blocks of blue. That was half of London’s drinking water in four raised reservoirs. Being a practical man, I thought to myself, “Well, there aren’t many votes in there.” I also thought to myself that we cannot really build many homes there. I did further research and it turns out that in 2016, on the Queen Elizabeth reservoir in a neighbouring constituency, a large technology demonstrator for floating solar was laid down, and ever since it has produced 6.3 MW of power—enough to power about 2,000 homes. That was at the time the largest one in Europe; back in 2016, we were leading. I looked into the situation further in order to see whether we were world-leading, but it turns out that we were not particularly, and that floating solar has been deployed to a greater extent in China, India, Vietnam and Israel. We will come in due course to the benefits of floating solar as an alternative to land-based systems. I want now to return to the more national context. Frequently, we are led to believe that alternative sources of energy can be something of a zero-sum game—when someone takes one step forward, someone else has to take one step backwards. As I am sure we will hear, in large parts of the United Kingdom there are proposed large, land-based solar farms, frequently on very good agricultural land, so the zero-sum game between food security and energy security needs unpicking.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to all hon. Members who have made such powerful contributions. I love the image of the Minister under his bed clothes with a torch reading the Hansard report of my Adjournment debate. I can see the turning point where floating solar went from a nascent technology to one that the Minister wants to drive further and faster. He made a crucial point about how it is all very well to will the ends, but we need to will the ways and means, and not say, “Not in my back yard”. Floating solar is exactly my way of saying to the farmers in Lincolnshire and hon. Members from great agricultural land, “Yes, in my back yard. In fact, on half of London’s drinking water in the four raised reservoirs in Spelthorne, and in across other raised reservoirs across the country.” We can unpick this constant battle between food, water and energy security, and I am grateful to the House for giving me the opportunity to highlight that.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives · Hansard source

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  And there we see the battle. Without wishing to get into other controversial areas, it is a little like proposals to build on green belt. If everything else were built on first and we protected the green belt, we would be a richer country.

• 14 Apr 2026 · Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I hope other Members will come forward with their own preferred alternatives to land-based systems, because there are others.

• 13 Apr 2026 · North Atlantic Submarine Activity · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister said, I think about three weeks ago, that the Royal Navy would go after sanctioned Russian tankers. Yet, if the press reports are to be believed, those very same sanctioned Russian tankers have sailed with impunity through the English channel. My question is this: why have we not done anything? Is there some legal bar, or is there a practical bar when it comes to Royal Navy resources to mount interdiction operations in the English channel?

• 13 Apr 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his statement. There have been many discussions over the amount of money that was going to be paid, and the methodology and how it was reached. I am prepared to park those discussions on the basis that provision has indeed been made in the Government’s budget lines to pay for this treaty, which is now in abeyance. For the time that it is in abeyance, can the Minister tell us that 100% of the amount that would have been paid to Mauritius will now go into the defence budget and pay for hard power?

• 13 Apr 2026 · SEND Provision and Reform · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) on securing this debate. We have heard varying views on the question of demand, with some people saying that it has not gone up at all and that others saying it has. I have relied on the House of Commons Library to tell me that since 2015 demand for EHCPs has ballooned by 140% and that in 2025 there were 13 times more people waiting for an autism assessment than there were in 2019. Hon. Members across the House have described very effectively the extraordinary diagnosis of a system that has been unable to meet demand, so I will not replay the tape. The 98% tribunal success rate is symptomatic of that, and it is pretty shocking. It shows that the system is having to be fought against systemically, which is deeply worrying. Members across the House have replayed case studies from their own inboxes, but I do not have time to go into the cases of child Y, child L, child F, child D and the many others, all of whom have finally come to their Member of Parliament because they could see no way through and because the computer had said no. It has come to that, for them, but that should not be the case. In the time remaining, I want to take a strategic approach and look upstream. In March last year, the Secretary of State for Health said that he was sold on the idea that overdiagnosis was at the root cause of mental health illness. On 1 June, I asked the Secretary of State for Education whether any work was being done between her Department and the Health Department on what was causing the increased demand on the special educational needs system. She said that she was very concerned indeed about that. I then waited until 1 December before asking what she and the Health Secretary had done in the intervening seven months. I think it was the Minister for School Standards who kindly said that she was very concerned about it. Five days later, the Health Secretary announced that there was going to be a six-month study into the causes of the increase in demand on the special educational needs system, and that it would report in the summer. I do not think anyone is covering themselves in glory here. As a nation, we need to increase our understanding of this phenomenon that we are experiencing—

• 13 Apr 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Will the defence investment plan be signed before the local elections on 7 May?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild), the Minister referred to the importance of local identities. As she knows, in the local government reorganisation, my Spelthorne constituency will be subsumed into something called “West Surrey”. I am very much looking forward to meeting her on 22 April to make representations about why it should be called “West Surrey and South Middlesex”, to take account of Spelthorne’s special circumstances. If she is to commission her officials to do any research work in advance of that meeting, may I recommend a book called “The Real Counties of Britain”, written by Mr Russell Grant, which would set the context for our discussion perfectly?

• 26 Mar 2026 · Pothole Repairs: Strategic Road Network · Hansard source

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  The scourge of potholes is pretty universal, but will the Minister join me in encouraging all my Spelthorne residents who have a complaint about a pothole to report it via the Surrey county council website? Reporting potholes is the only way to get them sorted.

• 26 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Government have designated April the Month of the Military Child to recognise the unique demands and pressures on the children of service personnel, particularly in times of heightened international tension and when we have military personnel deployed on operations overseas. Will the Leader of the House join me in encouraging all Members to pay particular attention to whether they have sons and daughters of service personnel in their constituency, to focus on them and understand them as much as possible, and to see what provision is being made for them in schools?

• 25 Mar 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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

• 25 Mar 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with your comments, Mr Speaker, about the Table Clerk and I wish him happiness in his next steps. I also wish the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) many happy returns. Second Reading of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill took place on 18 November, and the remedial order, which removed the protections from the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, was passed on 21 January, leaving our Northern Ireland veterans, of whom I am one, with no protections under the law. It feels rather like the Government have left our veterans in no man’s land, with no rounds in the magazine and no rounds in the chamber. How is that not a dereliction of duty?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood · Hansard source

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  The Minister is very generous with her time, and I am grateful to her for that. She welcomed the research funded by the SUDC UK in Bristol, but I do not think we have heard any commitment to Government-funded research into this area. Will she clarify whether she will take that forward?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood · Hansard source

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  As ever, the hon. Member is making an incredibly powerful speech. I know he feels these things incredibly strongly. I am sure we are all looking forward to his closing remarks.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for securing this debate. I also recognise my predecessor as the Member of Parliament for Spelthorne, Kwasi Kwarteng, who sponsored this debate back in 2023. All Members have expressed that they simply cannot imagine what it is like to be a parent sitting in the Public Gallery or watching our proceedings at home. I am struck by the fact that many of those parents would have been sitting there in 2023, hearing, “This is raising awareness,” and, “We have to get going on this.” They have seen the personnel round here change a bit, and have seen us swap sides, but they are still sitting there, and very little has been done since 2023. I hope the Minister can give us some reassurance about what action can actually happen, so that when we have another Westminster Hall debate in three years’ time, and the same people are sat in the Public Gallery, they are not just looking at a different group of people saying the same things and not doing anything. I have come here to speak on behalf of two of my constituents, Louis Rogers and Harry Pitts. They cannot be here today because they are dead, and their death is unexplained. We can all forgive the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen for doing so, but he said that sudden unexplained death in children is the fourth largest “cause” of death, and of course it is not. He did not mean it, and we all know that. It is just a categorisation, and that is important. I am deeply suspicious whenever I see a pie chart that says, “There is this thing and that thing, and that thing is caused by that thing. Oh, and this huge chunk is ‘others’. We haven’t been able to do that big chunk; that is just ‘others’.” It makes me very suspicious, and suggests to me that someone somewhere is not trying hard enough to make that chunk much more explainable. There are one or two other things that sudden unexplained death in children is not. It is not sudden infant death syndrome, and the crucial word there is “syndrome”. SIDS is a thing that has been identified; research has been done, preventive measures have been put in place, and deaths from SIDS have been drastically reduced—more power to their elbow. SIDS should show us a way forward about how we might approach this issue with more effort and research. Sudden unexplained death in children also has no respect for persons. It is not to do with socioeconomic circumstances; it is as likely or unlikely to happen to princes as to paupers. It is important that people slay that dragon in their minds. I want to come to the notion of it being unexplained. It will not come as a massive surprise to hon. Members to hear that I was once in the Army; I have mentioned it on the odd occasion. If I asked someone a question in the Army, they were perfectly within their rights to say, “I don’t know, sir”—but it was a crime if they finished the answer at that point, because everyone in the Army would only say one thing when asked that question: “I don’t know sir, but I will find out.” What we have done hitherto is say to parents, “I don’t know,” and not gone to the crucial second bit of saying, “but I will go away and find out.” As other hon. Members have mentioned, we need to raise awareness within the NHS—and it would be hugely beneficial if the NHS could do what it said it would do in 2003 and put it on the website—as well as raise awareness in society more broadly. It is awful to think that some parents who have suffered unimaginable and unexplained loss could also suffer stigmatisation within their communities—that they could suffer from suspicion because, obviously, babies don’t just die for no reason, do they? Equally, it would be hugely beneficial to raise awareness among the police so that they can handle cases far more sensitively. I have heard stories of great practice, but also of not great practice. I also cannot imagine the concern over siblings that must affect so many families affected by sudden unexplained death in childhood. Will the Minister commit to coming up with a plan for sudden unexplained death in childhood? To begin with, we have to get a plan, because without a plan, we cannot change it. Once someone says, “We have got a plan,” we are beholden to report back at a periodicity—let us say, every two years—to see whether we are doing what we said we would. I have mentioned it already, but the NHS website and raising awareness more broadly is equally important. We in this House and in this Chamber should not be satisfied with one Westminster Hall debate. We have raised awareness generally. We really owe it to our young children—to Louis and Harry and all the other children whose deaths are unexplained—to do the work to give an explanation and reduce the number of deaths in the future.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  With the points the hon. Member has just made, it seems he has forgotten that a year ago his own party suspended seven of its Back Benchers for voting with an SNP proposal to lift the two-child benefit cap. If he is going to be quite so forthright in his criticism of us, could he explain why his Government have done such a volte-face in the intervening 12 months?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Liberal Democrat spokesman for giving way. I think he is warming up to his leader’s new Dr Strangelove plot to have his own independent nuclear weapon. Could he tell us how much it is going to cost the UK?

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  When I was new to this place, I clearly did something very wrong, because the accommodation Whip allocated me an office that is geographically nearer to Trafalgar Square than to this Chamber. There is one compensating benefit, which is that when I look out of the window, I can see the statue of General Bernard Law Montgomery, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, and if my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) moves his head a bit, I can see Field Marshal Alanbrooke, on whose statue is written: “Alanbrooke, Master of Strategy”. The Minister will be aware that the art of strategy is the matching of ends, ways and means. In the few short minutes that I have, I want to use that framework to reflect on the approach that the Government have taken recently. I wish to also use the model of the three components to fighting power: the moral, the physical and the conceptual. The Minister will be fully aware of this. We know that this is a good model because Napoleon made the observation that “The moral is to the physical as three is to one.” Let us quickly run through the physical component and some developments that we have seen. On the base at Diego Garcia, despite Conservative Members asking a thousand times for the reason why the Government asserted that our position was untenable in the long term and that they had to do this leaseback agreement with Mauritius, we have never, ever been given a definitive view on which court or jurisdiction made it untenable. It has never been delivered in this place or anywhere else, and that has undermined the Government’s position a little. The Defence Committee heard representations from the Ukrainians we were training that, although they loved the training and were grateful for it, we were starting to lag behind. This was in November 2024. The absence of drones in the British military armoury and the environmental constraints on Salisbury plain meant that although the training was good, it was really lagging behind reality. It is a shame that the Minister for the Armed Forces is no longer here, but he has given us a decent amount of time. He said that we cannot rewrite history and we cannot run from it, which is absolutely right. I just wanted to remind him of the reason we had only one Type 45 at six weeks’ readiness to go to sea. After the widely lauded 1998 strategic defence review, which I appreciate was before the time of the Minister for Veterans and People, the Government came to the conclusion that we needed 12 Type 45s to fulfil the strategic defence review. Subsequently, the Labour Government cut that number down; I think the first cut was to eight, and then down to the six that we have now. They also chose a home-grown propulsion system that was subsequently proven not to work, which has meant that, having cut the original fleet in half, we are now having to cut what remains in half—quite literally, in order to take the propulsion system out of the side. We then had the strategic defence review. I sat on the Defence Committee and heard the reviewers say that the answer was 2.5%, after which they came back and said that it was actually 2.7%, and then that they had been told it would be 3% some time in the future, and then 3.5%; then, on the eve of the NATO summit, it went up to 5%. I am not surprised, therefore, that the defence investment plan has been a long time in coming. We do not have time to rehearse the arguments about the moral component of fighting power, and the huge undermining of the Government’s actions over the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill and the remedial order, and, indeed, the revelation that our own Prime Minister volunteered to work for free for Phil Shiner in attacking British service personnel such as myself; I do have to declare an interest as a veteran who spent three and a half years in Northern Ireland. Lastly, when I was at the Ministry of Defence, where I spent five years, we had a saying: “plans without resources are hallucinations”. Without the defence investment plan, the SDR is meaningless. When the Minister winds up, I would like her to acknowledge the fact that on 10 March, the Defence Committee was privy to a secret briefing in the Ministry of Defence. To a man and woman, the all-party Defence Committee came out of that briefing and took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement that, in our view, the Government should adopt Conservative party policy and go to 3% of GDP within this Parliament. That is unprecedented, and it needs to be listened to.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  Was the hon. Member in the Chamber to hear the Prime Minister make his statement on the war in the middle east, in which he said that British sovereign bases, British troops and British people had been attacked? He said that it was therefore right that we defend ourselves, but that we cannot shoot all the drones out of the air and they have to be attacked on the ground. Does the hon. Member remember the Prime Minister coming to this House and saying that, and would he like to repeat his point that the Prime Minister has been absolutely crystal clear on his position throughout this conflict?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement. I am slightly struggling to see what it adds to the answer to the urgent question we had yesterday, but it is always nice to see the Foreign Secretary. When she asks the US Government to de-escalate, what do they say in response?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a student roundtable, with two pupils from my eight secondary schools and two from my further education college. I agree with the Secretary of State in that I was left incredibly excited for them and by their hopes and aspirations for the future. However, we also had a discussion about how AI-proof those plans were. His statement mentioned short AI courses, and he also talked about the urgency. Can he tell us how short these short courses will be, who is going to deliver them and how the young people of Spelthorne will sign up to them?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  13. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of his proposed changes to jury trials on the criminal justice system.