Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“British citizens Ryan Cornelius and his partner have now been detained for 18—nearly 19—years, without due process, by the United Arab Emirates. The reality is that the UAE supports a huge amount of terrorism in Sudan, where it is responsible for huge loss of life.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I say to the Minister—I do not mean this personally—that I do not know what has happened to the Government. When they deploy British servicemen and women abroad, they should make a statement to the House, no matter what time of the day or night it is.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I commend the right hon. Lady for her statement. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) that it is a remarkable statement and I commend Sir David Bell’s review. I also commend the response by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) from the Opposition Dispatch Box.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
House of Commons1 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
House of Commons1 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“British citizens Ryan Cornelius and his partner have now been detained for 18—nearly 19—years, without due process, by the United Arab Emirates. The reality is that the UAE supports a huge amount of terrorism in Sudan, where it is responsible for huge loss of life. To make matters worse, it has nominated Lana Nusseibeh of the UAE to be UN Secretary-General. Apart from demanding the release of Ryan Cornelius and his partner, will the hon. Gentleman condemn the UAE for its brutal involvement in Sudan, and block its nominee for Secretary-General, who should never be allowed to take over the UN?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am not against deployment to defend by offensive action, but surely that is more logical than pretending that personnel are there only to defend.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I say to the Minister—I do not mean this personally—that I do not know what has happened to the Government. When they deploy British servicemen and women abroad, they should make a statement to the House, no matter what time of the day or night it is. In 1999, when Prime Minister Tony Blair deployed RAF aircraft to Montenegro, I remember the then Deputy Prime Minister coming to the Dispatch Box at about 9 pm. He knew his responsibilities. The Government have failed on this quite explicitly. Why are the Government misusing the word “defence” endlessly now, not wanting to talk about what they have to do? How do we defend against a ballistic missile once it is launched unless we attack the site that is launching it? This is nonsense. At the end of the day, we need to be honest with the British public.”
House of Commons22 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I suggest that the Government put into every school, where teachers are reluctant to engage, Pastor Niemöller’s poem. The critical lines are: “First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew… Then they came for me”.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I commend the right hon. Lady for her statement. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) that it is a remarkable statement and I commend Sir David Bell’s review. I also commend the response by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) from the Opposition Dispatch Box. In 2004, I was asked, with others, by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to carry out a review of antisemitism in the UK. What we discovered then was an appalling rise, even though it had not been figured out prior to that, and we made our recommendation. The problem is that each generation seems to have to keep on looking at this issue and making recommendations, yet it erupts again. The Green party’s terrible conference motion is a part of that problem: isolate them, blame them, attack them, ban them.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment. In his case, will the Government first bring sanctions against that regime to persuade, or force, them to release this man, as he should have been? In the case of Jimmy Lai, would the Foreign Secretary also threaten clear sanctions? I now know that Sebastien Lai wants to see the Prime Minister. Would the Foreign Secretary please say to the Prime Minister that he should see him because, again, Jimmy Lai has been wrongly incarcerated by a despotic regime?”
House of Commons1 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law? The Secretary of State will know that Hong Kong has trashed the Sino-British agreement and decoupled the concept of common law from rights and responsibilities. All Joshua Wong has done is to ask for the same rights and privileges that we in this country hold dear. Will the Secretary of State take up that case with the Chinese Government and say to them, “Enough is enough. It’s time to stop chasing peaceful protesters?””
House of Commons1 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me. We must get on top of that, because it is the root of violence and death. It is not only Ann who was murdered. It is not only Jo Cox and my good friend David Amess who were murdered. As the rack of shields in the Chamber shows, terrorists have murdered many in our party. If we want to stop that, we have to be bold and we have to be clear. We will not accept being shut down, stopped from performing our duties or silenced in any way, because that is what Ann would have approved of.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us. Another thing she embodied, and completely demonstrated, was our unique responsibility to our constituents and the nature of the personal contact we make with them, which I do not think is replicated almost anywhere else. We go into their homes. I do not ask for security when I go into someone’s home. We go to see them if they are too ill to come and see us. We all do that, and we do not want to lose it. We do not want the epitaph of her terrible murder to be that we withdrew from the nature of who we are and what makes this place so great.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me. It is rather ironic that she went over to Reform. I thought to myself, “Now there’s somebody who takes collective responsibility more seriously than she even had to.” It was rather remarkable. Ann was a remarkable woman in many, many ways. I got to know her during shadow Cabinet, when we would debate and argue. She argued as robustly in shadow Cabinet as she did across the Dispatch Box. Whether you were Labour or Conservative, if you disagreed with her, you were the enemy—you got used to it.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio. Sadly, later that day, just after lunch, I discovered that it was not just sad but a tragedy—a tragedy that a phenomenal woman, and a former Member of this House, should have been murdered in her own home for reasons we know not what. The news allowed me to think back to this woman who was a force of nature. She was impossible to argue with, because she never accepted that she was losing the argument, until finally she was able to turn it 180 degrees and make you feel guilty that you had even dared to argue with her.”
House of Commons13 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is always great to have the Minister at the Dispatch Box; we always have a lot of fun. I have had to juggle this issue myself, so I want to ask him a very important question: does he honestly think that making the starting rate for national insurance payments almost half the previous rate has no effect on part-time employment? Does doing so not discourage those who would like to give people starter jobs? It makes that much more difficult; surely that is the reality.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have always thought that a zero-hours contract was a terrible name for what is actually flexible hours. There was always an ideological opposition to it, but in practice over two thirds of those who were on the contracts—adults as well, often with caring responsibilities—loved the idea of being able to work when they could but not having to do so when they could not manage it. That is the kind of flexibility that is necessary in an economy. It was loved by people in Europe, who wanted to do the same but never got around to it.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We rightly talk about wanting to protect our high streets against competition from online retail and so on, and the majority of those part-time, small jobs are on the high streets. Those small businesses and shops need people to help them make their business grow, but business rates for some of the shops on the high street in my area have risen by 60%. It is unbelievable to think that a small business will be able to survive a 60% increase. That business has to make choices, which mean that not only can it no longer hire someone, but it has to lay people off—it can no longer keep them in employment. We have seen dramatic layings off and closures on the high street for the simple reason that people cannot afford to run their business.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It also helped students coming out to do all the big jobs in entertainment, hotels and short-term affairs such as Wimbledon. It is travesty that the Government have tightened that up. They need to learn from this. I stress again that most people liked the idea of zero-hours contracts as they gave them flexibility in work that allowed them to get work experience, which they could sell when going to get a full-time job, as well as the chance to earn some money to subsidise themselves while doing other work, studying or whatever. It is astonishing that the Government have got rid of that. My party’s motion rightly mentions the astonishing high street business rates.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They provided income, but they also helped young people build confidence, learn the habits of work and show employers what they could do. For too many young people now, those opportunities are weaker or have disappeared altogether.” We did not really need the Milburn report to know that—we knew what was going on—but his saying that must be telling for the Government. The Government have overstepped the reality. For example, zero-hours contracts were flexible and were liked by the vast majority of those who had them. Older adults—mostly those with caring responsibilities—liked the flexibility of being able to go to hospital appointments or take those with disabilities to hospital appointments one week, while on other weeks they could work, doing more hours to make up the money. That flexibility helped them.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The astonishing interest rate on those debts has become staggering, and it is trapping them—they are unable to look at buying houses or anything else. That is the pressure on those people, and sometimes what they earn at work is not enough for them to be able to get by and do well. The Opposition’s motion, which I will come to, is really important. The point is that we have to make a change. The Government may want to have young people in work and want there to be those so-called Saturday jobs, but Alan Milburn says in his report that the “first rung has thinned. The clearest examples are the decline of the Saturday job…For earlier generations, these were…the routes through which young people first entered working life.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The reality, therefore, is that the group who will suffer—they were always going to—is young people. Without that work experience, they will not go on to get that job they want—in fact, it is the job that they need—as a starter job. Turning to apprenticeships, an individual apprentice is now much more likely to get a full-time job and go on to earn more money than somebody who has studied at university. The collapse of the relationship between university and a brilliant career will fundamentally change the nature of who we are as a country if people who go to university with the promise that they would earn much more money than they would ever have to pay in debt then find that is a broken concept. That is a matter for both sides of the House. We must deal with it. I have family who are paying off debts.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The triple whammy of the national insurance charge, particularly on part-time work, the Employment Rights Act and the rise in the minimum wage are the vice that is squeezing this situation. Any one of those we probably could have got through, but to have all three of them hitting employment is the real problem that we face, and unemployment is the result. Youth unemployment at 16.2% is staggering. We used to pride ourselves on having a lower youth unemployment than the rest of Europe, but that is not necessarily the case now. The latest figures show us categorically that now have three times the NEET rate as the Netherlands has. The Netherlands is probably the closest type of economy to us in Europe; it is often quite flexible, and it often looks to the UK to import some of its flexibilities.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are the easiest to move out of employment, and they are almost invariably the last ones in. They are also the most expensive to look after while they are in work—for a good reason. When I used to tour the jobcentres I spoke to young people who were there looking for a job. I used to ask, “What is the biggest hurdle that you face?” They would say that every time they go in front of an employer, the employer would ask them what experience they have in work. They would say, “I have no experience.” Then the employer says, “Well we cannot take that risk. I am looking for someone else, so you will not get the job”. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said, not only is it a marginal cost but it is also about the complete lack of experience and the risk that an employer takes on when they hire the younger person.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is the key bit that we constantly talk to our families about. I want to come back to the problems that we face. When I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions when we came to power in 2010, we had just had a huge, difficult recession. We had high unemployment, and we had to get that unemployment down. I say to the Government is that the cost of all their problems is not one issue alone—it is when they fail to realise the impact of one change after another on what is ultimately the most at-risk group. I agree completely with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) that the most at-risk group is young people. When the Government make changes to employment regulation, add on costs and change people’s rights, it is always younger people who are the most affected.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“During the evenings I had nowhere to stay, but I had managed to borrow a Fiat 600—an old one that I could start with the end of a teaspoon—and I drove it round to the car park and used to sleep in the back. It was wonderfully cheap but not exactly very comfortable. I am not quite sure what I learned from that—I did learn a few lessons, but I am not prepared to divulge them all here. Washing in the sea was one of them, though I have to say I am not sure how that has stood me in any good stead for the last few years. We will move on from that. We can overstate the lessons to be learned from a job, but being in work does teach young people about working to get a salary, turning up on time, as colleagues have said, and recognising that if they do not do so, the employer has every right to get rid of them.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is always good to speak with the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on the Front Bench. Were we discussing the threats that we face or the problems we have with China and the desperate way that they have undercut the market using slave labour, we would be on the same side of the House completely. My respect for him is enormous. However— [ Laughter. ] I do want to talk about today’s subject. I was not planning to say anything about summer jobs, but my first experience of one was in Italy, where I had been studying. I had gone to the coast to find a job. All I could find was a job working as a plongeur, as it were, in the dishwashing section of a restaurant. I was a useless waiter and got told to stop sitting down and talking to those who were eating, so I was sent back to the kitchen.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My advice to the Government is simply this: think again about the triple whammy and reduce the burden they have put on industries.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I finish with one single fact. We have all been talking rather blithely about what we did in those summers and how we got our first jobs, but it is worth reminding ourselves that for the generation going through now, the flexibility, opportunities and ability to earn are far less than they have ever been. When we talk to our children, we discover how difficult employment is for them. We can talk to them about being able to earn the right money, about being able to pay for a house or about sky-high rents. This is a serious problem. If we want to face it and take it on, we should think of the old health dictum, “do no harm”. I say to the Government that when they pile those three massive burdens on to industry and the individual, they are doing great harm to those we need to protect.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have the highest energy costs in the developed world—it could be said that we have the highest energy costs in the world as it is—and a huge amount of that is to do with the ridiculous helter-skelter drive to get to clean energy no matter what. We are now threatening businesses with fines—the car industry gets fines if the right cars are not produced—and energy costs are so high that businesses can no longer manage to manufacture goods here. We will need to manufacture goods when we need to spend the money that we do not have at the moment but will have to have for the defence industry. That is a manufacturing case, yet none of those industries says that it can afford to expand its manufacturing base because the cost of energy is so high. Those three things are critical. I therefore support the Opposition’s motion.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Employment Rights Act has been a real nightmare. The issue is not just that £5 billion cost but the way in which that impacts on economic growth. Regulating employment is not an isolated issue that does not affect anything else; it affects growth in the economy. I talked earlier about the triple whammy. With business rates alongside that, businesses face even higher costs and problems. They are being regulated a great deal, they do not have flexibility in employment, and they have to pay more. The third critical issue in our motion is the cost of energy in the United Kingdom, which is astonishing.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is all about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I fully understand that the Government want to regulate some of that employment to ensure that people are protected, but the Employment Rights Act is so all-consuming and far-reaching that there is not just the cost—estimated at about £5 billion—for companies and businesses but the knock-on effect for those who need a job but can no longer be employed, as well as for those who would employ them but will have to close their businesses. Flexibility is critical in employment—it always has been. It has always been a case of, “What is the risk in hiring you? Do you have the experience? Can you do the job? Can I afford to pay you the wages? Do I have to do half that job for you as a result?” For small businesses, that is a real problem.”
House of Commons7 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Prime Minister agreed that he would use all his might to tackle the shadow fleet tankers that were coming through British territorial waters. Since then, one has been taken, and just under 200 shadow fleet tankers have passed through our waters with nothing happening. Are the Government serious about stopping these tankers? Are they so serious about it that they will revisit the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, which they seem to think prevents them from boarding the tankers?”
House of Commons6 July 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is it not the reality that the plan the Defence Secretary has put forward barely scrapes into 2.7%? It is not 3%. It leaves us £9.3 billion short, every single year of the process. If he is not going to achieve 3% by 2030, how in heaven’s name will he ever achieve the NATO minimum by 2035? It is not going to happen in ’35. He will not get 3.5% out of this Budget, will he? Will he give us the dates?”
House of Commons30 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It seems that whoever comes into government, the Foreign Office’s weak policy on the UAE persists. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the UAE has incarcerated a British citizen for more than 19 years—illegally, according to the UN. The UAE provides the rebels with significant amounts of arms and weaponry, without which they would never be able to continue this brutal war, with so many dead and wounded as a consequence. Surely it is time for a British Government to stand up and say that enough is enough, and that we are going to sanction all those individuals responsible for decision making in the UAE and in other countries providing arms to the rebels. If we do not do that, all the talk is worthless.”
House of Commons25 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I remember having one depressed conversation after another—helped by a certain amount of Scottish water. [ Laughter. ]”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he recall that at the end of the cold war a paper was written by Francis Fukuyama called “The End of History?”? Does he agree that on the basis of that, everybody believed somehow that no longer would there be war, no longer would there be pressure and no longer would we need armed forces? That was such a mistake, as has been documented, which has affected everything since.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a tremendous privilege to take part in this debate. It has to be clear to us on both sides of the House that this is the most critical debate that we will be involved with. This is the most critical thing that we face but it often escapes our notice, and I credit my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) for centring on the very thing that is important. I say gently to those on the Government Benches that it is very easy to go around the whole time saying, “Well, of course, you did this and we didn’t.” The truth is, we can go right back and see how much previous Governments failed with regard to defence. I was serving in the late 1970s when the Labour Government were in terrible difficulty. They were slashing the budgets, and military personnel from the captain and senior sergeant ranks were leaving the Army in droves.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That does not mean to say that what the Conservative Government brought through was fantastic. It was not. There were many flaws and failings in it, but many of us felt that we would support it because it did one major thing: it stopped the constant attacks on those poor veterans whose lives are now coming to an end and who see themselves being dragged through the courts all over again.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Birmingham Selly Oak said in his resignation speech, they lost; they lost because of the efforts of the armed forces, and of all those who did not see another day and who died in the service of their country. More importantly, we forget that walking down the streets in your own country armed and trying to protect civilians against aggression is quite different from anything else that the armed forces were trained to do. In doing it, they had to figure out all sorts of complications. The trouble with the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is that it does not deal with the sense of what we asked our soldiers to do in risking their lives to protect the British public on the streets of the United Kingdom. We therefore have to understand that the legislation that the Government have brought forward is wrong.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“All the Ministers on the Front Bench know that, as does he. The question is: what will we do about it? I want to start by talking about Northern Ireland, and I shall be here on 4 September, cheering my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne on with his private Member’s Bill. We cannot for one moment forget that we have reduced the morale of British soldiers who have served—veterans who are now often in their late 70s and 80s—and who find themselves persecuted. I say to the Defence Ministers that this really started in the Northern Ireland Office, which was overly persuaded by Sinn Féin that they could somehow change what had happened and come out as victors. As the hon.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) sitting in his place after his resignation. He has the respect of many of my colleagues on these Benches, without question, not only for his past but for his present. I know what it is like to resign when you disagree with the Government—I have done it a few times myself—but the reality is that he will never regret it. The thing that matters most of all when we come to this place is not us or the debates that we have here and away; it is the people out there who put us here. If we do not plan to speak up, even when our own side does not want us to, we are not worthy of being in this place. I therefore congratulate him, not because I am in a party political game but because I respect him for having called out a problem that the Government face.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. [ Laughter. ] In those conversations, we decided that there was clearly no future for us in the Army. Now, I did stay on a bit longer, but many left who I knew were very competent and very good people, and it is difficult to fill those posts. That is the bit in the armed forces that is critical to everything else that happens. If we do not have a cadre of middle-ranking and senior non-commissioned officers, we do not have an Army. We just have a lot of orders from the top down but are unable to do them. What we speak about today is critical, because we have to send a message to our armed forces that we believe in them fully and strongly and will support them in every way. That is why it is a pleasure to see the hon.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is exactly the point. I hope that we will be able to drag this point out again on 4 September and make it very clear that if we in this House do not stand by those whom we order to go to war or to bear arms for the sake of the country, who is going to do that? We have the power to sweep things away or to make them. I have disagreed with my own Government many times, but I say gently to this Government: think again. Do not allow the Northern Ireland Office to drive this thing through when Ministers know full well that it is wrong; they need to defend those soldiers, despite the rows that might take place in Cabinet or among Ministers.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do; it was difficult and we stuck to the task. We were not very popular at the time, but that has been a constant in my life. [ Laughter. ] I think you only know you are successful when you are not popular, and we were not popular on that. What we were trying to get was not perfect, but it was better than what we now have, and that is the key. At the heart of it was the aim of protecting those who have been sent, bearing arms, to defend the British people. We need to defend them and respect the sacrifice they made.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Over the last 15 or 20 years, not only have we not made ourselves ready—even today we are not—but we have simply failed to recognise that they have made themselves ready. One naval shipyard in China now builds more naval ships than the whole of the United States in one year. I am told that China now has 130 times the capacity of America to build naval vessels. It is no good looking at Europe, because we hardly build naval vessels any more either. The difference between now and what happened in 1937, 1938 and 1939 is that we then had major industry here—an industry that could build tanks and aircraft, had brilliant aircraft designers, and could build ships. We had probably the most powerful fleet in the world ready to go to war if we had to. We are not in that situation today.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“He was a highly decorated fighter pilot, with five gallantry medals; he commanded in the war and fought all the way through. He said that he could never forgive politicians for having placed the country in the parlous situation of being close to losing the war because they did not see the danger and did not want to be involved in spending more on defence. That was the point he made, and it has resonated with me forever. I happen to believe that we are seeing in front of us the growth of totalitarian states. China is at the centre, but North Korea, Iran and Russia are there, and others, like Myanmar, are developing. More totalitarian states are coming to fruition around the world, and they now outnumber democratic states in the United Nations. The axis has shifted.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As I have been saying for some considerable time, we are now in a more dangerous situation than we have been in not since the cold war—at least we arrived at the cold war knowing what we had to do; Governments co-operated, NATO was fairly newly formed, we were full of the attitude that we would defend one another no matter what, and we were armed and ready—but since the 1930s. I am not in the business of saying that this Government are responsible; all Governments bear responsibility, as my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne said. We are seeing the rise of a threat very similar to what we saw in the 1930s, and our behaviour towards that threat is exactly the same as it was in the 1930s. My father wrote a book many years ago about his time.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yes, that is quite correct, and my right hon. Friend is exactly right to make the point now. We really must understand that, if the first priority of Government is defence of the realm, then the second priority is defence of those they send to fight to protect the realm. If we cannot defend them, we are not worthy of being here. I say gently to Ministers that the House would support them if they went back to the Government and said about the Northern Ireland position, “This is quite wrong. It is unbalanced and deeply unfair.” I hope that they will do just that. The real reason that I decided to speak today is because I am really, really worried.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What we must never do is forget the lessons of the past and be unready for the greatest threat since that faced by those brave men and women who died for us to have freedom back in the 1930s and 1940s. It would be a shame if we forgot why they died.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Other countries in Europe would in the past have looked to us for leadership in a crisis like this, but they are finding that they cannot do so, because we are behind them on spending and in the determination to defend NATO and our home countries. If we want to lead, we have to show the way through our financial commitments. I therefore urge the Government, this evening and beyond, to hear what the Ministers who sadly resigned from the Government have said to them, and to hear what the House in general terms wants. We are ready to commit that spending, we will work to find the savings and we will give support to those who are dedicated to defence.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members who are old enough to remember that, when we finally faced the threat of the Soviet Union, which increased the number of medium-range missiles threatening targets in Europe, we stepped up. Spending went to 5%. That was tough, but we did it. All of NATO did it. No one was lagging. Germany stepped up, even though there were massive crowds on the street saying no. We saw off that threat, because the Soviet Union realised that we were ready. The Government should appeal across the House for support for a higher level of spending. Three per cent in this Parliament should be de minimis. It is not enough: we should be at 3% before the end of this Parliament, with a commitment to rise at least to 4% or 5%.”
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“All these things are a great shame when we look back at the past, but no matter how much we fight the issues of the past, we always lose, because we cannot alter them. What we have to do is learn the lessons of the past. By the end, the previous Government had learned the lessons, were committed to spending more, and were spending more and doing more. The sad part is that the new Government have come in and there are differences, but I am not going to focus on that. We learn from our past and from our mistakes. If we do not do that, we are determined to repeat all those mistakes. This time, it may be too late for us to correct them. This should not be a debate at each other, but a coming together of this House to require that this Government finance defence at the necessary level. I am one of a number of hon.”
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“The hon. Member talks about 2014 and the invasion, and he is quite right. I was in Cabinet at the time, and one of the points that I and some others raised was what our position was over this. But the EU got this badly wrong because the President of France and Mrs Merkel headed over, on their own decision, to set up a negotiation that left Russia in control of Crimea, forgetting all the original support and our promises to Ukraine. They were reducing spending and did not want to go to war, and so they sacrificed Ukraine in the process.”
House of Commons23 June 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗