Lincoln Jopp MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Secure 16 to 19 Academies Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a please to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cramlington and Killingworth on bringing forward this Bill. I have only one question for the Minister to answer in his summing up. On reducing the notice given to providers from seven to two years, I agree with the characterisation. In respect of the existing contract, however, has that had to be renegotiated— from the service provider’s point of view, obviously the Bill represents a significant change in the terms of the contract—and has that renegotiation cost the taxpayer any money?

• 30 Jun 2025 · Defence Sector Exports · Hansard source

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  Ametek, a defence manufacturer in my constituency, has reported to me that the process of getting a defence export licence has almost ground to a halt in the past 12 months. Could the Ministry of Defence send someone sufficiently threatening round to the Department for Business and Trade—perhaps the Veterans Minister—to persuade it to get a grip of its processes and speed everything up?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Driving Test Backlog · Hansard source

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  The post-covid backlog in driving tests was trending down under the last Government. At the time of the general election, it had got to 521,000, which was still too high, but it was coming down. Since this Government took over, the number has rocketed up to 600,000, a new record high, meaning that constituents like Oliver, in my Spelthorne constituency, have had to wait six months for a driving test. The increasing delays in driving tests are putting a handbrake on growth and productivity, so whatever the Government are doing, can they do more of it and faster please?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Driving Test Backlog · Hansard source

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  11. What steps she is taking to reduce the backlog for driving tests.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  I do not know if the Leader of the House is aware that if we installed just 15% of floating solar panels on the man-made reservoirs in this country, we would double the installed base of solar power without having to put a single new solar panel on agricultural land. I know what she is thinking: “If only some plucky Back Bencher had secured today’s Adjournment debate, the House could learn more.” I am happy to say that I have, so will she encourage Back Benchers from across the House to attend today’s debate to learn more about floating solar?

• 26 Jun 2025 · G7 and NATO Summits · Hansard source

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  The former Prime Minister has just welcomed the US military action against Iran at the weekend. Why cannot the Prime Minister bring himself to welcome it, too?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  I wonder whether the taskforce has engaged with the company that runs the Queen Elizabeth solar farm; it is called Bluefield—very clever name; very clever company. It wrote to the Secretary of State earlier in the year, some four months ago, but is yet to receive a reply. I would be grateful to know whether the Department is engaging with Bluefield and whether I could nudge the Secretary of State to reply to its letter?

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  I am delighted to see the House so full for this Adjournment debate. I want hon. Members who are staying to remember who was here. Indeed, people in the Public Gallery might wish to make a note in their diary, too, because I hope that I will in some way blow the House’s mind with what I am about to say and sow a seed that will grow into something fantastic. What we are here to discuss is floating solar. Members will know that I am the Member of Parliament for Spelthorne. I feel obliged to remind the House on regular occasions that Spelthorne is not in Lancashire or in Lincolnshire. It is everything south of Heathrow until one gets to the River Thames. Hon. Members from around the House know my constituency well, because it is what they see when they take off from or land at Heathrow airport. I was selected as the candidate for Spelthorne four days into the general election campaign. Having spent 25 years in the Army, obviously I love a map. There is a very good saying, “If you don’t understand what is going on, get a bigger map.” When I looked at a map of Spelthorne, I was struck by these four massive blocks of blue, so I looked into them. They are four raised reservoirs, which hold half of London’s drinking water. Being a practical person, I first thought to myself, “Well, there are not many votes there!” Secondly, I thought, “I cannot really build any houses there.” Spelthorne is 67% green belt and water, and a large chunk of the rest of it is floodplain, so it is difficult to know what we might do to meet our housing targets; people get crammed into the small islands where development can happen. I was determined, though, to find some way to utilise the 2,000 acres of raised reservoir in my Spelthorne constituency. I looked into it a little further, and came upon the concept of floating solar. This is a terribly simple concept: simply take solar panels, attach them to plastic floats, anchor those floats to the bottom of the reservoir, and string some wires to take an alternating current from the floating solar panels. The clever bits, in terms of intellectual property, are the anchors—because, as I am sure hon. Members know, the depth of reservoirs tends to vary by about 1 metre from time to time. Equally, reservoirs are drained and reassessed on a rolling cycle of about 20 years.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. The Queen Mary reservoir in my constituency has a plug-in point to the national grid at one end of it. The ability to minimise the disruption that is caused by placing solar farms away from where the power is needed is certainly a consideration that plays into this. Hon. Members will think, “Well, that must be his list complete. Those must be all the benefits of floating solar, because there can’t be any more.” But I say to the House that one of the most astonishing things about floating solar is that it improves the water quality underneath, as it is denuded of light and heat. There are things that grow in the water which the water companies subsequently have to filter out to make it tap-ready for us and our constituents. The water companies have to use fewer filtrants where the surface has been covered by floating solar. We have covered the evaporative effect, so I think I have made the case for floating solar.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend pre-empts one of the many benefits of floating solar that I will highlight to the House. He remembers his physics highers well, because the placing of floating solar reduces evaporation from the body that is covered by 70%. Given that the vast majority of the water in our reservoirs is lost through evaporation every year, we will save a great deal more water if the Government decide to pursue this technology at a grand scale. Part of my coming here today is to speak to two large constituencies within this House. There are 543 constituencies that contain reservoirs or man-made water sources. Similarly, countless Members from across the House have very difficult decisions to make about putting solar farms on good agricultural land. Essentially, what has happened is that the whole discussion in this area has become a zero-sum game. It is a battle between food security and energy security, and there has seemed to be no way of unpicking that—until now. Globally, floating solar has been put to practical application at large scale in China, India and Vietnam. The UK was formerly a leader in this space, because on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir in 2016, a grand technology demonstrator was put on and plugged in, and it has been banging out 6.3 MW into Thames Water’s water treatment facility ever since. That is enough to power 2,000 homes. Given that floating solar covers less than 10% of that reservoir, I am sure that hon. Members can see the vast potential. I want to talk about some of the benefits of floating solar, because they are legion. First, as hon. Members will have worked out already, there is the removal of the opportunity cost of putting floating solar panels on grade A agricultural land. If we do not have to put them all over Lincolnshire and we can put them on reservoirs, that land can be used for growing food.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that. The installed base of every single solar panel in the United Kingdom is producing 17 GW. If we were to cover 15% of man-made reservoirs in this country, we would double the national capacity, adding a further 16 GW without touching an inch of agricultural land. That is absolutely extraordinary. In so doing, we would create 80,000 jobs in the construction phase and 8,000 jobs in the maintenance phase. My plea to the Minister—who I know is putting the finishing touches to the Government’s solar road map—is that floating solar should play a much greater part in the final road map than it did in the first draft. I am grateful to my right hon. and hon. Friends for their support; I hope this debate has been educational and informative, and that they are now fully signed up to the floating solar brethren and sisterhood, which will go forth from this place and evangelise for the good cause.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  We have gone from Cooper to Hooper! I am delighted to follow my right hon. and gallant Friend’s endorsement, and wish everyone there the opportunity to get to the polls today to exercise their democratic right.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  I just point out to the Minister that she could save herself a vast amount of political pain, because, apart from a few swans that I saw, a couple of seagulls and one man from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, there ain’t many people who are going to complain about putting floating solar on raised reservoirs.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  On Tuesday, I visited the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir, which is a closed site owned by Thames Water. I am not aware that there were any fish there, but there was certainly bird life. It is important to make the point that the general planning norm and all the modelling have been based on covering only 15% of these reservoirs, in order to leave sufficient space for leisure use, including fishing, no doubt, and for bird life. The birds I saw on the Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday were warming themselves very happily on the floating solar panels, because, of course, by being on the panels, they are predator free, as nothing can attack them there. “How big could this be?”, I hear the House roar.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member, with whom I serve on the Defence Committee, makes a very important point about future-proofing the United Kingdom’s water supply from increased temperatures. In Australia, I understand that reservoirs are being covered at great expense to reduce evaporation. He might know that where floating solar panels exist, they reduce evaporation by 70. In the case of the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir, that is 100 tonnes of water a day. It is absolutely extraordinary. I know Members are thinking, “Well, Lincoln, it couldn’t get any better,” but I have to tell the House that there are still some further benefits. [Hon. Members: “More!”] Where reservoirs are owned by water companies and the water companies want to use the electricity themselves, there is no requirement for planning permission. When we consider the turmoil that land-based systems have to go through over many, many years, and the paroxysms the nation puts itself through before it puts in a land-based system, we should note that floating solar can be deployed within a few weeks.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  I do, indeed. I was not 100% sure which Minister would respond to this debate, so I have had only the briefest of moments to look at the lake in Burgess park in the Minister’s Peckham constituency to see whether that may be suitable for floating solar. We have talked about the opportunity costs and about doubling efficiency. I am sure hon. Members will have worked this out, but the 2,000 acres of reservoir in my Spelthorne constituency are raised, which means no one can see the top of them unless they are flying off to Torremolinos or landing from Dubai. Therefore, there would be none of the visual vandalism that people object to so much, and the carpeting of our beautiful country in solar panels would go away too.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for joining this merry band of evangelists for floating solar, and for seeking to get in on the ground floor with the inclusion of the reservoir in his constituency. Within minutes, he is immediately seeing the opportunity, and I congratulate him on that.

• 26 Jun 2025 · Floating Solar Panels · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope we are going to give hope across the House and therefore across the country that this alternative solution to putting solar panels on grade A agricultural land is, to a certain extent, an answer to a maiden’s prayers. Not only does floating solar remove the opportunity costs of putting it on agricultural land, but one of its beauties is that it is twice as efficient as a land-based system. Land-based systems warm up because they are on the land, and as they warm up they become less efficient, whereas floating solar panels, because of the evaporative effect on the underside, remain automatically cool and 100% efficient throughout a sunny day.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Nuclear-certified Aircraft Procurement · Hansard source

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  I join Conservative Front Benchers in welcoming the answer to the urgent question, although maybe it should have been a statement. May I ask about autonomy and national sovereignty over the weapons system that will be deployed from this aircraft? There is considerable press reporting that it will be dual key, meaning that the Brits cannot use it without American say-so. Is that true? If so, why has the Ministry of Defence elected to take that option, rather than having full national sovereignty?

• 25 Jun 2025 · National Armaments Director · Hansard source

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  When I gave my maiden speech just under a year ago, I took the opportunity to express my frustration that the Government had announced a spending review that would essentially buy the political cover to get to a defence spend of 2.5% of GDP. The frustration I expressed was that the dogs in the streets knew that we needed 2.5%, and that we essentially wasted the best part of a year. The evidence for that is clear to us all. Lord Robertson and General Barrons appeared in front of the Defence Committee when the Government kicked off the strategic defence review, and I said that when Lord Robertson had done his prior defence review, it was very clearly threat-based and foreign policy-led, whereas this one seemed to be saying, “2.5% is the answer, but now what is the question?”. It proved to be the case, because part way through the strategic defence review the Government asked, “What can you get for 3% by the next Parliament?”, and then they asked, “What can you get for 3% by 2034?”, and then, “What can you get for 3.5%?”. As the Prime Minister turned up at the NATO summit, we got the mystery bump up to 5% for defence and security. My suspicion, maybe slightly cynically, is that that 1.5% is made up of 0.75% smoke and 0.75% mirrors, but we shall see. It would be churlish of me, while defence expenditure is going up, to question it. I therefore think it is important to concentrate on how the money will be spent. I remind the House of an exchange that took place at the Defence Committee the other day with the Chief of the Defence Staff after the publication of the strategic defence review. He said that we come from a position of strength and that this additional expenditure will simply make us stronger and more secure. I said, “I obviously did not expect you to know the answer to this question, but if I were to ask you, how many working tanks have we got?” He batted away the question in the following way: “I suppose my caution on that would be that, while we are charged with the nation’s security and safety, it may be that having 50 tanks or 100 tanks is not necessarily going to be the defining factor as to whether the country remains safe. To me, that is the problem with those questions. I come back to this: is our readiness at a level that we are playing our part, with our NATO partners, and achieving deterrence with Russia?” Clearly not. He continued: “Are we really confident about that? The problem with a micro example is that it skips over what is fundamentally our security construct. We are a beneficiary of a collective group of nations in Europe. Never mind our 50 tanks or our modest increase in the Army; they are increasing their armies by tens of thousands and they are increasing their tanks by hundreds.” If that is the attitude the Minister is getting to our having very few working tanks, she should be wary of the voices she might be getting from certain parts of the Ministry of Defence. I think that she and the Prime Minister would like some options beyond simply reaching for the nuclear button; there needs to be something in between. I hope that she will take that forward in her conversations with the national armaments director on their priorities. I asked the Minister when we were discussing the national armaments director whether the director would have free range to tear up the book on defence procurement. The book certainly needs tearing up. I speak as someone who, as well as serving on the frontline on four tours of Northern Ireland, the first Gulf war, the second Gulf war, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, managed to squeeze in about five years in the Ministry of Defence. I am sure the Minister is aware of the conspiracy of optimism in equipment planning, where people in uniform will tell part-truths about how much things will cost to get them into the programme—it is called entryism, and it has been going on for years—and then, all of a sudden, those same people will come back and say, “Minister, I am afraid our aircraft carriers won’t cost the £2 billion we told you; they will cost £6 billion. But what are you going to do? You’ve already announced them, and anything else will cause you huge amounts of political pain.” I urged the Minister to tear up the rulebook, and she gave me a positive response: the national armaments director will indeed be earning their salary. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee said it was £400,000—I think that he or she will be on a potential £600,000 with bonuses—but they have got to be worth that. They must have free range to tear up the book. As a member of the Defence Committee, I do not want them giving us evidence a year after their initial appointment and saying, “I wanted to change things, but they just would not let me.” This is my final point. Alongside the appointment of the national armaments director, we have defence reform going through. It was telling that when Lord Robertson and General Barrons came back to the Defence Committee having published their SDR and I asked them about the culture change required in the whole of defence reform, Lord Robertson told an interesting story. When Colin Powell moved from uniform to politics and was asked, “How do you bring about a culture change in an organisation which has gone in the wrong direction?” General Powell said, “Well, how do you stop a column of ants? You stamp on the first 10.” The Minister needs to prepare herself for some seriously robust conversations with the Ministry of Defence if money is to be spent wisely and honestly on things that go bang and bring about the effect—not just the input—that we all desire.

• 25 Jun 2025 · National Armaments Director · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend mentioned the equipment plan; does he share the Defence Committee’s frustration that the last time anyone was able to scrutinise that spending was in 2022? Is he aware that when Lord Robertson came to the Defence Committee to discuss the strategic defence review last week, he was surprised that the Defence Committee was being denied access to the equipment programme—as indeed are the Public Accounts Committee—meaning that the Government simply cannot be held to account for what they are spending money on?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement in which he says that he has been crystal clear with the regime in Tehran. I hope he has been a lot clearer with them than he has been with the House today, but I will give it one more go, because I genuinely do not understand why he cannot answer this question. Does His Majesty’s Government support or oppose the US military action against Iran at the weekend?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Educational Outcomes for Boys · Hansard source

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  Recent research by the Centre for Social Justice showed that at key stage 1, key stage 2, GCSEs, A-levels and T-levels, boys are underperforming girls. We simply cannot allow half a generation not to be allowed to reach their full potential. As part of her approach, will the Secretary of State consider looking at whether boys might need to be taught somewhat differently from girls?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Educational Outcomes for Boys · Hansard source

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  2. Whether she plans to take steps with Cabinet colleagues to develop a strategy to improve educational outcomes for boys.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just about thefts from vans? This is about people’s whole livelihood and ability to work. Businesses can be struck down. Does he agree that this is therefore worthy of its own offence?