Lincoln Jopp MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Dec 2025 · China: Threat to UK Interests · Hansard source

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  I thank the Foreign Secretary for that answer. There is a rumour going round Whitehall that the Foreign Secretary is not the Foreign Secretary, and that the real Foreign Secretary is Mr Jonathan Powell. That could not possibly be the case, of course, because it would make a mockery of the ability to hold the Foreign Secretary to account. Can the Foreign Secretary demonstrate that she really is in charge by telling us the precise instructions that she gave Mr Powell before he met the Chinese Foreign Minister four days ago?

• 2 Dec 2025 · China: Threat to UK Interests · Hansard source

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  8. What assessment she has made of the level of threat that China poses to UK interests.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts · Hansard source

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  When did the Chancellor first brief her Cabinet colleagues on the realities of the OBR forecast?

• 1 Dec 2025 · SEND: Funding · Hansard source

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  On 16 June I asked the Secretary of State what she understood to be the drivers behind the phenomenon of the exponential rise in the number of children with special educational needs. She replied: “My Department, and the Department of Health and Social Care, are keen to understand…the drivers”. —[ Official Report , 16 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 11.] May I ask what work the Secretary of State has done in the intervening six months, and what she understands better today than she did on 16 June?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Peru) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Romania) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Andorra) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Portuguese Republic) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  Sir Chair.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Peru) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Romania) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Andorra) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Portuguese Republic) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Peru) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Romania) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Andorra) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Portuguese Republic) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I have just been checking my notes, and I think that the Minister may have inadvertently referred to you, Sir Desmond, as “Mr Swayne”. I thought it might be good to offer him the opportunity to correct the record, and show that he did not mean any disrespect to the Chair.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Peru) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Romania) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Andorra) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Portuguese Republic)) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  Sir Chair.

• 1 Dec 2025 · Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Peru) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Romania) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Andorra) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Portuguese Republic)) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 1 Dec 2025 · Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Peru) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Romania) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Andorra) Order 2025 Draft Double Taxation Relief and International Tax Enforcement (Portuguese Republic)) Order 2025 · Hansard source

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  I have just been checking my notes, and I think that the Minister may have inadvertently referred to you, Sir Desmond, as “Mr Swayne”. I thought it might be good to offer him the opportunity to correct the record, and show that he did not mean any disrespect to the Chair.

• 27 Nov 2025 · Right to Trial by Jury · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for coming to the Chamber to answer this urgent question. I have taken note of what she has said and, if I may, I will quote it back to her: “a swift and prompt trial is a fundamental ingredient of fairness”, a three to four year delay is “deeply demoralising”, and “justice delayed is justice denied”. How does she square that position with her support for the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Who knew?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member acknowledge that whether parents get their money from income or from benefits, the Government, having inherited 2% inflation, have taken it up to 3.6%, which reduces the value of that pound in parents’ pockets?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. I am a bit confused by his answer to my last intervention. Why was it a bad idea to lift the two-child benefit cap when the SNP suggested it, but a good idea now that his Chancellor suggests it?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  You’re in charge.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  For the record, why did the hon. Member vote against lifting the two-child benefit cap when the SNP proposed it earlier?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with my right hon. Friend about the inherent contradictions. Would it be fair to characterise this Budget as the left hand not knowing what the further left hand is doing?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way a second time. The Chancellor said on Sky News, “It’s on me now.” I would be grateful if he could set a date for when this Government are going to take responsibility for the country. I have plenty of things I could be doing in Spelthorne, so I will go away and come back when he is prepared to be accountable and take responsibility for the state of the nation under this Government.

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. What is his message to the people who have been made unemployed since the Labour party came to power?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend share my concern that we have lost, I believe, 90,000 jobs from the hospitality industry just since the last Budget? While I do my bit to try to save the British pub industry on my own, does he worry, as I do, that today’s Budget will just make it harder and harder for hospitality?

• 26 Nov 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  No one can doubt the hon. Member’s commitment to the people of Oldham. He is being very loyal to the Chancellor and her Budget. I have a simple question: if unemployment goes up in his constituency from today, before the local elections next year, will he resign?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Is Surrey going to get a mayor?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Ministerial Code · Hansard source

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  I will try to speak really slowly and ask not multiple questions but just the one. How much cash did David Kogan give the Prime Minister?

• 20 Nov 2025 · International Men’s Day · Hansard source

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  Very good!

• 18 Nov 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles Bill · Hansard source

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  The Defence Committee recently visited Canberra in Australia. For Members who do not know the geography of the place, the old Parliament building looks down a row of trees and across a lake to the national war memorial. When the new Parliament building was built in the 1980s, it was pushed back so that it had exactly the same view. The implication was that the decisions made in that Parliament ended up down at the war memorial—it was a sense of focus, and I hope that we can have that focus today. The curator of the national war memorial said that it is quite the thing to find—with no cameras and no fuss—the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet on their hands and knees scrubbing the tomb of the unknown Australian soldier. I did four tours of Northern Ireland. My first was in 1992. I served three and half years there, trying to bring peace to that place. In the first week of my first tour, I was manning a checkpoint just by the Divis flats. My road man called me over because a Hilux van had driven in. He called me over and said to the driver, “Say to the platoon commander what you’ve just said to me.” I looked into the driver’s eyes and he said, “I’ve got a bomb in the back of this van.” I knew immediately that he was lying. I had no experience there, but I knew he was lying because I had been trained. As my grandmother used to say, an ounce of experience is worth a ton of enthusiasm. I know that there is no one in the Cabinet with any experience in government. I know that there is no one in the Cabinet with any experience in the military. If only we had some people with experience who could send the message to the Cabinet that what they are doing is wrong. Maybe it could be the 210,000 people who filled in a petition in record time and got a Westminster Hall debate. Many of the veterans who were there then are here today. I thank them for the presence, and have enjoyed meeting them again in Parliament Square today. Maybe it could be the 2,512 veterans in my Spelthorne constituency who have written to tell me that the Government are making a mistake. Maybe it could be the nine four-star generals who have written an open letter to the Government to tell them that they are making a mistake. I have tried to get my head around why the Government so glibly are ignoring them. What if nine former chief constables or nine former senior bishops wrote to the Government and said, “You really need to think again”? I find it bewildering that the Government think they know better than those nine four-star officers who wrote saying that this Bill does not offer sufficient, proper protection to those who were doing their duty in good faith. The problem is—and the Secretary of State knows this—that this piece of legislation is part of the proxy war that answers the question, “Who won?” It is a shot being fired, and our veterans, I am afraid, are being used as chess pieces in that disgraceful proxy battle in order to relitigate and answer the question, “Who won?” When we last spoke about this in Westminster Hall, I begged the Secretary of State to listen to the advice of the previous Veterans Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns). I can only assume from this Bill that he has not done so, and I will be voting against it tonight.