Fred Thomas

Latest speeches

1. Defence Committee · House of Commons · 15 July 2026

   • Key UK High North capabilities, ISR and space

     “Thank you, Chair. So you've spoken quite a lot, Minister, about the kind of collaboration with with other countries and how that might make us stronger, make us stronger, make the kind of the Europe's northern flank better defended from…”

     Watch from 58:03

   • Key UK High North capabilities, ISR and space

     “What would be some of the capabilities that obviously, you know, we're limited, our resources is limited as a country, we've been through the whole ongoing conversations around the dip, etc. But if we did have all the resources in…”

     Watch from 1:00:51

   • Key UK High North capabilities, ISR and space

     “I would challenge that. I mean, some of them are quite cheap. Obviously some of them are really expensive. They're getting cheaper year on year. I mean, just to give you kind of context of why I'm going down this,…”

     Watch from 1:04:23

2. House of Commons · House of Commons · 8 July 2026

   • CRO volunteering, pensions, whistleblowing and union recognition

     “Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And I'm very grateful to hear the minister has engaged with coastguard rescue officers in Southampton and that's typical of his diligent manner and approach to difficult issues like this. I would like to invite…”

     Watch from 2:16:51

3. Defence Committee · House of Commons · 7 July 2026

   • Nuclear deterrent burden and potential cost‑sharing

     “Thanks, Chair. Just a quick one, Lord Robertson, you spoke just before about how the UK provides the nuclear deterrent for all of our European allies, and you commented on how expensive that is and how it squeezes the rest…”

     Watch from 32:47

   • Parliamentary defence budgeting, secrecy culture and private finance

     “Thank you, Chair. We mentioned just before about how some countries do better than us at informing citizens about the need to be resilient. And the committee was recently in Norway a couple weeks ago. So they do that much…”

     Watch from 1:18:02

   • Parliamentary defence budgeting, secrecy culture and private finance

     “I guess so I agree with that. I'm wondering if you would support a very radical change in the UK of how we come up with decisions around defense spending to make have a budget that's passed through Parliament each…”

     Watch from 1:21:06

4. House of Commons · House of Commons · 30 June 2026

   • Defence plan scrutiny, reserves and hybrid navy

     “Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. 63 billion pounds this investment plan lays out this country will spend on our nuclear deterrent over the next few years. But that's not just to keep the UK safe. We offer that as an…”

     Watch from 4:20:10

5. Defence Committee · House of Commons · 9 June 2026

   • Coalition of the willing: roles, risks and deterrence value

     “Thank you very much. Fred Thomas. Thank you, Chair. Obviously I hope and I'm sure many others that Ukraine expels every last invading Russian troop off its land including Crimea, the Donbas, etc. If that doesn't happen and we have…”

     Watch from 1:46:54

   • Russian ambitions after a de facto ceasefire and NATO deterrence

     “Thank you. And Professor Clarke, just very quickly, how might we, you know, de facto ceasefire, Russia wanting to do something else, how can we mitigate the risk of them doing that?”

     Watch from 1:50:22

6. House of Commons · House of Commons · 1 June 2026

   • Speech

     “mister speaker. For all of the years that I served as a regular in the military, the continuous attitude survey showed that morale was dropping year on year. Since Labour have come into government, that has reversed. Yeah. Yeah. And…”

     Watch from 2:48