First up today was a piece of delegated legislation, which is heard in committee. It was not controversial and the matter took only 10 minutes to deal with. I then had a private meeting with a colleague, which meant I missed PMQs. I heard that Starmer attempted to be funny, no doubt to counter accusations from his own side that he's "boring". Wandered off to CR 8 at 1325 in time for another meeting of our Defence Select Committee. This was a one-off hearing and the first we've had with the Office for Veterans’ Affairs (OVA) since it was created in October 2019. The aim was to ask about the Office’s priorities and its work with veterans. As part of the preparation for the session, veterans were invited to submit questions for the Minister and the OVA. We had two witnesses. The first was Leo Docherty, who's been MP for Aldershot since 2017. He was appointed Minister for Defence People and Veterans (MinDPV) in April 2021, following the resignation of Johnny Mercer MP. As MinDPV, he is responsible for armed forces, veterans and civilian people policy. The second was Jesse Owen, who's been Director of the OVA since March 2021 and formerly a Deputy Director in the Government’s Covid Taskforce. Jessie has broad experience across government. She most recently worked on a range of cross-government priorities in national security policy and strategy, including
developing legislation, building international partnerships and leading external communications. The two hour session was interesting and revealing and can be seen on Parliament TV. Due to this meeting, I could not take part in the debate on the planned train strikes. But I know that my West Dorset colleague, Chris Loder, spoke for many of us in Dorset during his speech. Business ended at 1900.