Clive Lewis MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  I will take one intervention, because I know that time is short.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  I agree 100% with the right hon. Member. Joseph Chamberlain is the father of municipal government and municipal socialism in many ways, and he is someone we in this place can look to. I know that time is short, and I want to get to one key point. This debate taps into something far deeper than the yah-boo politics between those on different sides of the House: a deep public anxiety about the future of this country and this planet. People instinctively understand that something is wrong. This summer, we all watched as this country burned. We know that droughts are on their way, and we know that AI is possibly out of control. Housing, energy, water and food are things that people want under public control, not in the hands of corporations, billionaires and millionaires. When droughts and food insecurity hit, and when we cannot get access to social care or healthcare, we understand that the public need to be able to make the decisions as to who gets what, including water. Water is vital to everything from industry, to agriculture, to people having something to drink. Given that this country may soon face a water shortfall of 5 billion litres a week, and that the national risk register suggests there is a one in four chance that parts of the country will no longer be able to have people living there, because they will have to be evacuated due to severe water shortages, there is no choice but for the Government finally to grasp the nettle and bring not just water but every critical asset this country has, from data, to health, to housing, back into public ownership where people need it—under our control, owned by us.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to speak in this debate under your illustrious chairmanship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) on leading it, and I thank him for being so generous with his time. I also thank the members of the public who are in the Gallery, including Ash Smith, Julie Maughan, Rob Forrester and all the other campaigners, citizen activists and citizen scientists who have got us to the point where this is one of the hottest topics in politics at the moment. The people who built our water system understood something that we in this place have forgotten. One of them said that “all monopolies which are in any way sustained by the State ought to be in the hands of the representations of the peoples”. Members and those in the Gallery may like to guess who said that. Was it Leon Trotsky? Was it Tony Benn? Well, it was actually Joseph Chamberlain, who ended his career as a Conservative Cabinet member. Many of the Victorians understood that public ownership is not ideological; it is pragmatic.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not know whether I am alone in this, but I am hearing the shadow Secretary of State glibly throw away 80 years of legislation on human rights—human rights that were forged in the aftermath of the Holocaust, of concentration camps, of the horrors of fascism. He stands there and talks glibly about throwing them out when they have protected hundreds of millions of people around the world. There is a clue. The reason they are called “human” rights is that this is the universal condition—we are all human beings—and the day we forget that in this place is the day we open a dark chapter in our country’s history.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for his speech. Maybe I can answer his question. Perhaps it is because of a nostalgia for an Israel that no longer exists—an Israel that made the desert bloom. We now have a state of Israel that routinely breaks human rights law, busts human law, and creates a situation in which it is accused of genocide before the ICJ. This is not a state that anyone in this House, let alone on the Labour Benches, should have any sympathy for, because it undermines our ability to hold up international law. When we think about it, the state that now exists is ultimately one that everyone in this House should be able to condemn wholeheartedly.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Societal Impact of AI: Government Policy · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his excellent speech. There are lots of things about AI and its impact that we do not know. But one of the things that history teaches us is that if vast amounts of power and wealth are handed to a handful of individuals, corporations or even the Chinese Communist party—this is not just about corporations; it can be about states as well—the outcome is usually not good for the vast majority of people. I think we can all agree on that. We do not need to know whether AI will be beneficial or hostile, or become super-AI. What we can see is that when a small group of people are allowed to define what reality and knowledge are, that in itself—well, we have all read “1984”.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Water Companies · Hansard source

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  (Urgent Question) : To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if she will make a statement on the performance of the water sector.

• 8 Jun 2026 · Water Companies · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister both for her response and for putting up with me—I am a bit of a broken record on this issue. We are all well aware that water is essential to life itself—to food, industry, nature, housing, energy, and now even the data centres powering the supposed AI revolution—and yet we have handed a monopoly where no competition is possible to companies, many owned overseas, whose overriding priority is profit. The result is systemic failure, with not one major reservoir built and the old ones sold off. That is why we were back in the Chamber last week over South East Water and the drought outages, just weeks into the summer. Raw sewage has poured into our rivers and seas—3.5 million hours of it in 2024 alone—fouling beaches where children swim. It is why eight-year-old Heather Preen died after contracting E. coli from raw sewage, and why thousands of our constituents are made sick every year. When public anger saw the Government ban bonuses, water execs raised their salaries and rebranded the payouts “retention payments” and that comes on top of the £78 billion to shareholders and £60 billion borrowed, our bills up 40%, and 30p in every pound we pay servicing water companies’ debts instead of fixing pipes. This was never a market failure. Instead, it is the market working as designed—profits out, sewage in, cost of living up and security of supply decimated. Surely the Minister understands that we can no more regulate privatised water companies than regulate the tide. How many more failures, inquiries and deaths before the Government accept that these problems are systemic and give the public the option of taking their water back?

• 3 Jun 2026 · South East Water: Disruption of Supply · Hansard source

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  South East Water is one of a number of privatised water companies that are responsible for selling off 35 reservoirs since 2017, and those companies have not built a single one since privatisation that is complete. We understand that this Government are committed to a regulatory approach to dealing with this issue, but that is akin to putting a complaints box on the Titanic. It is a nice idea, but I do not think it will work. Ultimately, private water companies’ first priority is private shareholders—many of them overseas—who do not give a damn about our constituents. This situation will keep happening until water is put back under public control, in public hands, and owned by the public.

• 11 Mar 2026 · Lord Mandelson: Response to Humble Address Motion · Hansard source

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  I have listened to the Minister, and some of his points were relevant, but this is not just about technicalities and lapses of judgment. This is about a wider, rotten political culture: a 30-year project where proximity to wealth and power is not a means to an end but the end goal. That is what Peter Mandelson represented. This is not just about him being the ambassador or being selected to be ambassador; he was at the heart of the political project around No. 10. That has to change. Do the Government understand that out there, this is about not just one bad set of decisions but a political culture, which Peter Mandelson represents, and that it is destroying mainstream party politics in this country? Do we get that? Do we understand that? Will we change?

• 10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source

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  This deal with Palantir stinks. It stank before Peter Mandelson was involved, and it stank when those now on the Opposition Benches initiated the NHS and defence contracts. Peter Thiel is an oligarch who despises democracy, and the company has had widespread allegations of human rights abuses made against it. Even the Swiss army has rejected Palantir as a platform on national security grounds. Surely, after Greenland, now is an opportunity for our Government to begin to distance themselves and pivot away from companies, such as Palantir, that are so closely connected with Donald Trump. It is time to move away. Will the Government commit to such a pivot?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  Obviously, people here want to get to the bottom of this, in terms of the accountability of the Prime Minister and other elements in No. 10, and of course they want to get to the bottom of what Peter Mandelson has done. However, the public understand that this is not just about a number of rotten apples in the system—it is systemic. It is about those who have wealth, power and access, and how they treat young girls and women, and us, the public. They take us for mugs. Does the hon. Lady believe that this goes wider than just a few bad apples? It is systemic, and that is what needs to be addressed. That is what the public want.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  We on the Labour Benches at least understand the historical consistency:186 years ago the Tories made economic arguments against stopping children being sent up chimneys, and 186 years later they are making the same arguments, about stopping children being put into poverty. Same old Tories, nearly 200 years later!

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am listening to the hon. Gentleman. Conservative Members always seem to portray this as an individual moral failing. That is how they see welfare, when actually it is about a collective insurance against economic risk. That is how we see it. You see it as a moral issue; we see it as an economic one.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Water White Paper · Hansard source

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  After 18 months and an independent inquiry, the Government’s answer is more regulation, not enforcing the law as it is. Not one water company has lost its licence, yet we think that more bureaucracy and more regulation will make a difference. More bureaucracy will not fix our water. I am afraid the Secretary of State needs to know that the problem is ownership. Private monopolies with guaranteed incomes have asset-stripped, polluted rivers and paid themselves billions. Until that changes, nothing will change. Will the Secretary of State meet me and other water campaigners to discuss this document? We cannot see any public consultation in the White Paper, so will she at least commit to that, please?