Julian Lewis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Sept 2025 · BBC Monitoring Service · Hansard source

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  I must say it is gratifying in an end-of-day Adjournment debate on a Thursday early evening to have so many people so keen to intervene, including the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince).

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes the point extremely well, and I think that people with a mind to compromise would like to go down that road, but does he recognise that the usual handful of allocations will not be enough on this one-off occasion to meet the requirement that he has so ably outlined?

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not expect the Minister to be specific about numbers, but can he at least tell the House whether he accepts the principle that a considerably larger one-off tranche would be needed to cater for this unique situation?

• 4 Sept 2025 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not purport to speak on behalf of my party, but rather as an individual who has long had an interest in the positive role that the Lords play in revising legislation, which any elected and strongly whipped House would not be able to do. The Minister partly anticipated the point I want to make, when he mentioned the ability to appoint some of what would otherwise be outgoing hereditary peers to life peerages. That may be a way forward for people of good will to pursue, but given the quite high number of people who find themselves in quite responsible positions in the Lords, what sort of numbers does he have in mind to allow the parties that will lose a large number of hereditary peers to appoint as life peers?

• 4 Sept 2025 · Early Education and Childcare · Hansard source

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  After that tough question, may I ask an easy one? Can the Minister explain to the House what the funding level is for the new places, and in particular whether it fully compensates for an average £18,000 increase in the bills that nurseries have to face as a result in the rise in national insurance contributions?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Hospitality Sector · Hansard source

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  The Minister is an entirely charming chap and a great entertainer—I worry that his Equity card might be getting out of date. He praises the changes that have been made to the employment conditions of bar staff, for example, but does he really think that it is a good idea to have them policing the comments of people who use public houses, when it takes as many as five members of the constabulary to arrest a comedian over inappropriate tweets?

• 3 Sept 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. Admiral Lord West was head of the Royal Navy, Chief of Defence Intelligence and a Labour Security Minister, and he sits on the Intelligence and Security Committee. When he writes in the national press denouncing what he calls the“disgraceful decision to hand over ownership of the Chagos archipelago”,adding that he does “not accept that the move is ‘absolutely vital for our defence and intelligence’, as the Prime Minister claims”,should we rely on his professional judgment or not?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  I am truly grateful. This is, I hope, a non-party political point. The White Paper in advance of the Bill mentioned rightly that there had been consultations on strengthening the standards and conduct framework for local authorities, which relates to a campaign many of us have been involved in to try to protect local council clerks against bullying. We were pleased to be called into that consultation. There is, however, nothing about that in the Bill. Does the right hon. Lady plan to bring it forward in separate legislation?

• 2 Sept 2025 · English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the right hon. Lady give way?

• 2 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Given communist China’s predictable support for the killer in the Kremlin’s campaign of murder and mayhem in Ukraine, why are the Government rewarding China with a super-embassy in London?

• 2 Sept 2025 · The Battle of Britain · Hansard source

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  Before he does, I mention that I am very grateful indeed to the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to the Chamber. It is well known that the only Victoria Cross to be awarded to a fighter pilot in world war two was awarded to James Brindley Nicolson for re-entering, on 16 August 1940, a burning plane to shoot down an enemy bomber near Southampton. What is not so well known was that one of the British casualties in the same action was the youngest pilot to die in the battle of Britain. His name was Martyn Aurel King. To mark the 85th anniversary of his heroic death in that action, two months short of his 19th birthday, a memorial service was held at Fawley church in New Forest East, where he lies buried with honour among several of his comrades.

• 2 Sept 2025 · Speciality Steel UK: Insolvency · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for the frankness of her statement. She says that the director of the company is under investigation for suspected fraud, fraudulent trading and money laundering. Can she reassure the House that that will not in any way hold up the Government in taking any remedial steps that they need to take in support of the industry and its workforce? For background knowledge, will she tell the House precisely what sort of specialisms this plant offers, given that it names itself a Speciality Steel enterprise?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Like the Secretary of State, I have supported a two-state solution for very many years, but there is a slight contradiction when he says that immediate recognition would not be rewarding Hamas because Hamas would be disarmed and a new state would be demilitarised. Is he saying that the recognition will not go ahead unless and until Hamas is disarmed? If the recognition will go ahead before Hamas is disarmed, should it not be confined to those parts of Palestine that are currently represented by the Palestinian Authority?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House share my disgust at the sight of the killer in the Kremlin having a red carpet rolled out for him that might as well have been stained with the blood of all those who have died in a conflict that is down entirely to him, and to him alone. However, when we talk about meaningful security guarantees, it is perhaps worth remembering that the only reason why, when Germany was divided at the end of the second world war, that was a stable division was that both sides knew that anyone crossing a line would be initiating an international conflict. Surely any security guarantee that does not automatically guarantee the involvement of other states in the defence of Ukraine will not be worth the paper on which it is written.

• 1 Sept 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Despite his new role in riding to the rescue of the Treasury, is the Pensions Minister still available to fulfil in principle the undertaking he gave me before the recess to have a meeting about the plight of ExxonMobil pensioners and the difficulties in them getting the discretionary surplus benefits to which I think they should be entitled?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Borders and Asylum · Hansard source

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  Past waves of refugees who came to this country quite rightly had to identify themselves and come here legally. What percentage, does the Home Secretary think, of people who arrive illegally by small boats do so having torn up their identification documents, and should such people ever be granted asylum?

• 22 Jul 2025 · Music Streaming: Label-led Principles · Hansard source

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  Given the Minister’s helpful references of a sartorial nature to his opposite number, may I congratulate him on his carefully understated choice of necktie today? I shall certainly remember to bring my dark glasses next time he is on parade. Can he explain to me—as an ardent Swiftie myself—what protection performers, such as the son of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh), have against their tracks being uploaded by anyone to a service such as YouTube, whereby it is possible for people to enjoy their music without apparently paying them any royalties at all?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Extending the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making this debate possible. Can he explain to the House the attitude of the Ukrainian Government? Is it the case that most of the people here are dependants—women and children? Given that it was originally thought that Ukraine would be quickly overrun and the circumstances are very different, is it also the case that the Ukrainian Government now want to see more of their citizens coming back to defend the homeland?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  When the Secretary of State talks of such a large reduction in the number of anticipated future primary school pupils, does she attribute any part of that to a wish by certain communities to develop a parallel education system, rather than engaging in full integration with this country?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  The Foreign Secretary states that he believes in a two-state solution—as I have done since at least the 1973 Yom Kippur war—but that Hamas must not be a part of it. Does he agree that the best chance there ever was for the two-state solution was when Israel withdrew in 2005 from the Gaza strip? Hamas was elected in January 2006 and has been in power there ever since and is still managing to hang on. Does he accept that if ever the Government did recognise a Palestinian state, it would have to be the west bank without the Gaza strip, given the internecine slaughter between Hamas on the one hand and the Palestine Liberation Organisation on the other that followed the last withdrawal?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Infected Blood Inquiry: Additional Report · Hansard source

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  It was in 2015 that I first raised the case of my constituent, Lesley Hughes, who was infected with contaminated blood in 1970 and discovered the reason for four decades of ill health in only about 2010, so it is great that this progress has been made. Very large sums of money will be paid in compensation, so can the Minister outline what provision there will be for the recipients to receive financial advice to make sure that they are not taken advantage of by unscrupulous people—for example, people trying to tell them how to make a claim that they can make directly?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Asylum Hotels: Migrant Criminal Activity · Hansard source

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  The Minister says that an asylum seeker convicted of an offence will not be granted asylum. Does she have some special method of sending them back to a country to which we cannot send anyone back if they have broken into our country illegally? Otherwise, what does her sanction amount to?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Victory over Japan: 80th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  May I say how important it is that both Front Benchers have emphasised the atrocities that were committed against prisoners of war? Just as we remember the Nuremberg trials, we remember the Tokyo trials, at which many war criminals were convicted and subsequently executed. Is it not a measure of the importance of unconditional surrender that that at least removed the aura of divinity from the Emperor so that the fanaticism of religion was excised from Japanese society?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Sudan · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister explain to the House what, in practical terms, the Security Council could do, even if all its members were neutral on the question of backing one side over the other? If two sides are determined to fight one another and neither is dependent on outside military assistance to pursue the conflict, is there anything practical that the Security Council could do, even if it was united and in agreement on the need for an intervention?

• 16 Jul 2025 · Financial Services Reform · Hansard source

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  Whenever I listen to the excellent Times Radio and other commercial broadcasters, I am always favourably impressed by the fact that at the end of every positive advertisement for a financial product, three words are said: “capital at risk”. Can the Minister assure the House that in the review of risk warnings that will be undertaken, that fundamental red flag, at the end of people pushing us to invest our money in some grand and profitable enterprise, will not be left out?