Julian Lewis MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I hate to strike a discordant note with my right hon. Friend as he and I have fought shoulder to shoulder in many battles, but is it not an illustration of the Pandora’s box one might be opening to consider what the situation would be if all these people turned up at the same time? I doubt very much that the upper Chamber would be capable of handling it, which then leads us to the question of how to reduce the numbers to a manageable proportion. So my right hon. Friend is getting into difficult waters with all of this; he had better be careful what he wishes for in getting all these people to converge on the House of Lords at once.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making a very reasonable speech. Would it be fair to say that he means this is almost a case of going for the low-hanging fruit on which everybody has a measure of agreement, while recognising that future steps may be a lot more complex and potentially dangerous if we get them wrong? There is one aspect that is not of itself an argument for keeping the hereditary peers, but is something that will be lost if and when they go. That is, the hereditary peers are one group of people who are not appointed subject to prime ministerial patronage. Without straying beyond the scope of today’s debate, could the hon. Gentleman give us an inkling of whether something like putting the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory basis is a reform that the Government might consider, bearing in mind some of the controversial cases where people have been imposed on the House of Lords in defiance of the commission’s preferences?

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  It was not my original intention to speak but, given the nature of the debate, and in view of the signal I have received that I might be given a little latitude to go slightly wider than the narrow terms of the Bill, I will make a single point to elaborate slightly on the intervention I made upon the Father of the House a few minutes ago. A lot has been said about how the public are deemed to regard the status of the upper House. I am not sure on what basis such sweeping statements have been made, although I can understand that when, from time to time, someone manifestly unfit or inappropriate to be ennobled is ennobled, it may cause a degree of public concern and disillusionment. New Members on both sides of the Committee, but particularly on the Government side, should avail themselves of the opportunities to understand more closely what the House of Lords can do that the House of Commons cannot. In the first instance, peers can bring their expertise to bear. That is not to say that all peers are experts—they are not—but a lot of them are, because they have reached the top of their profession. They are not necessarily any brighter, more intelligent or more cultured than Members of this House, but as we chose to divert ourselves from whatever escalator we could have been on, in order to become full-time politicians, we do not reach the giddy heights of those in other professions, who are then able to bring their expertise to bear on the legislative process by being taken into the upper House.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I welcome the hon. Lady’s point about strengthening the House of Lords Appointments Commission, but at the risk of broadening the debate a little too far, can she explain why it would be a sensible idea to have a second Chamber of elected parliamentarians? It would be rather like more than doubling the size of this House, but with Members in two separate places, possibly elected by different electoral systems and at different times. It is impossible to imagine more of a recipe for deadlock and conflict.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend made a passing reference to a fear that what is going here is a form of gerrymandering. Does he agree that if generous provision were to be made for really active remaining hereditary Members, of whom there are probably quite a few, to be given life peerages on a one-off basis, and on the basis of merit, that would dispose of the suspicion of gerrymandering?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State is right that we used to spend a lot more than 2%: in the 1980s we spent between 4.5% and 5.1% of GDP on defence. Does he share my concern at what I heard on the radio this morning, when a Labour politician in another place was saying that he could see an outcome in Ukraine whereby Russia gets to keep the territory it has occupied, while Ukraine does not get any guarantee of joining NATO but merely some more security assurances? We know what happened last time with the security assurances previously given. Does the Secretary of State agree that, whether we spend 2.5% on defence now or in the near future, it is important that whoever we send to Washington does not capitulate in advance?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is very kind, and she is making a masterly exposition of how to deconstruct this case. Did she notice, exactly a week ago, when we had an urgent question on the subject, the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs was asked how food security could be valued if the result of the Budget measures would be that farmland would be split up and sold off, probably for development. His answer said, in part: “Of course there are trade-offs. There are a range of pressures on our land, in respect of housing, food, energy and so many other things.” —[ Official Report , 4 November 2024; Vol. 756, c. 37.] So he seemed to be accepting that land will be sold off and it will be built upon.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Small Boat Crossings · Hansard source

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  The Government have a mandate for trying out their approach, and I wish them well. I have always felt that unless the boats are intercepted and turned back near the start of their journey, nothing will deter people from using that method. Will the Minister, whom I respect greatly, explain how it is possible to smash gangs who operate in other jurisdictions once they get to the point where they withdraw their headquarters to countries where there is no possibility of co-operation with the authorities in charge of those states?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Higher Education Reform · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State mentioned having paused the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. Does she accept that, given that the Act got Royal Assent in May 2023, it remains the law of the land until repealed by this Parliament? How long does she expect that pause to continue?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Budget: Implications for Farming Communities · Hansard source

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  How does the Minister reconcile his sensible acceptance of the fact that food security is vital to national security with farmland being split up and sold off, probably for development, as a result of the Budget changes?

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  Is my right hon. Friend suggesting that we ought to replace those bodies and have the Government re-adopt responsibility for economic policy in the round, such as by setting targets for inflation, instead of saying, “It’s all down to an unelected body”?

• 29 Oct 2024 · Ministerial Code: Policy Announcements · Hansard source

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  Yesterday, Mr Speaker, you made the strongest statement of condemnation on a subject of this sort that I have heard from the Chair in 27 years in this House. The Minister is a decent chap and, for all I know, he may be a skilled cricketer, but he must admit that he is batting on a sticky wicket today. Does he understand that if his defence is just to say, “We did it because the previous party did it,” nobody will ever break this cycle? His party has a big majority. It could just say sorry and resolve to do better in future.

• 29 Oct 2024 · Sudan · Hansard source

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  Both Front Benchers seem united in their passionate concern about this terrible conflict. Does the Minister agree that if this situation were happening in a conflict on the continent of Europe or in the middle east, it would be on our national news night after night? Why does she think our broadcasters give a second-order priority to such a terrible conflict?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Does the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office share my view that none of this dreadful cycle, which began on 7 October, would have happened but for Iran’s determination to derail the prospect of peace and recognition between Saudi Arabia and Israel? What assessment has the Department made of the possibility that one day the Iranian people will be able to free themselves of the terrible regime under which they suffer?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Leasehold Reform · Hansard source

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  Against my wishes and advice, the previous Government brought in a planning presumption in favour of applications to add extra floors to apartment blocks, irrespective of the horrible effect of building those extra floors, and attempts by rogue freeholders to sting the leaseholders for the remedial works resulting from errors in building grafted-on extra floors. As a short-term measure, will the Minister consider removing that presumption in favour of planning permission for these ill-considered schemes?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Remembrance and Veterans · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Defence Secretary for giving way; he is always very courteous. When I was on a previous iteration of the Defence Committee, we produced an in-depth report on the best way forward after the troubles, called “Drawing a line: Protecting veterans by a Statute of Limitations”. It recommended ending prosecutions and substituting a truth recovery process. People from, shall we say, some of the Northern Irish parties felt compelled to condemn it on the Floor of the House, but quietly came up to me afterwards and admitted that it was the only way forward. Just because there is this performative condemnation by different communities, he should not be diverted from the fact that what was good enough for Nelson Mandela in South Africa should be good enough for us.

• 28 Oct 2024 · International Engagement · Hansard source

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  When one group of people have done something terrible to another group of people, it is understandable that resentment about it can pass down to the next generation and possibly the generation after that, but does the Minister agree that to suggest that that process can continue over two centuries, and thus require guilt to be expiated in the form of reparations, is to make a nonsense of the concept of individual responsibility?

• 28 Oct 2024 · China: Human Rights and Sanctions · Hansard source

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  As I believe the Foreign Secretary is an honest man, I am perfectly prepared to accept that he raised these matters of human rights as forcefully as he says he did, so there must be something wrong with the Foreign Office’s reporting, because that forcefulness does not find its way into its account of the visit. Is one reason why his officials are reluctant to relay what really happened the fact that we are overdependent on China, and has he made an assessment of what would happen in terms of our dependence on China were, heaven forbid, a conflict to break out over Taiwan?

• 24 Oct 2024 · Black History Month · Hansard source

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  There is one cohort that it would be nice to hear mentioned by the Front Benchers: the black warriors who came to this country to fight in two world wars, and particularly to fight the Nazis in the second world war. I commend to people on both sides of the House with an interest in this subject the book “The Eighth Passenger” by the late Miles Tripp, which prominently features Flight Sergeant Harry McCalla. He was the rear gunner in his Lancaster and flew dozens of perilous missions; he survived, and Members can read about what happened after the war. We need to salute, in both senses of the word, those people who came to fight the Nazis.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  I would be delighted to volunteer to fill that gap for the hon. Gentleman.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Police Accountability · Hansard source

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  I am sure most fair-minded people will feel that the Home Secretary has got the balance exactly right, particularly as she has now brought in the presumption of anonymity. May I draw her attention to a surprisingly detailed report by the courts correspondent of the Evening Standard ? He seems to have had access to police intelligence reports about a £10,000 reward being offered by gangs to identify, and presumably wreak reprisals against, the sergeant concerned. What is concerning to me is that a Metropolitan police spokesman says: “This was investigated and protective measures taken. The investigation is now closed.” I would have thought that, if there were intelligence indicating that a hit was being arranged, the investigation should not be closed until the perpetrators were themselves arrested.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity · Hansard source

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  The Lord Chancellor speaks with great clarity and determination on this issue, and I am sure that she will remember last week promising me a ministerial meeting involving my constituent, Andrew Duncan, and a specialist team. They are working on a new concept of community detention that I believe is tailor-made for the vision that the Lord Chancellor has outlined to us today. Can she confirm that the meeting will go ahead, notwithstanding the extra opportunity to give evidence to the Gauke review in due course?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  What a pleasure it is to follow such a splendid maiden speech by the new hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal). As a third-generation immigrant myself, whose family lived in the city of Swansea for more or less exactly 100 years, I know precisely how he feels in his gratitude to the place in a new country that gave him every opportunity to develop his talents and abilities to the point at which he deservedly finds himself in this place. I am sure he will make maximum use of that opportunity. I particularly welcome his warm reference to his predecessor, Mike Gapes, who served in this House for no fewer than 27 years and was the epitome of moderate, patriotic Labour. He won respect on the Conservative side of the House as well as on his own side, and it was sad that a point came when he felt he could no longer remain a member of the Labour party, although I am glad to see from his Wikipedia entry that he is back in the fold today. This uncontroversial Bill seeks to change the status of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to convert each of them into what is known as a body corporate. These are sensible proposals, which I broadly support. However, as stated during the Sir David Amess Adjournment debate on the rising of the House on 12 September, there is one other organisation, with which I am rather familiar, that requires the same change in status as the CPA and the ICRC, to make it into a body corporate too. That organisation is the office that supports the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, and this Bill presents us with the timeliest opportunity to achieve that necessary change. Indeed, it is a perfect fit, so I trust that the House will bear with me while I explain the serious conflict of interest that has arisen, why that conflict matters to Parliament and how it can easily be rectified with a simple addition to the Bill before the House today. For the benefit of newer Members in the Chamber, I should explain that the ISC is a cross-party Committee of both Houses of Parliament created by statute in 1994. Under the Justice and Security Act 2013, the ISC was given the legal responsibility for overseeing the UK’s intelligence community on behalf of Parliament, yet Parliament’s intent, as expressed in that Act, is currently being undermined. Right hon. and hon. Members might be surprised to learn that the ISC’s office, with a very small number of staff, belongs to the Cabinet Office, despite the ISC overseeing certain sensitive organisations within the Cabinet Office. They would be right to be surprised, because that is indeed a fundamental conflict of interest, which is why, when the Justice and Security Act was passed, the Cabinet Office was supposed to be only the temporary home of the ISC’s office. Yet here we are, more than 10 years later, with the Committee staff still beholden to, vulnerable within, and unfairly pressured and even victimised by the very part of the Executive that the Committee is charged with scrutinising and holding to account on behalf of Parliament. The Executive should not be able to constrain and control the Committee’s democratic oversight on Parliament’s behalf by exerting control over the ISC’s small staff team to prevent them from doing their job independently. Such control means that part of the Cabinet Office can—and does—starve the team of resources so that the ISC’s staff are unable to fulfil the Committee’s legal responsibilities. That completely contravenes and disregards a clear ministerial undertaking given by the then Deputy Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), before the recent general election about vital extra resources for the ISC staff. Control by the Cabinet Office also means that it can stigmatise and penalise the ISC’s staff, blaming them for the Committee’s robust scrutiny, with damaging consequences for their future careers in the civil service. Such deplorable behaviour has included repeatedly downgrading highly positive assessments, submitted by me as ISC Chairman at the time, of staff performance in recent years. In reality, the members of the ISC in the last Parliament valued the Committee’s staff very highly indeed, as I believe all members have since the Committee was first established 30 years ago. We certainly found the arrangements that I have described totally unacceptable. The ISC therefore formally resolved, by a unanimous vote across all three political parties on the Committee, that it is essential for parliamentary democracy and its scrutiny system for the Committee’s office to move out from under the control of the Executive—that is, from the Cabinet Office—and instead to be established as an independent body corporate with a link to Parliament rather than to the Executive. That unanimous decision was confirmed by the members of the Committee at its meeting on 19 March, following expert and authoritative external advice that it is within the ISC’s power to take such a step and to determine the suitable mechanisms for implementing it. That constitutional change, which the Cabinet Office has predictably attempted to ignore, is essential to protect the separation of powers. It is also extremely easy to achieve. It requires a very short amendment to the Justice and Security Act to change the status of the ISC’s office. The amendment would establish the office as a body corporate to support the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and safeguard the independence of the Committee itself. I had hoped that the amendment would be included in the new legislative programme. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly in the Committee’s absence since Parliament was dissolved for the general election, the Cabinet Office has hitherto managed to block it. However, that is to underestimate the previous members of the Committee, from both sides of the House and in both Chambers, who are convinced that the Committee’s office cannot and must not continue to be controlled by the Cabinet Office. The Bill, in seeking to change the constitutional status of the CPA and the ICRC and allow better provision for their staffing arrangements, is the ideal vehicle through which to achieve the same for the ISC’s beleaguered office. It is the obvious place to include a short amendment to the Justice and Security Act to change the status of the ISC’s staff organisation too. We must not pass up this opportunity: parliamentary time is precious, and there may not be another suitable vehicle during this Parliament. As a measure to secure democratic oversight, I am confident that the amendment should and would secure cross-party support in both Houses. Prior to the election, both the then Government and the then Opposition seemed to accept that this reform was needed, which does rather beg the question why it has not yet happened. I intend to return to the issue at a later stage of the Bill with an amendment, and I trust, for the reasons I have set out, that the House will support it. Having chaired the Intelligence and Security Committee for the past four years, and having also served on it throughout the 2010-15 Parliament, I reiterate what I said in 2019 after more than four years as Chairman of the Defence Committee: it is better to stop while people wish you to carry on, than to carry on until people wish you to stop—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I am glad to have that endorsement. Hopefully, I can still be a friend of both Committees on the Floor of this Chamber, while giving support to my successors in office. It was as extraordinary as it was shameful that no Prime Minister saw fit to meet with the Intelligence and Security Committee during the entirety of the last Parliament, although to her credit, during her short time at No. 10, Liz Truss did offer to do so. Perhaps the latest occupant of Downing Street will show greater respect towards a body that has consistently undertaken sensitive inquiries, and produced reports of the highest quality and the soundest judgment over the past 30 years, largely because of the calibre and integrity of its professional director and her dedicated staff. Let us now do the right thing by them all.

• 22 Oct 2024 · Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  May I urge the Minister, when the Government are considering the political dimension of what is being proposed, to engage in consultations with Lord West of Spithead, his own party’s representative on the previous ISC, and also with the new Lord Beamish, formerly Kevan Jones of this parish, who likewise was firmly committed to the sort of measure that I am proposing?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Relationships with EU Counterparts · Hansard source

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  While we hope that it never happens, if a future American President wished to withdraw support from Ukraine, will the Government assure us that that would be a prominent item on the agenda in their conversations with EU leaders?