Julian Lewis MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  Can I share a little secret with the House? For slightly longer than the duration of the second world war, I was a shadow Defence Minister, but in 2010, I found myself back on the Back Benches because the Liberal Defence spokesman was appointed Minister for the Armed Forces. I was told that the reason for this was that the powers that be knew that I would never have gone along with the cuts that were made in October 2010 by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. I think the hon. Gentlemen’s amnesia is therefore somewhat selective.

• 23 Mar 2026 · Puberty Blockers Clinical Trial · Hansard source

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  I believe many children were treated with puberty blockers, among other drugs, before the Gender Identity Development Service programme was closed down. Does the hon. Member know what has happened to all the data from those children who were previously treated, or why it should be necessary to treat any more children with these drugs until enough time has elapsed to enable that data, and the treatment’s consequences, to be verified?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  May I remind Defence Ministers yet again that they should be comparing increases in defence expenditure not with the post-cold war years, but with what we used to spend on defence during the cold war years, which was between 4.5% and 5% of GDP? Can the Secretary of State look the House straight in the eye, as it were, and say that, given the very close relationship between China and the Mauritians, which includes a 25-year treaty of co-operation, it would be a sounder situation if Mauritius had sovereignty over Diego Garcia and we were only lessees to them?

• 23 Mar 2026 · Hatzola Ambulance Attack · Hansard source

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  The people who carry out such attacks are mainly seeking to terrorise the target community, but the people who plan such attacks often have another end in mind, which is to set two communities at each other’s throats. Without revealing anything that one should not about the techniques of the Security Service, can we spare a moment to pay tribute to those members of the Muslim community who bravely go undercover to infiltrate plots of this sort, who are briefly seen in court, often under an assumed name, when convictions are assured, and without whose work many more such plots would succeed than is the case?

• 19 Mar 2026 · Pre-1997 Pensions: Discretionary Increases · Hansard source

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  If the Minister would follow the recommendation of at least giving the trustees the full power to make the decision over discretionary awards and taking it away from the company, one could be pretty sure that if the scheme went into deficit, the trustees would act accordingly.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Pre-1997 Pensions: Discretionary Increases · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent presentation. Rather curiously, up until 2023, ExxonMobil pensioners got automatically indexed uplifts to their pensions, but for some reason from that date onwards, the company changed its policy and now they are not getting the discretionary uplift. The trustees there say that they have no power and that it is up to the company to decide whether this discretionary uplift occurs. Is one way forward perhaps to ask the Minister to give an undertaking that the trustees should have the power to award such discretionary uplifts linked to indexation?

• 19 Mar 2026 · Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past · Hansard source

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  I would like to make a little progress first, then I certainly will. I chaired the Defence Committee when we produced a report that recommended the combination of a statute of limitation with a truth recovery process as the best way to proceed. That report took evidence, as I have mentioned many times, from four eminent professors of law. They pointed out that that recommendation was a perfectly legal way to proceed, provided that, if immunities were introduced, they would be brought in for everybody, and provided that the matters concerned would be properly investigated. That investigation could consist of a truth recovery process; it did not have to involve prosecuting people after the investigations had taken place. Some of us have been very concerned about the malicious and vexatious prosecution of service personnel. If the idea is, on the one hand, to rule out the vexatious pursuit of service personnel and, on the other hand, to heal society by allowing people who suffered in the troubles to find out the truth, then the package of a statute of limitation coupled with a truth recovery process seemed ideal. I cannot quite understand why the Government, and those who support their approach of reopening all those investigations, seem to think that their approach will lead to effective truth recovery. How much more likely is it that people will come forward and tell the truth when they know that they could be incriminating themselves because the Government have reopened that lethal can of worms? That compares with a situation inherent in the original package: by giving everybody immunity, people could then come forward and tell the truth without any fear of adverse consequences to themselves. The other objection that is made, which I see spelled out explicitly in the Government’s response to the report, is that it is insulting to put everybody on the same level—that it is putting terrorists, service personnel and security forces on the same level. I have pointed out on countless occasions—and never heard a convincing refutation of this—that that ship has already sailed. The Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 laid down that if anyone is convicted, even of the most appalling atrocities—murders, tortures, rape, you name it—in relation to the troubles, they will not actually serve more than two years in jail. Why does it say that for everyone? Because the law has to be impartial. Just because the law applies impartially to service personnel and terrorists alike does not mean that it draws a moral equivalence between them, and neither did the package here. Its purpose was to give immunity to stop vexatious prosecutions and to enable the truth recovery process to allow the victims to find out what had happened. A third point that has been put forward is: “Well, they want justice.” But in order to get justice, there has to be a realistic prospect of securing convictions. Even in the case of Bloody Sunday, where we would have thought there was the maximum chance of securing convictions, no conviction was secured. So why do people want to reopen all the prosecutions of service personnel? The answer is that it is not because they expect to get convictions, but because they want to rewrite history and put service personnel through the trauma of being tried, investigated and pursued, even though it is overwhelmingly unlikely that they will be convicted of anything. As has been said before, and deserves to be said again, the punishment is the process, not the actual conviction at the end of that process, which would not be obtained. I appreciate that the Government have a mandate to try this approach, and I have to respect that. I hope that they will be proven right, and that we on the Opposition Benches will be proven wrong, but somehow I do not think so. It does not help for the Government to insult those of us who tried genuinely to put forward a combination of measures that we were told was legal by four professors of law—a package with immunity for everyone on the one hand, and a truth recovery process to fulfil the obligation to investigate on the other. That package would have been far more likely to lead to reconciliation and the recovery of truth, and to avoid the vexatious pursuit of brave service and security personnel. The Government cannot say that they have not been warned.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past · Hansard source

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  I would like to start by referring to the intervention of the hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna), who is sadly no longer in her place. She talked about people stepping forward and speaking the truth. I believe that the Government’s new approach makes that less, rather than more, likely to happen. In their response to the Select Committee report, the Government speak in disparaging terms about the immunity provisions that the previous Conservative Government laid down; those immunity provisions are described as an affront to democracy. I do not believe that is true at all. It is not true any more than claiming that what happened in South Africa, when Nelson Mandela sought to heal that society, was an affront to their new democracy.

• 19 Mar 2026 · Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past · Hansard source

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  I am not an expert on the more recent developments, but I think I remember correctly that the previous Government were appealing that particular court decision, and this Government took a deliberate decision to discontinue the appeal.

• 18 Mar 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have clearly explained that you are not responsible for the quality, or lack of it, in a Minister’s answers—or even a Prime Minister’s answers—but can you explain for the benefit of the House and the viewing public what Prime Minister’s questions is supposed to be about: namely, that the Opposition and other right hon. and hon. Members get to ask the Prime Minister a question about a subject of their choice, and that it is not an opportunity for him to then berate them for not asking a question about a completely different subject that he wishes had been asked?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Social Media: Children and Young People · Hansard source

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  I hope this is a helpful suggestion to the Secretary of State. There have been some objections to a social media ban for young people based on the fact that it would create a cliff edge, whereby they have no involvement with it and then total involvement with it. Does she agree with me that one way to minimise that danger is to encourage children to use the internet, which is not interactive, as that will gradually acclimatise them for the day when they are able to use interactive services more safely?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  I like the Minister very much, not least because he represents the Welsh seat of my birth and upbringing, and because I have such respect for him, I am going to try to make the point to him that I have so far made with zero success to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, among others. It is all well and good to talk about the greatest increase in spending on defence since the end of the cold war if we are comparing the post cold war period with what is—shall we say?—a quiet defence period, but we are not. What we need to spend now is not to be compared with what it was like after the end of the cold war, but what it was like during the cold war, and during the cold war we regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence. If he recognises that there is some merit in that argument, could he try to persuade his colleagues to stop making that false comparison?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Fuel Duty · Hansard source

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  indicated assent .

• 17 Mar 2026 · Meningitis Outbreak · Hansard source

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  I have heard a suggestion that this type of meningitis is more widespread in some countries than in others. Is there any truth in that, and if there is, would there be wisdom in suggesting to young people travelling to the countries concerned that they ought to add the vaccination as a prophylactic against that possibility?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  If an Iranian rocket attack—hopefully this will never happen—successfully penetrated our defences and caused severe damage and casualties on a British base, is the Foreign Secretary ruling out any response by the RAF against the source, such as a battery, from which those missiles had been fired?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for his typical courtesy. I am sure that there will be wide agreement with his proposition that someone who is doing a ministerial job ought to be paid for it, and such jobs should not be reserved for the people who can afford not to be paid. However, on the principle that a bigger Government is not necessarily a better Government, can he guarantee that if there is an increase in the number of paid ministerial posts, there will not be a commensurate increase in the number of unpaid ministerial posts?

• 17 Mar 2026 · Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to come in again. One of the things that I have never quite understood, given that the workload is broadly the same, is why there is a differential in salary between the different levels of Minister—particularly in the Lords, where their jobs are effectively the same. Why are some Ministers of State or Under-Secretaries paid a different amount? After all, whatever our seniority, we are all paid exactly the same as Members of this House. Why would they not all be paid the same?

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

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  It is not much good blaming the process when it is as plain as a pikestaff that the Government knew that Peter Mandelson’s appointment was, to put it mildly, extremely dodgy. If there were any conversations held, over the telephone or face to face, or any private emails sent from people’s personal email addresses, will they be made available to this House?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Strait of Hormuz · Hansard source

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  Some things never change in naval warfare, and one of the things that never change is the unsuitability of surface vessels for forcing a way through narrow, contested straits. Over 100 years ago, the French and the British learned that when, between them, they lost three battleships in an afternoon to a single German submarine in the Dardanelles. Will the Minister therefore advise President Trump that while we would like to help him reopen the strait of Hormuz, the way to do it is not with a billion-pound warship escorting vulnerable tankers, but with counter-drone technology of the sort that Ukraine can help him to supply, providing he has the decency to ask President Zelensky for some help?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T3. Successive Governments have refused compensation to the nuclear test veterans, but now the Sunday Mirror ’s investigative journalist Susie Boniface has revealed documents showing that, in fact, levels of radiation were known to be much higher than the court was led to believe in a case in 2016. Will Ministers address this matter with the seriousness it deserves, while veterans are still suffering and the widows of veterans still lack any recognition or compensation?

• 16 Mar 2026 · Defence: UK Allies · Hansard source

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  May I build on the excellent supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) about Ukraine and counter-drone warfare? Thanks to the support given by this Government and the previous Government to Ukraine, it has become a world leader in inventing and deploying cheap responses to cheap drones. As a result, there is now an opportunity for it to assist our allies that are under threat from drone attacks in the middle east and in particular in the Persian gulf. Will the Government do everything they can to facilitate that, and thus show that Ukraine does indeed have some cards to play?

• 12 Mar 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  May we have an update from a Health Minister on progress in the review of prostate cancer policy and whether it will focus, as it should, on such issues as targeting particularly vulnerable age groups or ethnic groups, such as black males, one quarter of whom will be affected by this disease at some stage in their lives, and speeding up National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approval of relevant drug treatments in England and Wales which are already being prescribed in Northern Ireland and Scotland?

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

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  The Chief Secretary deserves our admiration for always being calm and courteous, even in the most trying circumstances, but he really must not take us for fools. Peter Mandelson had a reputation as one of the most slippery and sleazy characters in modern British politics. The Chief Secretary confirms that the Prime Minister was warned about what Mandelson had done in continuing a relationship with Epstein after he had been sent to jail for abusing a young girl. He is saying, “Well, the Prime Minister did not know the depth of this relationship.” Does he really expect us to believe that a shallow relationship with a convicted paedophile is okay?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Digital ID: Public Consultation · Hansard source

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  When asked by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) whether he could guarantee that a digital identity requirement would never become mandatory, the Minister said he wholeheartedly agreed, but is it not the case that the original scheme that the Government were minded to put forward was mandatory, so how much faith can we put in that assurance?

• 10 Mar 2026 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not know that point of order was going to be raised until I heard it, but I myself noticed, a little bit earlier, that there was a statement entitled “Pensions Update” that was really all about the WASPI women. I for one was misled into thinking that it was some routine, general statement about pensions. It would have been perfectly possible for the Government to have made it explicit that it was about the WASPI women, in which case it is likely that more Members would have been present.