Julian Lewis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  Oh!

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  In the limited time available, I shall try to address a few of the basic issues, including those on which I intervened earlier. It became fairly obvious towards the end of the Secretary of State’s remarks, as a result of questioning from my colleagues on the Opposition Benches, that although there was much in his speech suggesting that he had to do what he is doing today, he is really doing it because he wants to do it. It was in the Government’s manifesto that they were going to repeal the legislation, and he is seizing the chance to strike it down at the first possible opportunity. Sometimes one gets into a position of almost wondering about the futility of entering into a debate. Forty years ago, I used to debate against the same people again and again over the question of whether Britain should one-sidedly give up its nuclear weapons. I would often put forward an argument that countered something that they had said, they would have no answer to it, and then I would go into the next debate and they would say exactly the same thing over and over again, and I would have to put forward the same argument, and no one was getting anywhere. I feel like that over this point about the supposed equating of service personnel with IRA and other paramilitary terrorists. A few moments ago, the hon. Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) said, “There is no moral equivalence between these people.” Nobody in this debate is saying that there is any moral equivalence between these people. What we are saying is that everybody is equal before the law. Let me remind the House what I said in Westminster Hall on 14 July last year—six months ago to the day last week—during a debate covering all these subjects. I pointed out that in April 2017 the Defence Committee had published a report, on a consensus and cross-party basis, entitled “Investigations into fatalities in Northern Ireland involving British military personnel”—(HC1064). In the inquiries that led up to the publication of that report, we took evidence on 7 March 2017 from four professors of law: Philippe Sands of University College London, Peter Rowe of Lancaster University, Kieran McEvoy of Queen’s University Belfast and Richard Ekins of Oxford University. All of those professors agreed that it was possible and legal—regardless of whether they wanted to do it or not—to have a statute of limitation, provided that it was accompanied by a truth recovery mechanism. That is what the legacy Act, which is now being struck down, brought into effect. The legacy Act has a very good chance of surviving further legal scrutiny. It is no argument to say that it has been discredited just because the Government and their supporters do not like it. The truth of the matter is that we have to give immunity to everyone or to no one. If the price of giving immunity to our servicemen is that we give it to terrorists too, then it is a price worth paying.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the people on this side of the argument who oppose what is happening today, do so not because we do not wish people who did wrong to face justice, but because we know that these cases will almost certainly fail, just as the case against Soldier F failed? As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) said, the punishment is the process. People will be put through unnecessary hell before they are acquitted. That has nothing to do with justice.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Support for Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am sure the entire House endorses what the Foreign Secretary has just said. In a week when the Government are sadly letting down Hongkongers in London, Chagossians in exile and Northern Ireland veterans in retirement, can we absolutely rely upon continued support for Ukraine’s gallant resistance to atrocious Russian imperialism?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Bill · Hansard source

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  I declare a sort of interest, in that many members of my family were murdered in the Holocaust. I understand the meaning of the term “Holocaust” to be the Nazis’ mass extermination of the Jews during their period in power, both in their own country and in the countries they occupied. I have not followed the progress of the Bill as closely as I should have done, but I get the impression that there is some move away from keeping it specific to that terrible crime, towards widening it to cover massacres in general and other terrible racial crimes. I think the intention behind the Bill and the museum was that it should be about the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis and their associates. Can the Minister confirm that that is still the situation?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  It is in your manifesto.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  Has my right hon. Friend noticed that the Minister, who is, shall we say, a flexible friend in the cause of the Government’s policies, has been relying on the fact that, in the past, other Members of Donald Trump’s Government in America have been saying supportive things about the Bill? Would she like to cast a wager with the Minister, as I would, that 24 hours after Donald Trump changed his tune, the Government will change their tune in exactly the same direction?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister seems to be putting an awful lot of faith in the good intent and reliability of the Mauritian Government. They are a close ally of China, which, he might remember, gave us cast-iron guarantees about the future of the Hongkongers once the lease on Hong Kong was given up. I gently remind him that the 2024 Labour manifesto, entitled “Change”, stated: “Defending our security also means protecting the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, including the Falklands and Gibraltar. Labour will always defend their sovereignty and right to self-determination.” Can he look the Chagossians in the Gallery in the eye and tell them that that is what the Government are now doing?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children · Hansard source

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  Last week, as the Secretary of State will recall, some of us were loudly heckled for suggesting that X was beginning to give way on Grok. Now we know that that was true, so events are moving fast. Can the Secretary of State at least assure us that she will immediately—during the consultation and anything that follows on from it—instruct the civil servants who would have to prepare for a practical ban to get on with the task provisionally, so that no time is wasted?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  I do not think I am breaking the Official Secrets Act if I gently point out that when I used to chair the Intelligence and Security Committee, I repeatedly deprecated the use of the word “mitigation”, because it covers such a wide range of sins, but leaving aside security considerations just this once, does the Minister accept, as he should, that this is a colossal propaganda win for totalitarian, communist China? Is there any argument that was used in favour of China getting this embassy that would not have carried exactly the same weight if totalitarian, imperialist Russia had wanted to buy this building? Would the Government have stopped Russia from doing it, and if they would have done, on what grounds?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  A propaganda win.

• 19 Jan 2026 · Proposed Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  The Intelligence and Security Committee was set up specifically to fill a gap in oversight whereby this House could not directly look at highly classified and sensitive information. Having chaired that Committee throughout the previous Parliament, when we undertook our very detailed and sensitive inquiry into China—the published version of which was quite well received, to put it mildly—I can assure the Minister that absolutely no aspect of this matter could not be shared with the ISC. Can she tell the House whether the National Security Adviser has discussed with the ISC and briefed it on the security aspects of this proposal, the proceeding of which enjoys such hostility on both sides of the House?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Iran: Protests · Hansard source

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  Last Tuesday afternoon, President Trump took a short break from attacking America’s NATO allies to write on Truth Social the following: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING—TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” He added: “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” Have the Government the faintest idea of what he was talking about?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Local Elections: Cancellation · Hansard source

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  If a future political researcher decides to write a thesis about the influence of adverse opinion polls on the cancellation of local elections in Britain, will the Minister, amiable as she always is, make herself available?

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  If I understand correctly the presentation of Sir Andy’s independent report by the Home Secretary, it says that the police knew that the visiting fans were not likely to attack the home community. Does it make clear whether they thought that the home community were likely to attack the visiting fans, because if they thought that and then inverted reality to blame the visiting fans, that would surely put the chief constable in an absolutely impossible position.

• 14 Jan 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I have previously suggested that to have an occupied eastern part of Ukraine under Russian control while the western part of unoccupied Ukraine was left as a military vacuum would be a recipe for disaster. However, it is of concern that the alliance that stood firm at the end of world war two to ensure that West Germany did not get encroached upon by Soviet forces from the east is not still in being, as far as Ukraine is concerned, because of the ambiguous attitude of President Trump. Does the Minister have a view on why President Trump is so clear when it comes to dictatorship in and aggression by Iran, yet has such a strangely different view when it comes to the same two features of Russian behaviour?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was hoping to ask this point of order of Mr Speaker, because it is a little difficult for you, not having been here for most of the urgent question. At the start of the urgent question, Mr Speaker made it clear that he was surprised that a Minister was being put up who would not be able to answer questions, being a Planning Minister, rather than a Security Minister being put up, who would be able to answer questions. In my 28 years in this House, I have attended many ministerial statements and the questioning that follows, and many urgent questions since they were introduced. Never before has there been an occasion that I have seen where every question asked on both sides of the House was deeply hostile, as was the case today, regarding what the Government were proposing to do. My question is this: if my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) were to reapply to Mr Speaker for a similar urgent question in anticipation that an appropriate Minister—a Security Minister—will be put up to answer it, would that be within the rules of parliamentary order and practice?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  Has the Intelligence and Security Committee had an opportunity to question the National Security Adviser—not the deputy—about this matter? If the Minister says that he does not know, then he is the wrong Minister to be answering this urgent question. If he says that he does know, but he cannot say because that information is highly classified, let me assure him that the identities of witnesses interviewed at that level by the Intelligence and Security Committee are not private, but published whenever the Committee is minded to do so. Will he answer the question in a straightforward way: was the ISC given the opportunity to question the National Security Adviser?

• 13 Jan 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  In March, it will be the fifth anniversary of the signing of the comprehensive strategic partnership between Iran and China, an unholy alliance between religious fanatics and communist totalitarians, to whom we are regrettably about to award a super-embassy, complete with secret dungeons, in London. Will the Foreign Secretary tell me what estimate the Government have made of the dependence of the Iranian regime’s survival on its support from China, not least the huge export of Iranian oil to China?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State agree that, in responding to a threat of this magnitude, a graduated response is required, and is she tentatively encouraged by the fact that X has decided to say that users cannot be anonymous in doing that sort of mischief? [ Interruption. ] Wait for it. I do not think X is taking that step out of the goodness of its heart. [ Interruption. ] Please do not shout me down. I think that X is taking that step because it is afraid of the sanctions that will come next. Should the Minister not be encouraging Ofcom to impose the appropriate level of sanctions, and to threaten to move to the next stage, so the big tech companies know that if they persist, they will be fined again and again and, ultimately, stopped from broadcasting? In taking that action, X has blinked, but the pressure must be ramped up in a graduated way.

• 12 Jan 2026 · New Medium Helicopter Contract · Hansard source

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  The Minister knows that I have a high regard for his commitment and integrity, and that I have pressed successive Governments for more defence investment, so leaving aside the party politics, will he confirm whether or not the Government accept what the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) has estimated, which is that, if this contract is not concluded successfully by March, then it will be too late to secure the future of Yeovil as a helicopter centre of excellence?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Finance (No. 2) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am very impressed by the Minister’s opening speech and his lightness of touch, but can he explain to the Committee how he reconciles the litany of good effects with the number of U-turns carried out since the Budget was put forward?

• 8 Jan 2026 · Myanmar: Religious Minority Persecution · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. I have come along to learn more about the situation, which is, frankly, puzzling. Is the regime motivated by some form of extreme religion of its own? Is it just ultra-nationalism? Is it doing all this persecution to repress the people and keep them in a form of captivity, or to drive people whom it does not like because of their identity out of the country completely?

• 8 Jan 2026 · Myanmar: Religious Minority Persecution · Hansard source

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  The Minister mentioned the UN Security Council, and we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) about what he perceives to be a potential weakness in the regime, which is being propped up by outside forces. Is it true that Russia has been most supportive of the regime, has supplied most of its aerial capability to bomb, strafe and kill civilians, and has been blocking moves against the regime on the Security Council? What assessment have the Government made of the survivability of the regime without military support from Russia?