Julian Lewis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism · Hansard source

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  I must say that I never thought the day would arise when I as a non-lawyer would be advising a Government of lawyers that they need to be sure of the legal basis for what they are doing. As I said in an intervention on this subject on 23 June, “it would do the country and the Government no favours if they were to lose in court a challenge to the process of proscription, because whereas the secret sabotage of planes would certainly have been an act of terrorism leading to proscription, the fact is that this was a performative act that these people announced they had done.” —[ Official Report , 23 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 893.] My question for the Government is this: will they at least adopt a belt-and-braces policy when it comes to the prosecution of the people who did that terribly irresponsible and wrong-headed act of sabotaging those planes? Will they also prosecute them on the basis that they have done criminal damage, and have attacked the forces of the Crown and thereby done something that borders on sedition? Otherwise, by using the wrong aspects of the law to pursue people who did some very bad things indeed, I fear the Government will end up scoring an own goal, and these people will walk free with a court triumph under their belt. Although it is justified by the unacceptable behaviour of the perpetrators, I am not convinced that the policy that the Government have adopted will stand up in court, when there are plenty of other legal methods that could be used to deal with this form of extremism. It is extremism, but it does not, in my opinion, pass the threshold to be classified as terrorism, in the legal sense. If I had been able to accept the Minister’s offer to have a word with me on Privy Council terms before the debate—I thank him for that offer, and I am sorry that I was not able to take it up—he may have been able to tell me things about Palestine Action that would have convinced me that it crossed that threshold. However, if the Minister is not able to say those things in public—there may be very good reasons why he is not—then I suspect he will not be able to tell them to the courts, either. Nobody can accuse me of being soft on anti-militarist extremist groups, but I say to the Government, with the best will in the world, that they must adopt a legal belt-and-braces policy when it comes to prosecuting this group, and not rely on this proscription alone, because I fear that I see trouble ahead from m’learned friends.

• 2 Jul 2025 · Defence · Hansard source

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  On the point about not enjoying community support, when we were having these debates in great detail, the highly divided communities would always stand up and say how this was unacceptable and that was unacceptable, and then their representatives would quietly come up to us and say, “For goodness’ sake, go on doing what you are doing.” The Minister may have some legal problems to overcome, but let him not be fooled by what is said in public about what really needs to be done.

• 2 Jul 2025 · Defence · Hansard source

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  Whenever my right hon. Friend and other members of the Conservative shadow defence team bring up the question of reopening this lawfare against our veterans, Government Ministers say, “We will be sure to give veterans maximum support.” To me, that implies not protecting them from the lawfare, but supporting them as they go through the process; but the process is the punishment. Everybody knows that people involved in fatal incidents would serve only a limited prison term if, heaven forbid, they were convicted, but the probability is that they will not be convicted; the punishment lies in what they have to go through before they are acquitted.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Welfare Reform · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State agree that, while necessary at the time of covid, the removal of the requirement for face-to-face assessments was an opening of the door to potential abuse? If so, will she commit in principle to the reinstatement of face-to-face assessments?

• 30 Jun 2025 · Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill · Hansard source

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  I grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. As I said in my first intervention, I am new to this whole debate, but I thought I heard from the Minister that the idea was for this measure to stand only until the Government appeal was resolved or the Government ran out of time to appeal. How long would that period be? I do not see how that would put things off for the inordinate amount of time that my right hon. Friend suggests.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have some sympathy with my right hon. Friend’s argument, but surely the effect of this change will kick in only if, in the end, the Government’s appeal succeeds. Therefore, it will be the case that the court previously was wrong; otherwise, the Government’s appeal against its decision will not succeed.

• 30 Jun 2025 · Deprivation of Citizenship Orders (Effect during Appeal) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have come to this debate without any prior knowledge of what is proposed, so I am making this point as a result of what I have heard so far. Am I right in thinking that what the Minister particularly has in mind is people with dual citizenship who might, for example, have gone abroad to fight for a terrorist organisation, such as ISIS. There would, in such a case, be nothing forbidding us from removing their British citizenship. If they came back, even if they could be convicted of anything at all, they would be imprisoned for only a relatively short time, if at all, and then the security services would probably have to spend many years monitoring them. Is that the sort of scenario the Minister has in mind?

• 30 Jun 2025 · UK Military Bases: Security · Hansard source

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  Almost by definition, RAF sites have to have very long perimeter fences, so it is understandable that they could be overcome at one point or another. Why were they apparently not fitted with sensors, at least, so that any intrusion would have sounded the alarm?

• 26 Jun 2025 · G7 and NATO Summits · Hansard source

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  After a worrying start, President Trump has now strengthened NATO, both by extracting promises of more money and with the positive comments he made at the end of the summit. Has the Prime Minister had a chance to assess whether that means that President Trump’s love affair with Vladimir Putin is beginning to cool?

• 26 Jun 2025 · BBC World Service Funding · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Sir Jeremy, for calling me to speak, and it is a pleasure to endorse so much of what has been said today in such a unified way across party boundaries. The value of BBC broadcasting is to be measured by the risks that people are prepared to take in order to listen to it, ranging from people in occupied countries to people in totalitarian states. From occupied France in the second world war to oppressed Afghanistan today, the BBC World Service is many people’s principal lifeline to the truth. Indeed, its current reach in Afghanistan is believed to be almost a quarter of the entire population. As we have heard today, it reaches well over 400 million people worldwide, including 64 million people every week in the world’s 20 most fragile states. No political estimate can be put on this reach other than its colossal impact for good. However, resources have not kept pace and we see the consequences in places such as Lebanon, where the Russian Sputnik radio channel now transmits on the radio frequency that was formerly used in that country by BBC Arabic, which had to be closed down after 85 years, early in 2023. By the end of that year, a Russian radio channel had taken over in Lebanon. Indeed, Russia and China are estimated to be investing between £6 billion and £8 billion in media services across Africa, Asia and the middle east. As we have heard, deplorably, the US Agency for Global Media, which runs Voice of America and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, as well as funding Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting networks, has suffered huge cuts in funding and personnel. Normally, that overarching system of broadcasting by the USA would reach an estimated 427 million people. Are the gaps that will be created by these cuts going to be filled, once again, by countries hostile to western values? It goes without saying that Russia and China are both absolutely delighted with that development in the USA. As we have also heard, two thirds of the World Service continues to be funded by the licence fee, yet it is primarily a service that benefits the interests of the Government and the nation as a whole, rather than the people who pay the licence fee being the consumers of the service. By definition, their listening in is a bonus; the World Service is meant to promote values and truth overseas. Because of the three-minute limit for speeches, I will not be able to refer to BBC Monitoring, as I had hoped to, but it is another vital service. Both the World Service and BBC Monitoring used to be paid for by the Government. If the Government decide to pay for them in full again, they can at least put the money required towards the extra contribution of 1.5% of GDP on NATO spending, to reach a target of 5% of GDP, which they have now agreed to accept.

• 25 Jun 2025 · Nuclear-certified Aircraft Procurement · Hansard source

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  May I encourage the Government not to be at all bashful about the fact that the decision on whether one of these weapons will be used—heaven forbid—will be an American one? There is a long tradition of American nuclear weapons being based in NATO countries, not least the Cruise and Pershing missiles of the 1980s, which helped to end the cold war. Will the Minister confirm that not only does this fill a gap in our deterrence spectrum, but it reasserts the commitment of the United States to the defence of the other NATO countries?

• 24 Jun 2025 · War Memorials · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that there is a particular importance of memorials to people who have no known grave but the sea? I believe I am right in saying that the three great Royal Naval memorials at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth commemorate more than 66,000 Royal Naval personnel who lost their lives in the two world wars. Of course, the one at Tower Hill commemorates about 36,000 merchant seamen and fishing fleet personnel who were similarly lost with no known grave.

• 24 Jun 2025 · War Memorials · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that something that makes the erection and maintenance of war memorials so much more poignant is that they are often paid for by the local communities themselves? They raise the money, and they continue to do so many years later. Only last weekend, I was at Marchwood village hall in my constituency, looking at a presentation about the war years with residents of that village in order to raise money to restore and refurbish their war memorial.

• 24 Jun 2025 · China Audit · Hansard source

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  In his statement, the Foreign Secretary says that “our approach will always be guided by the UK’s long-term economic growth priorities”. As an example of that, he refers to our universities’ second largest source of international students being China, yet the Intelligence and Security Committee stated in the press notice for its report on China, of which he approves: “China is similarly aggressive in its interference activities… China oversteps the boundary. It has been particularly effective at using its money and influence to penetrate or buy Academia in order to ensure its international narrative is advanced and criticism suppressed.” In answer to the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), he said that we look to the universities to take precautions. Given the financial incentive to universities, I would rather look to someone else to take the precautions.

• 24 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  What practical steps can the Government take to support women and girls in Afghanistan who, after a period of being encouraged to liberate themselves, are now cast back into domestic servitude?

• 23 Jun 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  As usual, I agree with much of what the Foreign Secretary has to say, but I have to ask him this: how many times must a terrorist-funding, fanatical regime threaten to wipe another country from the face of the earth before a Government advised by Lord Hermer of Chagos acknowledge that military action to delay and degrade its nuclear weapons programme is both ethically and legally justifiable?

• 23 Jun 2025 · UK Military Base Protection · Hansard source

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  I must say that I am very surprised that the Home Secretary chose to put out a written statement, rather than making an oral statement, when we could have put to her some of these points about what exactly qualifies a group to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. I entirely agree with the sentiment in the House that Palestine Action sabotaged these planes, caused criminal damage and could be liable to a charge of criminal conspiracy, and that the people who did the damage should be pursued for remuneration to the point of bankruptcy. However, it would do the country and the Government no favours if they were to lose in court a challenge to the process of proscription, because whereas the secret sabotage of planes would certainly have been an act of terrorism leading to proscription, the fact is that this was a performative act that these people announced they had done. My advice to the Government is to make sure, when these people are prosecuted, that it is not solely on the grounds of committing terrorist acts, rather than committing treasonous acts of sabotage.

• 23 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Do Ministers agree with the Trussell Trust’s recent estimate that the weekly cost of basic essentials is £120 for a single person and £205 for a couple?

• 19 Jun 2025 · Warm Home Discount · Hansard source

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  Yesterday, as the Minister probably knows, food bank groups associated with the Trussell Trust lobbied—very effectively —Members on both sides of the House. My local group, the Waterside food bank, impressed on me the gap between the £92, which the Government believe a single person is estimated to need to survive, and the £120 that the food bank believes is necessary for a single person to be able to survive alone. Can the Minister give an indication as to what extent the gap between those two figures will be closed as a result of this initiative?

• 16 Jun 2025 · Iran-Israel Conflict · Hansard source

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  Until the people of Iran rise up and overthrow the dreadful mullahs’ regime, it is obviously true what the Foreign Secretary says when he says that no military action can put an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, because even if its capacity was entirely destroyed, Iran could start rebuilding it. Having said that, though, it is true that it is possible to contain those ambitions by knocking back Iran’s capacity repeatedly, until such time as it no longer wishes to acquire nuclear weapons. I advise the Foreign Secretary to think carefully about the question of diplomacy alone containing those ambitions, because one day we might wake up and find that a successful nuclear test has been carried out by Iran.

• 16 Jun 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report · Hansard source

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  I hope something else we can all agree on is our admiration for the former Labour MP Ann Cryer, who exposed what was going on back in 2003, which was only five years into a 13-year-long Labour Government, and was disgracefully smeared as a racist for doing so. Let us belatedly make an apology to her and thank her for her courage.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Spending Review: Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  The Minister will be well aware of Sir Andrew Dilnot’s ambitious plan to put a cap of £86,000 on the cost of the social care that any family would ever have to pay. It was never going to be easy to implement that. Previous Governments postponed the plan, and the Chancellor effectively scrapped it completely. May I appeal to the Minister to work across party lines, and to focus on the crippling debt that hits hard-working families when they come to the end of their working lives and need the support of the state?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  It seems quite radical to suggest, as the report does, devolving responsibility for post-16 technical education and training to local leaders and transferring responsibility for skills to the Department for Business and Trade. Will the right hon. Gentleman briefly expand on that, and explain how it relates to apprenticeships on the one hand and university education on the other?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Gibraltar · Hansard source

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  It is encouraging that the Gibraltarians are receiving more consideration than the exiled Chagossians did. When the Foreign Secretary says that a sovereignty clause was inserted, does that mean that Spain absolutely and explicitly recognises the sovereign relationship between Britain and Gibraltar? If so, what has the reaction been of those elements that he referred to in Spanish politics that do not accept that relationship?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sure that we wish the Government well in what they are trying to do. I gather that the International Air Transport Association highlighted only last week that, at the moment, sustainable aviation fuels cost approximately five times as much as conventional jet fuel. Will she explain how the measures in the Bill will bridge that gap to make it economical?