Julian Lewis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Jun 2026 · Youth Hubs · Hansard source

  More

  With the impeccable timing of an Olympic medallist and world record beater, the inspirational Fatima Whitbread is in Parliament today in room U in Portcullis House till 4 pm, stressing the importance for people like herself brought up in the care system of wraparound local authority hubs working with and including the education, sport, police and charity sectors. Will a member of the ministerial team—preferably more than one—take the trouble to leave this Chamber when questions end and go over and talk to Fatima about her interesting and constructive ideas in this important field?

• 24 Jun 2026 · Media Green Paper · Hansard source

  More

  On a similar theme, undoubtedly near the top of the Secretary of State’s to-do list today is to answer written question No. 11584, which is due for answer tomorrow. The question is about the threat posed by the BBC World Service apparently discontinuing its longwave transmitters at Droitwich, Burghead and Westerglen. What we want to know is: how will closed societies like Russia be able to receive news information when they are subject to the suppression of all the internet-based routes?

• 15 Jun 2026 · Social Media Ban for Under-16s · Hansard source

  More

  This has definitely been the Secretary of State’s finest hour. I am only slightly disappointed that, for reasons of his own, the Prime Minister chose to upstage it in Downing Street. Can she tell the House what the main reasons are in Australia for reports—admittedly according to AI—that as many as 61% of young people are getting around the restrictions? Will she be working jointly with the Australians to try to get that down to a more acceptable level?

• 8 Jun 2026 · Digital Safety: Children · Hansard source

  More

  As long as children are given access to social media I very much doubt that it will be possible to prevent them from seeing harmful content. Given the strong assurances from the Minister that he will certainly be taking action to prevent them from seeing extreme content, can he explain to the House what sanctions will be available effectively to punish those social media companies that defy the legislation?

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

  More

  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?

• 24 Feb 2026 · Access to Mental Health Services · Hansard source

  More

  Has the Minister had any opportunity to form conclusions about whether excessive involvement with social media and other online potential harms has contributed to an apparent significant increase in the levels of mental health disorders?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Holocaust Memorial Bill · Hansard source

  More

  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 · Mobile Phones and Social Media: Use by Children · Hansard source

  More

  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?

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

  More

  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.

• 18 Dec 2025 · 15th Anniversary · Hansard source

  More

  Has my hon. Friend and his Committee considered whether anything can be done to encourage more media interest in the subject of the debates that his Committee grants? I have in mind a particularly outstanding debate on Ukraine, which was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on Thursday 4 December. Every speech from every participant —with the possible exception of my own—was outstandingly good, yet afterwards I could detect no coverage whatever. Is there anything that can be done to persuade those whose responsibility it is to report on the proceedings of this House that sometimes it is worth taking note of what Back Benchers have to say?

• 24 Nov 2025 · Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban · Hansard source

  More

  It sounds as though the Minister is getting to grips with this, and I am very grateful for that. Will she accept that the counterpart or corollary of operational independence for the police is their political impartiality, and does she agree with me that the last thing we want is a poisonous cocktail of football hooliganism infected by the hatreds arising out of the middle eastern conflict?

• 20 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  The Arts and Humanities Research Council receives £70 million in public money to fund postgraduate research. What mechanism and powers does the Secretary of State have to check that such substantial funds are not squandered on politically tendentious projects, such as those exposed by Laurence Sleator on page 27 of The Times on Saturday? Will she perhaps take a look at the article and write to me?

• 4 Sept 2025 · BBC Monitoring Service · Hansard source

  More

  It is very gratifying to an old timer like me to see a fresh generation of serious-minded hon. and right hon. Members from all parties so united on this common theme in the national interest. I will have to race on a bit now so as not to cut into the Minister’s time too much. So far I have focused in large part on the negatives, as the House has heard, but all is not a picture of doom and gloom. Despite the substantial redundancies of 2016-17 after the reduction in licence fee funding and the closure of Caversham Park, an 11-year customer service agreement was signed with the Government, covering the period 2017 to 2027 inclusive. A business development team also succeeded in widening the commercial customer base and lessening, to some extent, the dependence on the licence fee. Those in charge at BBC Monitoring are in no doubt of the importance of their mission. They point out in a most helpful briefing document that they provided to me that in today’s environment of intensifying information warfare, weaponised narratives and global instability, the value of BBC Monitoring’s work is more crucial than ever. They note: “The global media landscape has undergone a profound transformation, driven by the rapid expansion of social media, the democratisation of content creation, and the accelerating capabilities of generative AI. These shifts have dramatically increased the volume and velocity of disinformation… In response, BBC Monitoring has evolved its editorial strategy, moving beyond translation and summarisation to deliver expert, evidence-based analysis. The introduction of data specialists has enabled the production of interactive maps, graphics, and other tools that help users navigate complex information environments.” BBCM has expanded its coverage of Chinese, Russian and Iranian media influence operations, of jihadism, of climate change, of water and energy security, and of migration—all issues that are central to our national interests and foreign policy. Its products underpin the work of BBC journalism, particularly when reporting on countries where direct access is restricted or prohibited. There is, in short, no question about the irreplaceable value inherent in the BBC Monitoring service. By securing this debate and sharing the contents of this speech in advance with the Minister, as I have, I aim to give the Government an opportunity to endorse its vital work tonight and perhaps shine a little light on some relevant aspects of that. First, on its budget, at the time of the December 2016 Defence Committee report, the annual costs of BBCM were known, as I said earlier, to be a modest £25 million. What is its budget today, and what percentages of its income derive from the licence fee and from each of its other main funding sources? If the Minister cannot be too specific this evening, I would be grateful if he might write to me in more detail. Secondly, now that the US Open Source Enterprise organisation is—most regrettably—no longer co-located with BBC Monitoring in the United Kingdom, what is the nature of the residual relationship between the two organisations? Do they no longer together cover the globe, freely exchanging their respective products, as in the days of Caversham Park? Does BBCM even see the OSE product? Does it have to pay for it and, if so, how much income does BBC Monitoring receive for supplying its output to the United States? Thirdly, I understand that BBCM has taken some strides in introducing artificial intelligence into its modus operandi. How far does it expect that process to go, and will human expertise and judgment remain integral to its monitoring work? Fourthly, while the restoration of an annual Government grant would be by far the most secure funding model, in the absence of that, is there any danger of BBC Monitoring being cut loose from the World Service organisation and farmed out insecurely to BBC Sounds, as has previously been mooted? Finally, with a new agreement having to be negotiated with the Government before the expiry of the existing one in two years’ time, will the Minister please undertake to set out specific details of the target quantities of actual monitoring outputs—not to be conflated with analysis—specified under the existing agreement, and the extent to which those targets have, or have not, been achieved? Only in that way shall we know if our vital open source intelligence operation truly has the resources it needs.

• 4 Sept 2025 · BBC Monitoring Service · Hansard source

  More

  I could not agree more. May I take the opportunity to thank the hon. Gentleman again for the excellent debate on the BBC World Service, which he led on 26 June, if I remember correctly, and which gave me the idea to bring forward the subject of BBC Monitoring separately? Over very many years, BBC Monitoring had built up the closest conceivable relationship with its United States counterpart, known as Open Source Enterprise, or OSE. Indeed, the two organisations were based on alternate floors of the Caversham Park headquarters, dividing between them the coverage of global broadcasting to the enormous benefit of both countries in the transatlantic alliance. This was the nerve centre of world-beating open source intelligence, yet the BBC decided to evict OSE and sell the Caversham estate.

• 4 Sept 2025 · BBC Monitoring Service · Hansard source

  More

  Just over four decades ago, I first became aware of the BBC Monitoring service, or BBCM. The year was 1982, and a very different Labour party, led by veteran unilateralist Michael Foot, was committed to abandoning the British strategic nuclear deterrent unconditionally. I was involved in a campaign against that, together with the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), and a brilliant colleague of ours, Councillor—as he then was—Tony Kerpel. A fellow researcher handed me the transcript of a Radio Moscow interview with the national organiser of Britain’s leading disarmament campaign group, who was visiting the USSR, as one does. When asked why the official Soviet Peace Committee supported the Soviet Government—unlike her organisation, which opposed the UK Government—she revealingly replied: “Well, obviously, because the Soviet Government is in favour of peace, and this makes a big difference.” That was on Radio Moscow on 7 June 1982, for the historians among us. The source of such telling material was a publication called Summary of World Broadcasts , which was produced by BBCM and packed with invaluable insights into the propaganda campaigns of our adversaries and those who consorted with them. Founded in 1939 to give speedy access to foreign media and propaganda output, the monitoring service was funded for its first 70 years by an annual Government grant. This was as it should be: the Government were paying for a service for which they were the main customer and consumer. Certainly, there were periods of famine and feast. Reductions in the grant after the end of the second world war limited the frequency of the Summary of World Broadcasts , which resumed daily publication only in 1959, but the principle of the annual grant held firm and there was further Government investment in computerisation and new buildings at the Caversham Park headquarters of BBCM in the second half of the 1980s. For a time, the grant was split between the Foreign Office, the Defence Ministry, the Cabinet Office and the World Service budgets, but a 2005 report reinstated the single Government revenue stream. Cuts and redundancies nevertheless took place in 2006-07 under Tony Blair, with worse to follow under Cameron and Clegg in 2010. That was the year when the coalition Government decreed that the BBC World Service, and the Monitoring service too, would be funded in future from the corporation’s licence fee income. Eventually, direct Government funding for the World Service had to be restored, amounting to about one third of its annual income. BBCM, however, remains disproportionately dependent on the licence fee, plus a certain amount of income from its commercial contracts. Given that the BBC claims to have seen a 30% reduction of its overall income in real terms since that fateful year of 2010, it is hardly surprising that both the World Service and BBCM have suffered financially.