Julian Lewis MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Civil Service Pension Scheme · Hansard source

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  I will share with the House one particular case that is representative of many. My constituent, Mrs Gillian Pothecary, lost her husband almost a year ago. She wrote to me in July about her valiant but so far unavailing quest to obtain a civil service widow’s pension. She wrote: “Throughout this process, I have been given differing information about the status of my claim…More recently, I was told that I was at the top of the list for assessment, only to then be informed that some of my paperwork had become out of date and needed to be resubmitted, causing further delay.” I was very impressed to get a reply, when I forwarded this on, from someone holding the exalted position of deputy director of civil service and Royal Mail pensions in the Cabinet Office. She said: “Mrs Pothecary’s…case falls under the commitment to be fully resolved by early September at the absolute latest. Capita has assured me that her case is on their escalation log and has been flagged for priority handling.” I rang up Gill just before coming into this debate and—you’ve guessed it, Dame Siobhain—she has not yet received her pension. She is now dipping into her savings and working longer hours at the supermarket.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Saudi East-West Oil Pipeline · Hansard source

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  As the Minister seems to have run out of supportive Back Benchers, I shall endeavour to ask him a helpful and easy question. Accepting that it will be some years, to put it mildly, before we can eliminate our dependency on oil and gas, does he accept in principle that we are more secure if we exploit our own domestic oil and gas resources, rather than relying on imports from the middle east, which can so easily be blocked?

• 15 Sept 2026 · Tourism: Overnight Visitor Levy · Hansard source

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  If the New Forest and the Waterside were forced into a unitary authority dominated by Southampton and Eastleigh, what chance would there be of local authorities looking after the interests of rural areas?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  On Monday, just as campaigners from the New Forest and Waterside were handing into Downing Street a 32,000-signature petition against the appalling and unfair outcome of local government reorganisation affecting our area, the welcome announcement was made by the Government that the local government reform proposals for Hampshire and three other counties were being withdrawn and all the rest were being paused. May I invite the Leader of the House to secure a statement either from the Prime Minister or from the Secretary of State as soon as possible, confirming that that withdrawal and those pauses will be made permanent?

• 10 Sept 2026 · Social Housing Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Unprecedented!

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  I warmly endorse almost everything the Secretary of State has said today, and I genuinely congratulate him on his appointment. In my first speech in this House almost 30 years ago, I promised to support Labour Governments as long as they supported the nuclear deterrent, the conventional armed forces and NATO. I would like to think that I have kept that promise. The one area where I have to dissent, however, is the section where he comes on to the proportion of GDP spent on defence. As I have said to some of the right hon. Gentleman’s predecessors, it is no good banging on about something being the largest increase since the end of the cold war. We are now in a situation that is worse than that at the height of the cold war, so the comparison we have to make is between what we are spending now and what we spent during the cold war, which was, in modern calculating methods, between 4.5% and 5.1% on defence. So let us not talk about increases to 2.7%. We really must remember that even when the Berlin wall came down, we were spending over 4% of GDP on defence at that stage. Those are the sorts of efforts that we have to make, because if Putin fails in Ukraine, the threat to this country will recede for a generation.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Does the Foreign Secretary agree that this action is unlikely to affect the policy of the Netanyahu Government? As I hardly need to remind him, Israel is a parliamentary democracy. Has he reason to believe that this action might affect the policy of the Israeli Opposition, and did he have any contact with the Israeli Opposition parties before coming to that conclusion?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Falkland Islands: Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  Do the Government accept that in order to deter any possibility of military action against the Falklands, it is important not to send the wrong signals? In 1982 there was the withdrawal of HMS Endurance specifically, but there were also huge anti-nuclear campaigns that sent the wrong message to aggressors around the world. Can the Government confirm that, this time, they will not send the wrong signals—over Diego Garcia, for example—or any suggestion that we do not have the naval and air assets to deter and, if necessary, to defend?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Online Safety · Hansard source

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  I also welcome the statement. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State shared with the House a little bit about how the highly efficient age assurance system actually works. In particular, I confess to the fact that over 60 years ago my parents, recognising that my sister and I were rather precocious readers, lent us their tickets to the senior library, rather than the junior library where we were confined. What would there be to prevent a parent choosing to allow a child to use their phone under their identity, and would there be a penalty for doing so?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  For some years I have known the proprietor of a small to medium-sized aviation company that has come up with revolutionary aircraft designs with both civilian and military applications, but every time the Government of the day have ended up supporting the big operators in this field. How will the right hon. Lady’s new policy towards unicorns benefit somebody like that?

• 3 Sept 2026 · Building Homes and Renewing Communities · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State accept that there is an intimate link between local government reform and the successful carrying-out of major house building programmes? One of the reasons I warmly welcome her return to office is the failure of her predecessor, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), either to confirm or deny on 16 July the report in The Times on 18 June that senior civil servants and lawyers in three separate Departments had been overruled when they advised him not to make local government reorganisation decisions merely at the behest of Labour-led councils. Will the Secretary of State undertake to look at this issue again, particularly in the light of the number of boundary changes involved, and given that her colleague, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon)—now mercifully back in action—had originally promised that boundary changes would be rare exceptions, and that particularly strong reasons would have to be put forward in justification?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Rewiring the State · Hansard source

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  Normally when functions and roles are devolved from London to another area, we see a diminution in the capital and an increase in the area concerned. There is an obvious danger of duplication by having a No. 10 North and a No. 10 South, so will the First Secretary, whom I congratulate on her appointment, be transparent about this and agree that the public should be able to see how many people are working permanently in No. 10 North, how many are working permanently in No. 10 South, and how many are going back and forth between the two?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Criminal Justice Reform · Hansard source

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  I know the Government will be doing their best to protect potential future victims of early release offenders, particularly those who were in jail for domestic abuse or other fixated behaviour, but it is not good enough simply to try to improve tagging measures; what one has to do is to improve the ability of potential victims to summon help if attacked again. Can the Justice Secretary confirm that the Government will make a unified representation of how such potential future victims can protect themselves—for example, by emergency alarms being fitted as a matter of routine?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Sudden Cardiac Death: Young People · Hansard source

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  My constituent Sue Carter lost her son Ryan, aged 25, to sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, and her friend Charlie Gradidge lost her brother, Danny, who had been a friend of Ryan’s when they were at scouts together. Had they been screened, both those relatives believe that their lost ones would still be alive. They now spend their time fundraising, £7,000 at a time, and they have done this three or four times to enable CRY to screen 100 youngsters and pick up people with irregularities. That is great work, but it ought not to be done by private individuals, ought it?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Direction of Government · Hansard source

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  As someone who was politically active in the Thatcher decade, may I gently remind the Prime Minister that it was the period that she did so well in because the Labour party was in a terrible state? For example, it embraced unilateral nuclear disarmament at the height of the second cold war—mercifully, a position that it has long left behind. I welcome what the Prime Minister said about wishing to work consensually and across party lines. In that spirit, will he look again at the shameless gerrymandering around the local government reorganisation? At the beginning of the process, the hon. Member for Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton (Jim McMahon) promised us that there would be no unnecessary fragmentation or boundary changes without strong reason for them, yet my constituency is being torn apart, with the Waterside, which has looked towards the New Forest for centuries, being taken over by Southampton. The same is happening elsewhere. That was not in his party’s manifesto. It is a good opportunity for the Prime Minister to show that he means what he says about consensus.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Gibraltar: UK-EU Treaty · Hansard source

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  May I warmly endorse what the Minister said about the Falkland Islands, and ask a question or two about security aspects? Given that both we and Spain are in NATO, the reassurances about the sovereignty of the base are welcome. Can the Minister confirm that on those occasions when military assets, including munitions, have to be moved into the area, the report that I have seen suggesting that everything about munitions has to be reported to the Spanish authorities does not mean that this cannot be done in secrecy when that is required? Finally, with regard to the border, is there any danger that, without the land border, people will be enabled to get on an aeroplane and come to the UK who might pose a security threat, and then we would be in difficulty sending them back? Hopefully none of those fears is warranted, but I would like to hear that from the Minister.

• 16 Jul 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  What a poisoned chalice this Secretary of State is leaving for the incoming Prime Minister. I have a very specific question to put to him. A report published in The Times —online on 18 June, and in the paper the following day—stated categorically that this Secretary of State had overruled senior civil servants and lawyers from three different Departments in order to make decisions that were favoured politically by Labour council leaders. Was that report correct or was it false?

• 15 Jul 2026 · National Energy System Operator: Blackout Risk · Hansard source

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  I have some sympathy with the Minister’s situation, because this is a highly technical issue, and presumably he will have been briefed to deal with this urgent question by the senior management at NESO—or at least they will have briefed the civil servants who briefed him. What is bothering me is the lack of independence in this process. It appears that the senior management made an all-staff call in which they denounced the whistleblowers as having let the company down. From what the Minister said, it appears that the firm that is going to conduct the inquiry is an independent legal firm, which will be paid by the senior management of NESO. Would it not be better, from the point of view of objectivity and transparency, for Ofgem to engage whoever is going to conduct this inquiry, not the very people whose own careers will be on the line if the whistleblowers are vindicated?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Death of Ann Widdecombe · Hansard source

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  May I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the House that the fact that I have to chair a meeting in a few minutes’ time prevents me from staying, as I would wish to do, to the end of the statement? When I went up as an undergraduate to Oxford in late 1970 and joined the university Conservative association, there were two outstanding figures a year ahead of me in that august body: one was Ann Widdecombe and the other was Nicolas Turner. A few years later, in February 1980, Ann Widdecombe and I shared a taxi to the funeral of Nicolas Turner, who had heroically sacrificed his life in an attempt to rescue his young daughter Alice—it was a double funeral—who had been swept into the sea by a freak wave. Ann was always there when her friends needed support and, on a lighter note, she was always there ready to bring her friends back down to earth. When Ann was elected in 1987 for the first time, and I happened to be moving flats, I gifted her a relatively new washing machine that was now surplus to my requirements. For several years after she became an MP, she used to invite me once a year, almost like clockwork, to have lunch with her in this place. I naturally assumed that it was that she wished to imbibe the wisdom of my political advice. It was only by accident when I suggested that to her and how flattered I was that she revealed the truth, saying, “Oh no, Julian—this is rent for the washing machine!” Mr Speaker will certainly remember that in 2008 to 2009, this House spent a lot of time taking steps to ensure that MPs’ home addresses did not, in future, have to be revealed either in answer to freedom of information requests or on ballot papers and notices of nomination. It therefore comes as a bit of a shock to me to read in one of the reports today that Ann had—it may turn out to be complete coincidence—featured in her home on a programme on television extensively only six days before she died. The report said that the name of the home had been obscured, but software is available so that if someone puts up a picture of a place, particularly if they know the general area, it will identify the address. Let me please appeal to Members and ex-Members from whatever political party: do not throw away the gains we made, and whatever else you do, keep your home addresses as private as you possibly can.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Local Government Reorganisation · Hansard source

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  I would like to think that if this Minister were Secretary of State, we would not be in a situation where 23,000 people were signing an online petition protesting against the carve-up of the New Forest in this local government reorganisation. Can she tell me: is there any truth in the report in The Times on 18 June that the Secretary of State had overruled professional advice from civil servants in three separate Departments to impose a gerrymandered solution on Essex county council?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Asylum Hotels · Hansard source

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  I thank the Home Secretary for what she said about Ann, whom I first met more than 50 years ago. She was as formidable as an undergraduate as she became in later life as a mature politician. I believe that nobody on the Labour Benches other than the present Home Secretary could do more to tackle the asylum problem than she is doing. Having said that, this strategy of moving people out of hotels and into camps, or dispersing them, can only ever work if other people are not coming in constantly to replace them, so what plans does she have for truly deterring people, so that they know that if they embark on a small boat, they will physically not be allowed to melt into British society in the future?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Home Secretary on not resiling at all from the tough stance that she is trying to take. Has she received any indication that after 20 July, a Labour Home Secretary—hopefully she herself—will be able to continue to develop this important work?

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  To put the hon. Gentleman right, it is customary when a Member names another Member, particularly in a critical way, to give way to them freely, not to have to be forced into it. The fact of the matter is that I would love the hon. Gentleman to list all these absolute human rights. Even in a democracy, there is not an absolute right for people not to put themselves in danger when they get conscripted in a wartime situation. Does he or does he not accept the basic moral fact that, if someone infringes the human rights of other people, they cannot expect their own rights to be fully respected, because they abrogate those rights? If there has to be a clash between an innocent person’s rights being infringed and the perpetrator’s rights being infringed, I—and, I would like to think, most sensible people—would say it is the perpetrator who should lose out.

• 13 Jul 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill · Hansard source

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  Get it right!