Julian Lewis MP: speeches

Speeches

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  If Labour colleagues are going to insist on reiterating that the last time 2.5% of GDP was spent on defence it was by a Labour Government, I suppose I have to point out that the last time 3% was spent by any Government it was by a Conservative Government, and the last time 4% was spent by any Government it was by a Conservative Government. Both those figures were some time after the fall of the Berlin wall. When the Berlin wall was still up, under the present accounting system we were spending up to 5.5% on defence, so please can everyone stop obsessing about 2.5% and when it will come in, because we need a lot more?

• 27 Jan 2025 · Reading in Schools · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State accept that the use of phonics as the basis of teaching reading has been thoroughly vindicated?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Russian Maritime Activity and UK Response · Hansard source

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  If Putin’s Russia is the greatest threat to peace in Europe, the second greatest threat must be any American decision to turn their back on NATO. Can the Secretary of State assure us that he will do everything in his power to convince his new counterparts in the United States Administration of the seriousness of the threat that Russia poses?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Southport Attack · Hansard source

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  I trust that the Home Secretary agrees that the courage shown by the dance teacher and the member of the public who intervened should be recognised appropriately. What troubles me is that we seem to have a subtext here of saying that if only that particular ticking time-bomb had been successfully referred to Prevent, it could have stopped him doing what he did. Assuming that someone so committed to fanaticism would not respond to Prevent, will the Home Secretary share with the House what measures are in place to keep such terrible events from happening? Do terrorism prevention and investigation measures, for example, apply in a case like that?

• 20 Jan 2025 · Global Combat Air Programme · Hansard source

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  Tornado, Typhoon and Tempest has a sort of ring to it. I understand why we are using the term GCAP, but its presentation leaves a lot to be desired. One reason is that it is so much more than just the Tempest airframe—autonomous aircraft will fly in conjunction with it. How confident is the Select Committee Chair that all this can be done in a fast-moving landscape and in just a 10-year programme?

• 20 Jan 2025 · Office for Value for Money · Hansard source

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  It seems that the Chair of the Treasury Committee has come to the firm conclusion that the Office for Value for Money is itself not value for money. In carrying out her investigation of this body, which appears to have been set up only for a very limited period, she must have asked it what its terms of reference are, why it has been set up only for a limited period and what it is intended to achieve. My guess is that the answer has something to do with the ability to search just about anywhere across the spectrum for any project that causes concern. Did she get an answer of that sort? She must surely have got some sort of answer.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  At a rough count, there are in excess of 50 colleagues here from a range of parties. I hope every one of them pledges to join the all-party parliamentary group on state pension inequality for women, ably led by the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey). This boils down to a question of credibility and respect. What credibility and respect can there be for ombudsmen’s reports if they are ignored? What credibility and respect can there be for Members of Parliament, ranging from the now Prime Minister to foot soldiers such as me, who parade with placards saying we will fight and campaign on behalf of the WASPI women, if we do not follow through on those commitments? I want to raise one particular point that bothers me, and then I will let others continue the debate. In trying to justify their policy of inaction, the Government seem to be oscillating between two positions: on the one hand, they keep suggesting that they simply cannot afford to give any compensation at all, but in the next breath they seem almost to be challenging the contents of the ombudsman’s report, relying on a dodgy poll that suggests that 90% of the affected women knew about the changes. Well, if the Government can rely on dodgy polls, so can I. I happen to be married to a WASPI woman, and on a dodgy poll of one I can tell the Government that she did not know and did not get a letter, and she has no particular motivation for claiming otherwise, given that it would not have affected her career choices. The Minister needs to be clear when he sums up: do the Government accept that there was maladministration, as the report sets out, or are they trying to deny that fact? In paragraph 20 of the report, the ombudsman says: “While it is unusual for organisations we investigate not to accept and act on our recommendations, we have no powers to compel them to comply. When an organisation does not comply with our recommendations, we can lay a report before Parliament so that Parliament can act to protect citizens’ rights.” That is what the ombudsman expects, and that is what the WASPI women have every right to expect too.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Drones: High-security Prisons · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for a very positive recent meeting on an unrelated subject. Is the main problem here the detection of the incoming drones, or the ability to impede the deliveries once they have been detected?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Do the Government deny that incoming President Trump is deeply hostile to the proposed Chagos Islands giveaway?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Tackling Crime: Newcastle-under-Lyme · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister accept that it would greatly assist the police to investigate crime in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and indeed elsewhere, if they were not spending an estimated 60,000 hours investigating and recording so-called non-crime hate incidents?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Developing AI Capacity and Expertise in UK Defence · Hansard source

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  Military history books are full of examples of the difficulty that defence scientists had in selling their revolutionary ideas to military chiefs and civil servants. Given the nebulous nature of artificial intelligence, was the Sub-Committee satisfied that there is a specialist cadre in the Ministry of Defence that is intellectually equipped to make appropriate assessment of schemes that are put forward for new weapons systems?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan · Hansard source

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  I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not want to misquote the headline. Nevertheless—as we now all know who she is—I discover that, instead of corresponding with her civil servants, as I thought, I am engaging with something called a “correspondence triage automation tool”, which is used for “the automatic matching of correspondence with appropriate standard responses”. That might give us cause to chuckle, but can we at least have an assurance that when we write to Ministers, even if they are not replying, they will at least be informed of the fact that concerns have been raised by Members of this House?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan · Hansard source

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  I revert to the article in The Times mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), headlined: “Rachel Reeves using AI to reply to Treasury emails”.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Gas Storage Levels · Hansard source

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  Can I encourage the Minister to come out of combat mode for a second and consider a constructive proposal? If we are not to become re-dependent on gas when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, and we do not want to be dependent on foreign countries indefinitely, can he see a future role for modular nuclear reactors?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Live Events Ticketing: Resale and Pricing Practices · Hansard source

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  Continuing the Cyndi Lauper theme, I am sure the Minister agrees that we have to see these touts in their true colours. The fact is that they will try to find ways around these eminently praiseworthy proposals. Let us imagine that the Minister gets his cap in place; what is to stop an undercover operation going ahead with a large number of individuals trying to make a small number of sales each on a website such as eBay? How would the Minister be able to enforce the cap in a situation like that?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Sudan: US Determination of Genocide · Hansard source

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  Since we last discussed this horror on 29 October, I am not aware of any major news coverage of it. How is it that it goes so under-reported? Is it simply too dangerous for journalists to be there? The Minister stresses the wish for no other country to intervene, but is it not the case that genocides tend to go on until someone stops the people committing them?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

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  I applaud my hon. Friend for the point that she is making. I, too, have had representations from excellent home-schooling parents. Does she think that there is a way, with reason and understanding on both sides, for a balance to be struck between the need to safeguard the right of responsible parents to home-school their children and the need to prevent the abuse of children by parents who have other, more sinister, objectives?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Pro-democracy Campaigners: Arrests · Hansard source

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  No one should be surprised, as I have said before, when a communist totalitarian state behaves like a communist totalitarian state. Does the Minister agree that there is a little pattern emerging here? Every time a senior British politician—be it the Prime Minister or the Chancellor—is going on a visit to the Chinese, something particularly egregious is done. That suggests to me that they are trying to rub our noses in it, and that they are not interested or concerned about anything we say on human rights abuses.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Frozen Russian Assets: Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I absolutely accept what the Minister says. Does he appreciate that with the possibility of President Trump withdrawing some, if not all, American aid to Ukraine, the substitution of a substantial volume of financial support will become essential? That is one reason behind our concern about the assets possibly being seized.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Frozen Russian Assets: Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The key point is the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) about the distinction between private assets—even such tainted ones as are held by oligarchs—and state assets. The mover of this motion, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), will correct me if I am wrong, but the $300 billion-worth of assets referred to in the motion are state assets. In a publication by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in May last year, no fewer than 11 professors and other legal experts were unanimous in saying that when it comes to state assets, there is no legal obstacle for seizure by a third-party state, such as ourselves.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It sounds like the Government are not very keen to talk about Diego Garcia with President Trump, but when people as diverse as President Trump and Lord Neil Kinnock agree that NATO countries should be spending between 3% and 4% on defence, would it not be sensible to take them seriously?

• 18 Dec 2024 · British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  It is truly baffling that such decent Ministers have allowed themselves to be bamboozled by the blob. Will the Minister confirm that this is not being rushed through in advance of the takeover of the White House by an incoming President in one month’s time? If, in one month’s time, that new President says that this is a terrible deal, will it be too late to change it?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  What a pleasure it is to follow so many positive speeches on such a unifying issue. I cannot help but observe that it is singularly appropriate that the amiable Minister should be making his last contributions before Christmas on this issue rather than the more fractious one earlier of the future of the Chagos islands. Right hon. and hon. Members may recall that I spoke on Second Reading in support of the very sensible changes that the Bill will make to the status of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the International Committee of the Red Cross. By giving each organisation the status of a body corporate, the Bill ensures that the independence of their staff is sufficiently protected, and that the staff are able to continue with their work unhindered. The Bill gives a clear and welcome signal that the UK is committed to supporting democratic institutions in carrying out their important and independent work. I have been encouraged by the Minister’s positive comments throughout the parliamentary debate regarding the importance of safeguarding the institutional independence of such organisations, and the same is true, indeed essential, for the office of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament. I had hoped, as I said on Second Reading, that the Bill would be expanded to include the ISC, given the very clear read-across. Unfortunately, it has not proved possible to extend the scope of the Bill to cover the ISC within the available timeframe, so I will not repeat my earlier comments. However, I hope that the Government have heard the strength of feeling on this issue, which is about upholding the commitments given to Parliament. It is about ensuring that this House is able to hold secret organisations to account, without the independent staff who do that work being subjected to undue pressure, inappropriate influence or improper interference. Following the recent appointment of the new Committee under its highly experienced Chairman, elected today by the other Committee members, Lord Beamish, formerly Kevan Jones MP, with whom I served on the Committee for four years, I trust that the Government will find another suitable legislative vehicle to allow the important changes that we are making to the CPA and the ICRC to be applied to the ISC as well. Given the very clear similarities between the two democratic institutions covered by the Bill and the office of the ISC and its secretariat, I am confident that that measure would receive the same level of strong cross-party support that has rightly been achieved for this important Bill.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Copyright and Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

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  I am tempted to invite the Minister to consult the magnificent Taylor Swift who, apart from all her many other talents, has shown herself pretty shrewd when it comes to preserving the copyright of her material. He puts his finger on the key weakness in all this: no matter what sort of regime we set up, and no matter how many countries we try to get involved in this, surely it will only take one rogue jurisdiction to allow a machine to scrape from everybody else’s material? Then, the internet’s ability for everyone to access it will undermine the regime and, in that way, we face the danger that “Shake It Off” becomes “Rip It Off”.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Post Office Redress and Funding · Hansard source

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  I am glad that the Minister chose to reference the excellent work done on behalf of the postmasters by Lord Beamish, who is better known to many of us as our former colleague Kevan Jones. I hope that the whole House will join me in congratulating him on his appointment today as the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee—an appointment, by the way, by his fellow Committee members, which is exactly as it should be done. May I gently ask the Minister—this may go slightly outwith his Department’s responsibilities—whether there is any news or progress about the question of prosecutions for criminal conspiracy? That is something I have raised before. That is one thing that might act as a deterrent to this sort of terrible behaviour by a gilded, self-selecting class of people who think that their institutional importance is greater than truth or justice.