Sir Julian Lewis
MP for New Forest East · Conservative · United Kingdom
“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 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 recei…”
“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…”
“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.”
“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…”
“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%.”
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“When it comes to modernising the membership of the House of Lords, we must be careful about blanket proposals. A well-informed group led by Professor Lord Norton of Louth have been grappling with sensible ways of trying to modernise and reform the House of Lords for quite a number of years. Such voices need to be listened to. The House of Lords, though some people are appointed to it on the wrong basis, does an important job. If I may please have a few more moments, I have one last point, which is significant and relates to the Intelligence and Security Committee. This is an essential matter that will need to be incorporated into one of the pieces of legislation that the Government are to introduce.”
“Seventy-five years after George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published—technically speaking, perhaps it is now 76 years—we need to be wary of that. I have a constituent with whom I happen to disagree about abortion. He is totally opposed to abortion; I am not, and I do not think that there should be demonstrations outside abortion clinics. He wants to be able to stand silently by himself on the pavement and pray internally. If he is asked by the police what he is doing and he says, “I am thinking about my shopping list”—or some other domestic issue—he is fine, but if he admits that he is praying in relation to the abortion issue, he could end up being accused of committing an offence. We should be careful before going down that road too far.”
“Now we have the prospect of a freeport in the area. I like to think that the new people in charge of Associated British Ports will be a lot more sensitive about what they plan for the delicate parts of the constituency. All I would say is: do not trample roughshod over communities’ concerns about major infrastructure projects, because sometimes that may not get us the best projects. On conversion therapy, I just leave a question hanging in the air. Anybody who votes for this change needs to be able to answer this point: what is it that you are proposing to outlaw that is not already forbidden under existing laws? The danger with well-intentioned laws of this nature is that we can end up really talking about thought crime.”
“I turn to the King’s Speech, on which I will make just a couple of observations, because we do not have the time for anything more detailed. On planning presumptions, I am always a little bit worried about presumptions in favour of this and presumptions in favour of that. Let us hope that is not a shorthand for ignoring what people want. In my constituency of New Forest East, the biggest local issue for the first six years of my time in this place was a proposal to build a giant container port on reclaimed land on Southampton water called Dibden bay. Associated British Ports said that, without doing that, the port of Southampton would begin to die. We fought that for six years and we won. Guess what? The port of Southampton did not die; it found other ways of dealing with the container traffic, which has thrived.”
“Would you still want to be here if you knew that you were going to be a Back Bencher for all of your parliamentary career? If the answer is yes, you are in the right place. Cling to it, because then anything else that happens is a bonus. If the answer is no, you made the wrong career decision. Get out at the next possible opportunity, because you will never be satisfied. People who come in with that attitude are disappointed. They may make it to the Front Bench but not make it to be a Cabinet Minister. They may make it to the Cabinet but not get to be one of the top four, or they may make it to the top four but not get the top job. We know what happens even to many Prime Ministers who get right to the top. So enjoy the status that you have got, bank it and look on everything else as a dividend.”
“To those situated on the Opposition Benches, I have to say that, bad though the result was for the Conservative party, those who observe these Benches today should not think it was quite as much of a wipeout as it might appear. I think that two of us at least have had the experience of sitting on these Benches before. I was one of 32 first-time Conservative MPs elected in the Blair landslide of 1997. I had 13 years on the Opposition Benches, and then after that I had five years in a coalition. Which was the worse I am not sure, but I offer a piece of advice to all new entrants to the House, including on the Government Benches: if you want to enjoy your time in this place, ask yourself the following question, and hopefully give yourself the right answer.”
“It goes without saying that whenever we have a general election and one side achieves a significant absolute majority, as has happened in this case, there will be a majority of people in the Chamber who feel self-congratulatory, but I suggest that we all ought to congratulate ourselves and each other on the way in which we have handled the transfer of power. It is a cause for great concern that when we look among modern democracies, both in western Europe and, sadly, across the Atlantic, we see that the cause of democracy in those countries is currently so ragged and threadbare. Let us hope it is but a passing phase.”
“Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) concentrated on housing issues and the great sports record and legacy of his beloved Wolverhampton. I, too, can remember Billy Wright from all those years ago. The hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley), who has just spoken, showed an intimate knowledge of the local issues affecting his new seat, and I am sure he will be extremely assiduous in attending to them. I said that I believe congratulations are a theme that is in order, and I wish to echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) said about the result of the election and the way in which power was transferred.”
“Who would have ever dreamt, Sir Edward, when we first met in October 1981, that so many years later both you and your equally radical and progressive friend, my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), would successively grace this House by occupying the Speaker’s Chair? I wish to make congratulations a theme of my short contribution. I want to congratulate in particular the three maiden speakers we have heard so far. It takes quite a bit of doing to make one’s maiden speech so soon after entering the House of Commons, and it is greatly to their credit that they made such generous tributes to their predecessors. The hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) talked about working across party boundaries, which I wish to come back to. The hon.”
“The basic conflict of interest, whereby the careers of the staff of a Committee that oversees bodies that are housed in a Department are in the hands of people in that very same Department, has become unsustainable. Finally, may I thank the Members of the Committee from all three parties and both Houses, who kept to the tradition of leaving party politics at the door? Despite an unpromising start, when an attempt was made to do away with that important principle, they came together and have shown complete unanimity and dedication to carrying out the work of the Committee, which is necessarily not done in the public view.”
“Thank you for your service to this House, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I place on the record my tribute to the director and staff of the Intelligence and Security Committee for their outstanding dedication and commitment to an area that is particularly important in this difficult and dangerous international environment? May I thank them for the work that they have done on preparing comprehensive annual reports and specialist studies on extreme right-wing terrorism, on the UK’s international intelligence partnerships, and on a very well-received report on China, with a similar one on Iran to follow as soon as the redaction process is complete? May I just bring to the attention of the Leader of the House the fact that the Committee has resolved that it will no longer be under the aegis of the Cabinet Office?”
“Even if one says there should be a wider regime where political protest is concerned, after one large protest on a particular cause, the repetition of the same protest week in, week out—possibly for intimidatory purposes—should certainly not be cost-free to the organisers.”
“I personally find it reassuring that this matter is being debated by two gallant hon. and right hon. Members—my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis)—who first met, I believe, fighting extremism in a foreign country. I wish to draw particular attention to Lord Walney’s recommendation 20 on requiring the organisers of repeated protest marches to contribute to the cost of policing. Last Sunday, the relatives of the wartime Telegraphist Air Gunners held their commemoration service in a nearby church, rather than at the Fleet Air Arm memorial on the seafront at Lee-on-the-Solent, because to do the latter would have involved a road closure and policing for which their little association would have had to pay.”
“Although the right hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) is a valued member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, I think the Secretary of State would agree that the SNP is very much on its own on the idea of scrapping the nuclear deterrent. I am put in mind of a quotation from the late Denis Healey, who said that “once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.” —[ Official Report , 5 March 1969; Vol. 779, c. 551.] Is that endorsement of deterrence not as true today as it was when he gave it 55 years ago?”
“I ask this question in my personal capacity, not as Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee. In general, I am a strong supporter of the work of the ICC. The terrorist attack was undoubtedly designed to provoke an overreaction by the Israelis and to polarise societies, and it has succeeded in both those aims. May I ask the Minister to encourage the House to read the ICC’s statement in full? Helpfully, it is available online. May I urge people with a partisan view on either side of this atrocious issue to seriously take on board what the ICC is saying about the activities of the side they support, as well as those of the side they oppose?”
“I have always been sceptical about the impact of sanctions when real warfighting breaks out, and that scepticism has recently been increased by the knowledge that so much Russian oil has been going to India to be refined there and then to be bought up by western countries that are sanctioning Russian oil. Can the Deputy Foreign Minister throw any light on this and on what we propose to do about it?”
“Schools should take a reasonable and proportionate approach to ensuring political impartiality, alongside their other responsibilities.” I do not know how you would read that, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I read it as an attempt to undermine the firm guidance given in statute law that partisan political views must not be promoted in school. I hope the Secretary of State will look into that matter.”
“In answer to a question on 29 April, the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), strongly endorsed the importance of sections 406 and 407 of the Education Act 1996, which respectively ban the promotion of partisan political views, and require the balanced presentation of opposing views when politically contentious subjects are brought to the attention of pupils. Gender ideology is certainly politically contentious, and I was concerned to be alerted by Mrs Clare Page, the educational commentator and campaigner, to the Department’s “Political impartiality in schools” guidance 2022, which states: “Legal duties on political impartiality do not supersede schools’ other statutory requirements.”
“I warmly welcome the thrust of my hon. Friend’s argument. For the benefit of the record, I draw his attention and that of the House to paragraph 459 of the report, which states: “For most sample complainants we consider the primary injustice is that they were denied opportunities to make informed decisions about some things, and to do some things differently, because of maladministration in DWP’s communication about State Pension age. That is a material injustice.””
“May I take the opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for his key role in the APPG? I put on the record the dignified and well-informed views of local WASPI co-ordinators in my part of the world, Shelagh Simmons and Sal Robinson. We heard an intervention suggesting each case should be judged on its individual circumstances. I can see the merit in that, but it would have a devastating effect on the speed with which we would come to conclusions. What balance does my hon. Friend think should be struck on those two factors?”
“Do the Government share my view that just as Soviet failure in Afghanistan led, to a considerable extent, towards the downfall of the Soviet empire, Putin’s failure in Ukraine could have a similar effect on his future and ambitions; and that it is no coincidence that this renewed Russian attack takes place before the aid that America has belatedly decided to give Ukraine has had a chance to arrive?”
“Both the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) have stressed the organised nature of what happened on 7 October, but no one has yet said what the reason was for that. The principal reason, as far as I can see, was to try to goad the Israelis into precisely the sort of overreaction—thus alienating world opinion from their cause—as that on which they have subsequently embarked. So, if it can be proven that the mass rape and other sexual abuse was planned by the organisers of Hamas, does it not follow from that, that they, as well as the actual perpetrators of these attacks, must face retribution in the international courts eventually?”
“Does the Minister agree that the mass rapes on 7 October were not a biproduct of the attack but an integral part of the plan to provoke Israel? If that is proven, does it not mean the people who planned the attacks, as well as the perpetrators themselves, must be held to account in the international courts?”
“I wonder whether my right hon. Friend’s Committee considered the difference between whether the allegation or accusation related to a member of staff or another employee of the House, or to somebody completely unconnected. I could be persuaded that arrest might be enough for exclusion if the matter related to somebody who worked here, but if it was unrelated, and if there was no question of the Member not being given bail because risk was assumed to be low in general, then I would come to a different conclusion. That is another complication that I might ask for my right hon. Friend’s opinion about.”
“In the spirit of consensus, may I point out to the House that when I responded to an intervention that the hon. Lady made last Wednesday, I made an error? I said that I was not aware that the word “arrest” had been included in the original proposal. I then immediately rushed off to check that I was right, and found that I was wrong. I am glad to have had the opportunity to set the record straight.”
“And the petitioners remain, etc. [P002976]”
“More than nine years ago, I shared with the House the story of Mrs Lesley Hughes, who finally discovered in 2014 that she had been infected with hepatitis C back in 1970 by an NHS blood transfusion after a serious road traffic accident. For her and other severely affected constituents, I present this, the latest in a long series of similar petitions from all over the United Kingdom. The petition of Mrs Diana Brooks and others states: The petition of residents of the constituency of New Forest East, Declares that people who received infected blood and who have suffered as a consequence have, along with their families, waited far too long for redress. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to implement the recommendations in the Second Interim Report of the Infected Blood Inquiry without delay.”
“Of course, the vast majority of councillors neither accept nor condone such terrible behaviour, but they do not have the necessary means to deal effectively with the disruptors and the bullies.”
“I shall not identify any specific councils or individuals in this speech, yet I know of one case where several councillors resigned during a three-year period because of bullying by the chairman of that council. In a separate case, two councillors were called upon to step down after their attempts to bully the council clerk out of her job were proven. A third council was plunged into disarray after eight members resigned amid claims of bullying, harassment and abuse, and the town clerk also resigned at the same time and for the same reason. There are very many specific examples which could be cited, because such misconduct has become so common as almost to be routine on the part of a really small but poisonous minority of councillors.”
“The standards board was abolished in 2012, and the current system of local authority staff enforcement —via monitoring officers—does not work as effectively as would an independent system. In May 2023, it was confirmed that, nationally, there is an excessive turnover of monitoring officers. That is hardly surprising, given that they have to take action in a quasi-judicial role, sometimes against their own councillors, who are their employers at principal authority level, while those councillors also possibly sit on town or parish councils, too. As I mentioned, it is not only staff but other councillors who find themselves being bullied.”
“Clerks often feel that their job is at risk unless they carry out the wishes of individual councillors, even though the councillor in question may be trying to act outside the legislative requirements, thus forcing the clerk to act illegally. I am advised that many clerks fear for their jobs on a daily basis. In my view, much of the problem arises from the lack of an independent body to oversee councillor behaviour and to impose sufficient penalties to discourage such behaviour when it occurs. Sufficient codes of conduct are in place for councillors. They are usually clear, unambiguous and based on the Nolan principles, but their enforcement and the imposition of appropriate penalties when their provisions are broken are sadly missing.”
“The SLCC has stated: “15% of parish councils experience serious behaviour issues… 5% are effectively dysfunctional as a result of them.” That figure obviously varies to a degree over time, but the ALCC has recently indicated that it considers the problem to be worsening rather than improving. I have been provided with deeply disturbing first-hand testimony of inappropriate behaviour by a small percentage of council members. It may only be one or two individuals on any given council, but the effect of their behaviour on the clerks, other councillors and other staff can be unbearable. It can easily cause a breakdown in health and subsequent departure from a much-valued career.”
“An article in the Telegraph online on 1 October 2022 stated that a preliminary academic survey of town and parish councils “found that over half…had experienced behavioural issues from councillors, including bullying and disrespect towards other representatives or clerks”. The findings also showed “an imminent loss of expertise amid a shortage of younger clerks”. There are at least three important organisations with strong views about this worrying situation: the Association of Local Council Clerks, the National Association of Local Councils and the Society of Local Council Clerks. They are not unanimous in their recommendations, but they all recognise the reality of the crisis. All three have had constructive conversations with my staff and me in recent months, for which I am very grateful.”
“I rise to consider the potential merit of Government measures to tackle the bullying of local government officials. This short debate seeks to explore the Government’s plans properly to provide for enforcement of the codes of conduct applicable to parish and town councillors, given the amount of bullying and intimidation experienced by local council clerks. Far too many town and parish council clerks face regular intimidation by a minority of councillors, and there are at present insufficient enforcement mechanisms and penalties to resolve the issue. Good people are resigning as a result. The turnover rate for clerks is far greater than the average for most comparable forms of employment.”
“Then there are the additional recruitment and training costs for those councils which lose their clerks through resignation. Several councils have also been taken to court for constructive dismissal claims relating to harassment. Once again, this would be much less likely to arise if there were proper regulation and proper enforcement.”
“Here is one scenario posted on the internet by a despairing councillor: “We have a Parish Councillor who continually harasses the Clerk out of hours, at home and by email, about pretty well everything the Clerk does. The Clerk is respectful, knowledgeable and more than capable; but this individual said to the Chairman ‘I can question the Clerk because I am a Parish Councillor’. We have lost three Clerks in less than three years because of this dreadful man and I fear we are going to lose this one.” Given findings such as the academic survey I mentioned earlier, this is clearly a situation that must not be allowed to continue. Apart from the impropriety aspect, the turnover of staff caused by bullying is economically damaging, leading to severe loss of efficiency in the affected parish and town councils.”
“The working party’s brief would be to ensure the design and establishment of an appropriate, independent enforcement body, and to propose legislation providing for penalties sufficient to act as a deterrent to transgressors. That would be one way of finally dealing with those who ignore the proper standards of behaviour that are rightly expected and approved by the Government. We really need to work together and end their sense of impunity in respect of unacceptable conduct in town and parish councils.”
“Members, which specifically asked the Government to: “re-visit its response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life report on local government ethical standards and introduce the report’s recommendations in full including tougher sanctions such as suspension for poorly behaving councillors.” In addition to that, however, the SLCC and the ALCC have indicated their endorsement of an alternative option formulated by Mr Derek Biggs, the hugely experienced and highly respected former town clerk of Totton in my constituency, to whom I am indebted for his insights. This way forward, which I fully support, would be for the Minister to agree to set up a working party of experts in the area of town and parish councils to examine the issue in depth and recommend practical solutions to deal with it.”
“The preferred approach of the NALC is to focus on certain recommendations, previously made by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which have yet to be adopted. Indeed, the NALC assisted me in the drafting of early-day motion 611, tabled in November 2022 and supported by 27 hon. and right hon.”
“This is the first I have heard about the hon. Lady’s initiative. It sounds absolutely admirable and I would be very interested in supporting her efforts. I particularly commend the idea of a clear and legal definition of bullying, because we all know that there are sometimes subjective approaches to the subject, where even a word of legitimate criticism is interpreted as that, unjustifiably, so she is definitely on the right track. The SLCC states: “Throughout the sector, there are growing concerns about the impact bullying, harassment and intimidation is having on Councils, Councillors and staff and the resulting effectiveness of those local councils”. The three national associations are fully aware of the issues, but without Government intervention it is unlikely that they alone can solve this dreadful problem.”
“I shall seize on that potential opportunity to ask whether we could all come and see the Minister together. There are a lot of operators in this field, and to have him and representatives of the three organisations in the same room at the same time would be an extremely positive step.”
“As one of the colleagues who signed my hon. Friend’s suggested amendment, I found alarming the suggestion that an MP could be suspended on the basis of an allegation. It does not require much imagination to see certain circumstances in which an MP could be targeted by someone making a serious allegation with no factual underpinning whatsoever, and then having to be suspended. It is astonishing, frankly, that we could be put into such a situation on so flimsy a basis.”
“While fully accepting your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker, I must say in response to the intervention from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) that I said nothing about somebody who had been arrested. The original wording to which I objected did not refer to someone having been arrested; it was simply about whether somebody had been accused of something. On the point about someone having been arrested, I might well agree with her interpretation; it would depend on factors such as the bail circumstances.”
“I welcome the fact that the helpline has been established so quickly, and I encourage the Government to be proactive in publishing advice on what people can do, for example to secure their bank accounts. What specialist advice does the MOD routinely seek before outsourcing data on service personnel to external contractors, and what standards must be verified before such outsourcing to a civilian organisation is allowed to take place?”
“I know that the Secretary of State’s personal commitment to Ukraine is second to none. Does he agree with me that if Putin is seen to fail in Ukraine, the threat to western Europe, the United Kingdom and NATO countries will recede for a generation? If Putin is seen to gain any sort of victory in Ukraine, the opposite will happen.”
“It is true that both sides of the House strongly back the nuclear deterrent at the moment, if my right hon. Friend is talking about the Labour Opposition. However, with recent talk of the prospect of a hung Parliament, one could find oneself in the same situation as the Cameron Government in 2010, when the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) and I were begging for a vote to be held to renew the nuclear deterrent, but because of the coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats, that vote was postponed, at great expense, for four years until 2016. We would like to hear assurances from both Front Benches that no such situation will ever be allowed to arise again.”
“I say “use” because they are used every day of the week. Their use is as a deterrent. If ever—heaven forbid—they had to be fired, they would fail in their purpose. We have come a long way and we have made a lot of progress. It is just as well that we are united, given the way in which the international scene has darkened, but both Front Benches have a long way to go if they are to reach a stage where we are making the sort of investment, the sort of insurance and the sort of effort that has to be made to deter an aggressive Russia and to ensure that Ukraine prevails.”
“Parliament voted by 409 votes to 161 in favour of proceeding with the initial gate for the renewal of the Trident submarine fleet; but even that huge majority of 248 was eclipsed on 18 July 2016, when under the Conservative Government—free from the coalition—the majority rose to 355 when MPs voted for the decisive main gate stage to proceed. That vote was won by 472 votes to 117. That shows near unanimity in the House for the maintenance of our strategic nuclear deterrent—and all that happened before the various crises that we have been concentrating on today. Let us hope that unity prevails. I, for one, welcome the comments of the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, who said that his party is now committed to four submarines and to the maintenance of the continuous at-sea deterrent, which presumably means with the use of Trident missiles.”
“The only element that was missing in the article was that that strategy, promoted by Iran, was also extremely beneficial to Russia, because now we spend rather more time considering what is happening in Israel and Gaza than we spend considering what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, despite the fact that what is happening between Russia and Ukraine cannot be emphasised too often because it is of crucial significance to the future peace, or lack of peace, of NATO countries vis-à-vis the Russian threat. I will close with some remarks about the nuclear deterrent, which has been touched on a few times. One of the votes took place under Labour, as we have heard, on 14 March 2007, when there was a substantial majority for the deterrent.”
“We heard reference to the Israeli soldiers recently killed in a Hamas artillery strike close to the one entrance where aid was coming into Palestine. Guess what happened? The Israelis immediately closed that entrance, thus intensifying the crisis. The Hamas strategists clearly know what they are doing. It is horrible—devilish— but there is a cruel logic to it. The heading that Lord Hague—or his sub-editor at The Times —used for that article was: “Hamas has set a trap that Israel must avoid: Iranian-backed attacks are desperate attempts to halt growing collaboration with Saudi Arabia and the UAE”.”