Sir Julian Lewis
MP for New Forest East · Conservative · United Kingdom
“As long ago as June 2018, the Defence Committee published a report entitled “Beyond 2 per cent”—that is HC 818, for those nerds interested in looking it up—which called for a level of defence expenditure approaching the figure of 3% of GDP, which the United Kingdom still maintained as late as the mid-1990s.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The threat is now high—as high as it ever was during the cold war. During the 1980s, as I have said many times, we spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP, calculated by today’s method of calculation, on defence.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Defence Secretary, who opened the debate for the Government, is undoubtedly a versatile and an entertaining politician, but he did himself a little less than full justice in being so casually dismissive of the remarks made by the Labour Chairman of the Defence Committee, the hon.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister is a genial sort of fellow, and I want to believe him when he says that he wants to proceed by consensus. Will he accept that there is no consensus at all on splitting the New Forest and putting the Waterside under the control of Labour-dominated Southampton?”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If rule No. 1, as far as resilience is concerned, is “be prepared”, does the Minister agree that rule No. 2 should be “have a reliable back-up system”? In that connection, does he share my concern that both in the field of telephony and in the field of banking, back-up systems do not seem to exist?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Foreign Secretary accept that it would be a disservice to the democratic process to identify attempts to interfere with it with invalidation of the result?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“I would like to make a little progress first, then I certainly will. I chaired the Defence Committee when we produced a report that recommended the combination of a statute of limitation with a truth recovery process as the best way to proceed. That report took evidence, as I have mentioned many times, from four eminent professors of law. They pointed out that that recommendation was a perfectly legal way to proceed, provided that, if immunities were introduced, they would be brought in for everybody, and provided that the matters concerned would be properly investigated. That investigation could consist of a truth recovery process; it did not have to involve prosecuting people after the investigations had taken place. Some of us have been very concerned about the malicious and vexatious prosecution of service personnel.”
House of Commons19 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am not an expert on the more recent developments, but I think I remember correctly that the previous Government were appealing that particular court decision, and this Government took a deliberate decision to discontinue the appeal.”
House of Commons19 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent presentation. Rather curiously, up until 2023, ExxonMobil pensioners got automatically indexed uplifts to their pensions, but for some reason from that date onwards, the company changed its policy and now they are not getting the discretionary uplift. The trustees there say that they have no power and that it is up to the company to decide whether this discretionary uplift occurs. Is one way forward perhaps to ask the Minister to give an undertaking that the trustees should have the power to award such discretionary uplifts linked to indexation?”
House of Commons19 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Minister would follow the recommendation of at least giving the trustees the full power to make the decision over discretionary awards and taking it away from the company, one could be pretty sure that if the scheme went into deficit, the trustees would act accordingly.”
House of Commons19 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have clearly explained that you are not responsible for the quality, or lack of it, in a Minister’s answers—or even a Prime Minister’s answers—but can you explain for the benefit of the House and the viewing public what Prime Minister’s questions is supposed to be about: namely, that the Opposition and other right hon. and hon. Members get to ask the Prime Minister a question about a subject of their choice, and that it is not an opportunity for him to then berate them for not asking a question about a completely different subject that he wishes had been asked?”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If he recognises that there is some merit in that argument, could he try to persuade his colleagues to stop making that false comparison?”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I like the Minister very much, not least because he represents the Welsh seat of my birth and upbringing, and because I have such respect for him, I am going to try to make the point to him that I have so far made with zero success to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, among others. It is all well and good to talk about the greatest increase in spending on defence since the end of the cold war if we are comparing the post cold war period with what is—shall we say?—a quiet defence period, but we are not. What we need to spend now is not to be compared with what it was like after the end of the cold war, but what it was like during the cold war, and during the cold war we regularly spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence.”
House of Commons18 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have heard a suggestion that this type of meningitis is more widespread in some countries than in others. Is there any truth in that, and if there is, would there be wisdom in suggesting to young people travelling to the countries concerned that they ought to add the vaccination as a prophylactic against that possibility?”
House of Commons17 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If an Iranian rocket attack—hopefully this will never happen—successfully penetrated our defences and caused severe damage and casualties on a British base, is the Foreign Secretary ruling out any response by the RAF against the source, such as a battery, from which those missiles had been fired?”
House of Commons17 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am grateful to the Minister for his typical courtesy. I am sure that there will be wide agreement with his proposition that someone who is doing a ministerial job ought to be paid for it, and such jobs should not be reserved for the people who can afford not to be paid. However, on the principle that a bigger Government is not necessarily a better Government, can he guarantee that if there is an increase in the number of paid ministerial posts, there will not be a commensurate increase in the number of unpaid ministerial posts?”
House of Commons17 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sorry to come in again. One of the things that I have never quite understood, given that the workload is broadly the same, is why there is a differential in salary between the different levels of Minister—particularly in the Lords, where their jobs are effectively the same. Why are some Ministers of State or Under-Secretaries paid a different amount? After all, whatever our seniority, we are all paid exactly the same as Members of this House. Why would they not all be paid the same?”
House of Commons17 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I build on the excellent supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee) about Ukraine and counter-drone warfare? Thanks to the support given by this Government and the previous Government to Ukraine, it has become a world leader in inventing and deploying cheap responses to cheap drones. As a result, there is now an opportunity for it to assist our allies that are under threat from drone attacks in the middle east and in particular in the Persian gulf. Will the Government do everything they can to facilitate that, and thus show that Ukraine does indeed have some cards to play?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“T3. Successive Governments have refused compensation to the nuclear test veterans, but now the Sunday Mirror ’s investigative journalist Susie Boniface has revealed documents showing that, in fact, levels of radiation were known to be much higher than the court was led to believe in a case in 2016. Will Ministers address this matter with the seriousness it deserves, while veterans are still suffering and the widows of veterans still lack any recognition or compensation?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Some things never change in naval warfare, and one of the things that never change is the unsuitability of surface vessels for forcing a way through narrow, contested straits. Over 100 years ago, the French and the British learned that when, between them, they lost three battleships in an afternoon to a single German submarine in the Dardanelles. Will the Minister therefore advise President Trump that while we would like to help him reopen the strait of Hormuz, the way to do it is not with a billion-pound warship escorting vulnerable tankers, but with counter-drone technology of the sort that Ukraine can help him to supply, providing he has the decency to ask President Zelensky for some help?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is not much good blaming the process when it is as plain as a pikestaff that the Government knew that Peter Mandelson’s appointment was, to put it mildly, extremely dodgy. If there were any conversations held, over the telephone or face to face, or any private emails sent from people’s personal email addresses, will they be made available to this House?”
House of Commons16 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May we have an update from a Health Minister on progress in the review of prostate cancer policy and whether it will focus, as it should, on such issues as targeting particularly vulnerable age groups or ethnic groups, such as black males, one quarter of whom will be affected by this disease at some stage in their lives, and speeding up National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approval of relevant drug treatments in England and Wales which are already being prescribed in Northern Ireland and Scotland?”
House of Commons12 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Chief Secretary deserves our admiration for always being calm and courteous, even in the most trying circumstances, but he really must not take us for fools. Peter Mandelson had a reputation as one of the most slippery and sleazy characters in modern British politics. The Chief Secretary confirms that the Prime Minister was warned about what Mandelson had done in continuing a relationship with Epstein after he had been sent to jail for abusing a young girl. He is saying, “Well, the Prime Minister did not know the depth of this relationship.” Does he really expect us to believe that a shallow relationship with a convicted paedophile is okay?”
House of Commons11 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When asked by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) whether he could guarantee that a digital identity requirement would never become mandatory, the Minister said he wholeheartedly agreed, but is it not the case that the original scheme that the Government were minded to put forward was mandatory, so how much faith can we put in that assurance?”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I did not know that point of order was going to be raised until I heard it, but I myself noticed, a little bit earlier, that there was a statement entitled “Pensions Update” that was really all about the WASPI women. I for one was misled into thinking that it was some routine, general statement about pensions. It would have been perfectly possible for the Government to have made it explicit that it was about the WASPI women, in which case it is likely that more Members would have been present.”
House of Commons10 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There have often been occasions on which somebody has leaked in advance the contents of a statement that they are going to make to the House of Commons, or part of its contents, but this is the first time I have seen a total revelation in the press of something that the Government had no intention of making a statement about to the House of Commons. Why is that, and what will these measures do to deter people from breaking into this country illegally, with it then being impossible to deport them?”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am not particularly keen on the tone of these exchanges, so may I make a positive suggestion to the Secretary of State? We have heard that Ukraine has offered to assist the United States with its specialised version of anti-Iranian drone technology. These weapons for bringing down Iranian drones are much cheaper than the drones themselves, whereas the weapons that we and the Americans generally use are much more expensive. Given the difficult relationship between Zelensky and Trump, does the Secretary of State agree that there is a role here for Britain, with its high standing in Ukraine, to see if we can make a start by acquiring from Ukraine some of these weapons, which we can use in the defence of our own bases and which may then pave the way for a deal between Trump and Zelensky for the wider benefit of the whole theatre?”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Like a number of other right hon. and hon. Members, I come from an immigrant family and grew up in a household where a foreign language was primarily spoken by my grandparents, my father was bilingual and I was monolingual with the language of the country that my family had come into. The key to it all working is a willingness to integrate. Can the Secretary of State confirm that there are measures in this overall plan, which seems to have much to commend it, that are designed to prevent separatism and ghettoisation in society? Where that exists, a community becomes impossible to navigate in the way that we would all want it to be navigated.”
House of Commons9 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is he satisfied that when our destroyer eventually gets out there, it will have enough munitions to put up a reliable defensive screen for more than a relatively short period of time?”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the last Conservative Government rather bizarrely chose to appoint David Cameron as Foreign Secretary in the upper House, the then Opposition—quite rightly in my view—complained about the fact that this House could not directly question the Foreign Secretary. I simply say to the Ministers, who are very hard-working, that they should make representations to their boss that she should appear here more often. The Minister said that we wish to avoid the situation of Iran “sliding into chaos, exploited by extremists”. Does he accept that the problem with Iran is that extremists are in control of the country and have been for 47 years? Does its reaction in attacking more than half a dozen neighbouring countries, none of which had attacked it, not show what it would do if it could get its hands on nuclear weapons?”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I fully accept the argument that energy independence will be enhanced by renewable energy and in particular by nuclear energy, but everyone seems to accept that we will continue to have some dependence on fossil fuels for a considerable period of time. Although it is discouraging to hear that no matter how much we extract from the North sea, it will not lower prices—that does sound rather a strange conclusion, but I am willing to accept that it is true—the fact is that if we are going to need such supplies for a considerable period of time, they may be cut off from other sources. Therefore, security of supply is an important element of the mix. Is that not obvious?”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Fifthly, do the Government support the call of the Royal College of Nursing for nurse-to-patient ratios in all health and care settings? Will they commit to tackling the shortage in NHS community children’s nurses? Finally, with ICB funding for children’s hospices varying significantly across England, how is the Minister ensuring that every seriously ill child and their family, regardless of where they live, has equitable access to palliative care?”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, can the Minister confirm that the framework will take a holistic approach and address the wide-ranging needs of seriously ill children and their families, including medical, emotional, social, psychological and practical needs? Thirdly, will the Minister commit to using the upcoming 10-year workforce plan to examine how the existing children’s palliative care workforce can be used as equitably as possible, organising services into NHS-commissioned children’s palliative care operational delivery networks, such as I gather are used in neonatal care services, in order to help to achieve that? Fourthly, can the Minister commit to increasing investment in specialist paediatric palliative medicine training by £2.4 million annually to address the funding gap identified by the charity Together for Short Lives?”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The charity stresses the fact that the Government’s decision to allocate up to £80 million in ringfenced NHS funding for children’s hospices in England over the next three years is very welcome, but many challenges remain. These are the six questions that I have picked out of more than a dozen and a half that I was presented with. First, will the Minister confirm that the modern service framework for palliative and end-of-life care, which we heard about from the hon. Member for York Central, will explicitly acknowledge the difference between adult and children’s palliative care and ensure that the needs of seriously ill children are not overlooked?”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos)— “24 hours a day, seven days a week, provided by nurses and supported by advice from consultant paediatricians who have completed sub-specialty training in paediatric palliative medicine (also known as GRID training). Despite some improvements, freedom of information…requests published in March 2025 have revealed that less than a fifth…of ICBs currently commission these services on a formal basis. Meanwhile, over a third…are still failing to meet this established national standard. As a result, many families feel abandoned by a complex system which should support them to provide care once their child is diagnosed.” I have been asked by the charity to raise a rather large number of questions, which I am going to cut down to just six, if I can manage to squeeze them in.”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These services should be planned, funded and provided in a way that enables children and families to access them when and where they need them. The key problem is the one that I am about to set out: “In England, integrated care boards have a legal duty to commission palliative care for children, young people and adults that it considers necessary. Across England and the wider UK, there is huge variance in the extent to which palliative and end of life care for seriously ill children and young people is being formally planned, funded and provided in ways that meet national and regional standards. Of particular concern is children and families’ access to end of life care at home”— we heard this from the hon.”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Palliative care for children and young people is defined by the charity as “an active and total approach to care, from the point of diagnosis throughout the child’s life, death and beyond.” By embracing physical, emotional, social and spiritual elements, children’s palliative care helps to achieve the best possible quality of life and care for every child with a life-limiting or life-threatening condition and their family. Giving families an opportunity to set out what they need and want is key to this approach. Children’s palliative care is holistic and is provided by a network of services in hospitals, homes and children’s hospices by the NHS and the voluntary sector, including children’s hospices.”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) most warmly on her exemplary record in campaigning for better palliative care. I will address just one segment of her panoramic presentation, namely the work done by the charity that she briefly mentioned, Together for Short Lives. It provided me with a detailed briefing and I apologise in advance if I make some points that others, who may have received the same briefing, anticipate making. Children’s palliative care enables babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions, life-shortening conditions or severe medical complexity to live as well as possible until they die.”
House of Commons5 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I absolutely endorse everything that the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said about the BBC World Service. Will she, in the time available, make a brief comment about its sister organisation, BBC Monitoring? That monitoring service used to receive a modest ringfenced grant from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it then was, but that was done away with, and it is now entirely dependent on the BBC’s wider organisation for its funding. Is not the restoration of that dedicated ringfenced grant for BBC Monitoring, which filters all the most interesting comments that other countries’ broadcasters are making, long overdue?”
House of Commons4 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I hope the Chancellor will accept that I have challenged successive Governments over inadequate defence spending. If she does, will she also accept that it is not a wise idea to keep comparing current defence spending with the levels of defence spending “since the cold war”? We are not in “since the cold war” now; we are in a hot war in Europe and an incendiary war in the middle east. Does she know what percentage of GDP Mrs Thatcher spent during the cold war years of the 1980s? I will give her a clue: it was twice what we spend now in terms of percentage of GDP.”
House of Commons3 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Government pause any steps in this matter until the judicial review proceedings that are being brought on behalf of the Chagossian people have been resolved one way or another in the High Court?”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is very surprising to those of us who are not experts on this matter to hear the Secretary of State say that the police are undertaking such a vast and complex investigation, because the circumstances of this uniquely terrible tragedy do not seem terribly complicated at all. Why is the police inquiry taking so long? Will he at least assure the House, and the country at large, that there is a dedicated unit within the police that is determined to bring this matter before the courts?”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Following an exemplary local campaign and petition, it is a relief to record that the Post Office has just reversed its decision not to reopen the post office in Lyndhurst, often referred to as the capital of the New Forest. Can the Minister explain whether there is any overall Government plan to co-ordinate the disappearance of banks with the emergence of banking hubs and the expectation that post offices will take on some banking responsibilities? Would it be a possible source of income for post offices if they could charge the banks in exchange for undertaking to take in cheques on accounts held with those banks? At the moment, I believe it is very hit and miss which banks allow people to pay their checks into a post office, and which do not.”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member for Stevenage (Kevin Bonavia) mentioning Storm Shadow reminds me of the fact that, particularly in the early days of the conflict, there was resistance, often from the other side of the Atlantic, to supplying Ukraine with some of the longer-range missile systems that are necessary to inflict pain on Russia in its centre. Now that President Trump’s contribution has been reduced to supplying weapons that the Europeans have to pay for before they can go to Ukraine, do we have greater freedom to supply longer-range, more effective weapons to Ukraine, or are we still somewhat beholden to the wishes of people on the other side of the Atlantic?”
House of Commons25 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is it not likely that, with the awards ceremony last night, the Government would have won the BAFTA for “One Scandal After Another” had they entered? The facts in this matter are not in dispute: the organisation Labour Together did not declare massive donations and was fined as a result; and in response, its head, now a Labour Minister, sought to gain dirt on the journalists who had truthfully reported the matter. Why does this need to be investigated? The facts are clear and the position is indefensible. I regard the three Ministers present as decent people and as gentlemen. Are they not sick of being put forward to defend the indefensible?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In his annual report covering 2023 to 2025, which was published on 15 December last year, my successor as chairman states: “The Committee in the last Parliament became very seriously concerned that the vital scrutiny that the ISC provides was being undermined by continued interference by the Cabinet Office in the Committee’s Office… The root of the problem lies in the control exerted over the Committee’s staff and resourcing by the Cabinet Office.” This is an opportunity to let the ISC have what it has asked for and wanted for years, which is independence from the Cabinet Office. Will the Minister please take that message back?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In response to an earlier question about the role of the Intelligence and Security Committee in relation to the Cabinet Office, the Minister rightly said that the ISC is concerned about its independence. As its former chairman, I can vouch for the fact that it was particularly concerned about the dominant role that the Cabinet Office had in its affairs.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I invite the Secretary of State to expand a bit on her vision of what happens at the end of a SEND child’s education? She mentioned the idea of independence—and, presumably, socialisation—to advance in society. In what way will her Department try to shape the course to enable children born with a disadvantage to function productively in the real world at the end of the process?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Secretary of State assure me that when he and his colleagues take decisions on this and similar issues, the fact that it is a Labour-led council asking for the guidelines not to be followed will not weigh on them in an appropriate way?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I realise now that it was simply fresh legal advice that led to this change of policy, rather than anything to do with the court case brought by the Secretary of State’s least favourite political party. Does he agree that the Government, in handling local government reform, should give at least an appearance of being impartial? Despite the Government’s consistent advice that the existing district and borough council areas should be seen as the building blocks for the new unitary authorities, Labour-controlled Southampton city council is still insisting on trying to dismember the New Forest East constituency by going for boundary changes that would strip off the Waterside, near Southampton, from the New Forest, to which it has always looked.”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We know what happens in the end: there is enough public protest to ensure that there is action. I hope that the level of public awareness is no less for this cause than it is for other, similar scandals because all the victims were women. That would be even more disgraceful than that this all happened in the first place.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is to recognise that there will be tremendous complexity in individual cases, but at least these mesh-injured ladies would get a minimum of help—I think £25,000 has been suggested—straightaway, while the more complex calculations can be done later. Yet despite that being the very point of an interim scheme—that we can do this quickly and work on the harder parts subsequently—we have seen no progress. What does that remind us of? It reminds me of the Post Office. It reminds me of the infected blood scandal. What do all those things have in common? A large number of people who have been injured in some way or another—either physically, or with their character or freedom damaged, often beyond repair—and who are owed very large sums of money by way of redress or compensation.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This scheme should be based on the principles of restorative practice and be co-designed with harmed patients.” Recommendation 3 was: “The government should create a two-stage financial redress scheme comprising an Interim Scheme and a Main Scheme.” Recommendation 4 was: “The Interim Scheme should award directly harmed patients a fixed sum by way of financial redress. These payments should start during 2025.” Recommendation 8 was: “Both the Interim Scheme and the Main Scheme should be administered by an independent body which commands the confidence of patients.” What is the point of an interim scheme?”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Despite the injuries she suffered personally, she has been a rock and a leader for other mesh-injured women in or near my constituency. I hold her in the highest esteem; in fact, I salute her courage. What she has to say is, in a sense, an argument that has already been won. The Cumberlege report won that argument, and the Hughes report wanted to recommend what should happen next. I am delighted to see Henrietta Hughes in the Gallery—and seemingly acknowledging that I am right about that difference between the two reports. Let me briefly quote from Henrietta Hughes’s admirably concise list of 10 recommendations. Recommendation 1 was: “The government has a responsibility to create an ex-gratia redress scheme providing financial and non-financial redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh.”
House of Commons11 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗