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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“Normally, I like the Minister’s can-do attitude. Is she really telling the House that this Government would rather make payouts to terrorists than disapply the ECHR?”
“Last Thursday, there was a heavily subscribed Westminster Hall debate about the terrible problem of rogue and conmen builders who fleece people of thousands upon thousands of pounds for work that is never completed and is often not started at all. May we have a statement from an appropriate Minister on the need to consider criminalising the process in which people are robbed of their money and told afterwards that that constitutes only a civil offence?”
“As the descendant of immigrant grandparents, I have a high degree of empathy with the Home Secretary’s opening remarks about her own family. Does she agree that the reason that both main parties are facing the possibility of an electoral bloodbath is not so much the overall level of immigration, but the fraction of it—still a very large number of people—who come to this country on small boats and by other illegal means? We do not know what they believe, we do not know what values they have, and because in many cases they destroy their documents, we do not even know who they are. Can she explain how the measures she has outlined today will have an impact on deterring that sort of person from breaking into our country?”
“In the light of the urgent question earlier today, does the Chairman of the Committee believe that it is essential for the purpose of rehabilitation that prisoners should be protected against indoctrination by convicted terrorists?”
“I have listened carefully to the whole debate, and I thoroughly support the proposal. From the Minister’s summing up, it sounds as if the decision is more in the hands of civil servants than in those of Ministers. May I gently point out to him that civil servants are never remiss when it comes to awarding themselves all sorts of decorations and recognition? Here, it is more a question that the feeling of the House has made itself heard, and it really ought to be conveyed to those people to whom this task appears to have been delegated that they ought to do what they have been told by the elected representatives of the people of this country.”
“May I appeal to the Minister to help us in one way? Although this is a devolved matter, it is possible in the internet age very easily to make charitable donations, so could she investigate whether there is a reliable local charity to which people across the country can make donations? Could she perhaps circulate the details of that after this urgent question?”
“Do the Government accept that China is a bad faith actor whose basic technique can be summed up by a single phrase: buy influence and build dependency? Is that not exactly what has happened in our universities?”
“On Gaza, will the Government consider making representations to the Israelis about the fact that it does Israel’s reputation no good, and does not help the BBC World Service to report accurately, if external journalists are not allowed into the Gaza strip? Now that the fighting has diminished, the excuse for not allowing that access has disappeared. Turning to the RSF, I note that the Foreign Secretary referred to Secretary Rubio’s comments about the need to end the supply of weapons and support to the RSF. Can she explain to the House who mainly is supplying those weapons and that support?”
“On what I hope is a non-contentious point, will the Secretary of State explain to Members in all parts of the House something that not everybody realises, which is that the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 means that no matter how heinous the crime, and no matter whether it was committed by a member of the armed forces—unlikely, but possible—a republican terrorist or a loyalist terrorist, no one will serve more than two years in jail? People need to realise that. Compromises have had to be made—and they have to be made by those on both sides, equally, if international law is not to strike them down.”
“My hon. Friend says that it is highly likely that an appeal would have succeeded. In support of that, I cite the fact that the Defence Committee took evidence in great detail from four professors of law in 2017. They were not talking about that specific legislation, but they all agreed that it was possible and legal to combine a statute of limitation, providing that there was a truth recovery process. A range of people gave evidence, from Professor Richard Ekins on the right of centre, shall we say, to Professor Philippe Sands on the left of centre. It was possible, it was legal, and even if that law was struck down, something similar could have been put in its place.”
“Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can you tell me how, within the rules of order, I can draw attention to the way in which the junior Minister, in summing up and purportedly taking part in the debate that has just ended, refused to take any interventions for lack of time, yet finished his speech with two minutes left? Can you say anything that might encourage a Government with an unhealthily large majority to enter into the spirit of real debate? [ Interruption. ]”
“It is often reported that a high proportion of people who enter the country illegally do so without any reliable identifying documentation. Can any Minister say, in percentage terms, roughly what the proportions are of illegal immigrants who do and do not have documentation?”
“I am disappointed that the Minister does not know of the example of the Chancellor who resigned from Attlee’s Government for inadvertently or otherwise leaking details of the Budget. Does he at least appreciate that there is a difference between speculating about the contents of a Budget and leaking a Budget, and does he think that there should be any punishment for people who leak a Budget, irrespective of whatever the details were?”
“No one likes to consider the prospect of international conflict, but we have seen from that between Ukraine and Russia how dangerous a situation can be when fuel supply installations are targeted. What thought have the Government given to affording the same level of protection against either sabotage or external attack for these new smaller reactors as those that are already built into the construction of the larger plants?”
“First, if the police are right that the current state of the law prevents such devastating and ruthless misbehaviour reaching the threshold of criminality, that threshold must be repositioned by legislation to include it. Secondly, like other skilled professions, builders must be licensed before being allowed to operate. The good news is that, as we have heard, the Federation of Master Builders is ready and able to undertake this vital role. That must be coupled with an insurance scheme to which builders will contribute to enable redress where appropriate and where standards are breached. Rogue builders can ruin lives; now is the time to banish that evil.”
“He calculated total losses caused by the same rogue builder to be at least £200,000. One victim, a lady living with multiple sclerosis, was left without a functioning toilet. The police, nevertheless, still insist that the threshold for criminality had not been reached. If so, that threshold needs to be changed, and changed substantially. Despite correspondence from me to Hampshire county council pointing out the multiple victims, the apparent evidence of companies being repeatedly set up and dissolved by the rogue builder—as we have heard from another hon. Member—and his not infrequent changes to his own name, nothing effective has been done to punish or constrain him in any way. As stated at the outset, there are two fairly obvious remedies.”
“Indeed, Malcolm injured himself quite badly in a fall at the property that he attributes to this. In addition to the very large payment made irrecoverably to the rogue builder, it cost Malcolm a horrifying £45,000 more for remedial works, which he had to undertake to make his home safe and inhabitable again. The trade recommendation website, which he thought had validated the rogue builder, offered its maximum level of compensation —a modest £1,000. Later, he discovered that the builder had no gas safety qualification, as he had falsely claimed. Malcolm succeeded in communicating with trading standards, which indicated that it would be helpful if a pattern of similar construction disasters could be established. Malcolm therefore turned investigator, and discovered several other families in my constituency and in nearby Southampton.”
“After a career of admirable public service in the Royal Navy and as a fireman, he has lost huge sums of money from his life savings and pension schemes at a time when a close relative with stage 4 breast cancer was meant to be benefiting from his support. It was for that purpose, I believe, that he commissioned the alterations—primarily converting a garage into extra ground-floor rooms—to his home in the first place. Malcolm selected a building firm that he chose from a respectable trade recommendation website, where 5-star ratings for it were recorded. He agreed to pay about £25,000 for, supposedly, three weeks’ work to be undertaken while the family was on holiday in 2022. Despite an extra week’s delay, they returned to a scene of incomplete and utterly shoddy work and, in some respects, dangerous disorder.”
“He was forced to conclude that, irrespective of a pattern of dishonesty towards multiple victims, the police still regard such behaviour as “a civil matter” and a “breach of contract”. Thus, with criminal prosecution closed off, all that remains is the costly, risky and often ineffective civil route. To date, Graeme has received a paltry £260, with more than £2,040 awarded by the court outstanding. While Graeme rightly feels aggrieved by the injustice of his situation, my second constituent, Malcolm, has had his own and his family’s life totally upended by a truly nightmarish experience—one of the worst cases I have had to deal with in 28 years as a Member of Parliament.”
“Next, he found that trading standards could be contacted by an aggrieved individual only via a charity such as Citizens Advice, which also came as news to me. His CA recommended the money claims court; Graeme followed its advice and eventually obtained a county court judgment for £1,800 plus costs and interest. Even then, it took action at a higher court level for bailiffs to be appointed. They extracted a few weekly payments of a fraction of the sum stolen before giving up the ghost. One might say that it could have been particular circumstances or misfortune that led the builder to let down his client—although that is no excuse for keeping his money. However, Graeme managed to establish directly that he had treated another victim in precisely the same way. Indirectly, Graeme heard of several others who had suffered in similar fashion.”
“Although the same builder had done satisfactory work in the past, on this occasion he gave a succession of excuses for not turning up before ceasing to respond at all. A solicitor advised Graeme that it would cost more than any sum likely to be recovered for lawyers to be involved, and suggested contacting the police. Graeme writes: “I was born at the very end of the 1960s and, to me, if someone deprives me of my money, it is theft or even fraud.” As someone born at the beginning of the 1950s, I heartily endorse that view, but the police responded that stealing £1,800 from Graeme in that way did not meet “the threshold for theft or fraud”. Similarly, his bank was not keen to help once it knew that the builder had previously completed satisfactory work for Graeme.”
“This is an issue that is crying out for a solution. In my opinion, there are two principal remedies that need to be applied to the plague of rogue builders: criminalisation of those builders who are shown to have fraudulently fleeced their innocent victims; and a requirement for all builders to be registered with and licensed by a professional body, together with an insurance scheme to remedy failure or harm, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) has already explained in his admirable opening speech. I have decided, on balance, not to identify the specific rogue builders and their victims to whom I shall refer today; however, I do not rule out doing so in the future. My first case study concerns Graeme, a constituent of mine who paid more than £1,800 to a builder in 2023.”
“May I take this opportunity to point out something that the Defence Committee discovered in its investigation of these matters in 2016 to 2017? The maximum of two years actually spent in jail, no matter how horrendous or multiple the murders, also applies to British service personnel. The argument is put forward that victims wish to see justice attributed and punishment given out, but everybody involved in the killings receives a disproportionately light sentence, so there is no justice of a retributive sort in any case.”
“As somebody who has been around a long time and remembers when Chancellors used to have to resign for leaking things about the Budget in advance, may I ask the Minister to explain how it has been possible for the present Chancellor to make speeches about what may or may not be in her Budget in advance with no consequences forthcoming whatsoever?”
“May I try to find some common ground with the hon. Gentleman? As has been pointed out, his party was in coalition with the Conservatives for five years. Can we at least agree that Nick Clegg’s decision to vote for trebling tuition fees, thus breaking a manifesto commitment, was a disaster for his party’s ratings? Can we also agree that if the Government do the same in respect of what they have pledged to do, it will be a disaster for their ratings as well?”
“There is, of course, a third possibility, which some people with twisted minds have been suggesting: that the Government plan to do some pretty terrible things in the Budget but are setting up a strawman that they are going to break their manifesto promises. Then, when they do not do so, everybody will swallow those other terrible things. Is that too Machiavellian?”
“Can my hon. Friend throw any light on the apparent contradiction whereby the Government seem prepared to import fossil fuels—thus exporting our carbon footprint—but not to allow us to develop our own fossil fuel resources? Is it because they are afraid that, once we develop them, we will not want to stop using them, or is there some other explanation?”
“What does the Deputy Prime Minister have to say about the unprecedented letter in The Times today from nine recent former heads of the armed forces, stating that the Government’s Northern Ireland troubles and legacy legislation breaks the compact between service personnel who do their duty and the Government, who should stand up for them, not open them up to endless litigation and persecution?”
“May I try to make a constructive suggestion to the Deputy Prime Minister? Has he considered that when somebody is due for release, they should be read a short statement saying that if they think they are being wrongly released, they should say so now, and if they do not do so, a further penalty of some sort will be imposed? Might not that act as a bit of a deterrent, as well as a check?”
“The crisis has nothing to do with Robbie Gibb; it has something to do with a mindset that, on the front page of today’s Guardian , has the whole thing about Robbie Gibb and relegates the fact that a $1 billion lawsuit may be taken out by Donald Trump against the BBC to a tiny paragraph at the end of the article on page 2. If you wants to know what is wrong with some bits of the BBC, read The Guardian today.”
“I would fight in the last ditch to prevent the BBC from ceasing to be a public service broadcaster and from being broken up. Any large organisation can have bad actors who behave unethically, and that has happened on this occasion, but it does the BBC no service when people parrot the line that the person responsible for this crisis is not the idiot who tampered with Donald Trump’s quote but a former Tory spin doctor, one of 13 members of the board, who allegedly influenced other members of the board to somehow provoke the present crisis.”
“The high levels of attendance testify to the importance to our communities of such solemn and sacred occasions. In the few seconds remaining, I draw attention to the Airborne war cemetery, which lies about 7 km west of Arnhem, near the village of Oosterbeek. One of the last bastions held in the dreadful battle of Arnhem was the Roman Catholic church of St Bernulphus in Oosterbeek. It was left in ruins but beautifully rebuilt soon after the war. The rebuilt church remains a focal point for Arnhem commemorations, yet it is now under serious threat of sale and disposal. It is profoundly to be hoped that organisations such as Support our Paras and Government Ministers will make representations to the Dutch authorities about preserving that historic building.”
“I for one will never forget the testimony of the children of Corporal Mark Palin, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2011, and their bearing as they carried the book of remembrance to the centre of the Royal Albert Hall. Strangely, one ward in my constituency by tradition holds its ceremony in the afternoon, so I was able to attend two local ceremonies: that at St Michael and All Angels church in Lyndhurst in the heart of the New Forest, and that at All Saints’ church on the waterside, close to where the Solent meets Southampton water, north of the Isle of Wight. Both events and the attendant parades were admirably organised, with Royal British Legion veterans at one end of the age range and uniformed young people at the other bringing style and panache to the occasions.”
“They dashed between the cars and laid their cross, said a prayer and dashed back to the pavement.” Well, how things have changed. Not only do war widows now participate on Remembrance Sunday, but Whitehall is closed specially in their honour on the preceding Saturday. Led by fine military musicians, they march in tribute to those whom they have lost in the service of our country. It was, as I said, a privilege to be invited to attend, and a pleasure to see our hon. and gallant Minister for Veterans and People present in solidarity. That same evening, the BBC broadcast two hours of the finest television imaginable. The festival of remembrance perfectly combined music, pageantry, belated recognition of those who unjustly lost their service careers because of their sexuality, and unforgettable tributes to the fallen.”
“I congratulate everyone who has contributed to the debate so far. Of all the fine contributions, I want to start where the hon. Member for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane) left off. He spoke about the mother attending the memorial where her husband and two sons’ names were all inscribed. On Saturday I had the privilege of attending the War Widows’ special ceremony of remembrance at the Cenotaph. If one looks at the website of the War Widows Association, one sees this interesting piece of historical context. It says: “Originally, when the association was formed”— in 1971— “the widows were not allowed to take part in the annual November Sunday service and march past at the Cenotaph. As they wanted to show their respect to their husbands they began to hold a very short service on the Saturday at the Cenotaph in London.”
“As an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, I would like to confirm, in support of what the Minister is saying and the advice she is giving, that the contact I have had with IBCA has been very positive. It seems to want to engage on a personal basis with people who have suffered in this way. The hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden) really should advise his constituent to take up this offer to engage with the authority; I think he will be pleasantly surprised at the positive response he will get.”
“May I repeat the question that I asked the Minister’s colleague last week: are there no other regional powers that could intervene physically to separate the warring parties? May I put it to the Minister that, while it is fortunate that we have been granted successive urgent questions on this subject in successive weeks—thanks to the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), to the shadow Foreign Secretary and to Mr Speaker—it would be a recognition of the anxiety felt in all parts of the House if the Government made regular ministerial statements on it, rather than us having to rely on applications for urgent questions?”
“It is welcome news that the Government plan that children should be taught critical thinking and how to guard against fake news and misinformation, but the Secretary of State will be aware that some teachers, like some politicians, regard “fake news” differently from the rest of society. Will she ensure that teachers who teach that subject are schooled in the knowledge of the requirement for political impartiality in schools introduced in 1986 and carried forward in subsequent legislation?”
“As we build up towards Remembrance Sunday, does the Secretary of State agree that it is appropriate for us to remember the circumstances in which two world wars began, when democracies were relatively weak in the face of armed autocracies? Therefore, does he agree that the help we give to Ukraine is the best possible guarantee that aggressors will not be emboldened to attack other countries as well?”
“Does the Secretary of State envisage any circumstances in which an IRA terrorist could be prosecuted after he had received a letter of comfort, and if so, what are those circumstances?”
“I will be very brief. When the Home Secretary undertakes lessons learned and recommendations for the future, will she look into the question of whether there is any protective equipment, or even disabling equipment of a non-lethal nature, that could be issued to staff for use in such an emergency?”
“Can the Minister explain to the House what is the attitude of other states in the region towards this conflict? Is there any prospect that they could unite and possibly make some form of physical intervention to separate the warring sides in Sudan?”
“May we have a statement from a local government Minister about calculated abuse of the planning system—cases in which people knowingly proceed with projects without planning permission, and then apply for retrospective permission? Cash-strapped councils feel, on the advice of their officers, that they should grant that permission, as otherwise they might have to fight a legal case. Should there not be a presumption against granting retrospective planning permission when the offence has been deliberate?”
“The Minister is clearly totally committed to this subject, and I thank him for the way in which he reaches out to the MPs he knows have an interest in it. Will he join me in commending IBCA for the quality of its communications? Both the website and the MPs’ toolkit recently sent out could not be more free of jargon, which sets an excellent example. Going back to the point raised by the chair of the APPG, the hon. Member for Eltham and Chislehurst (Clive Efford), as I understand it, if a compensation grant is made to the family of someone who has already died, those relatives will receive it tax-free, but if the grant is made to the individual shortly before their death, the very same family members might have to pay inheritance tax on it. That is clearly an anomaly, so will the Minister speak to the Treasury about it?”
“I congratulate the right hon. Lady on her Committee’s report. In response to the seventh recommendation about a Palestinian state, the Government state: “Our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged and unequivocal. They must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza.” Did the Foreign Affairs Committee give consideration to what should be done if Hamas refuse to disarm and give way to, for example, the Palestinian Authority?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way; I know he is pressed for time. The charity Together for Short Lives points out that where children’s palliative care is concerned, there is wide variation across different regions in the country. Is he afraid that this applies to the ageing population as well—that there is no consistency in the amount of palliative care available?”
“The Government’s position seems to be that communist China can and does pose a wide range of serious threats to the United Kingdom but is not a threat itself. How can that possibly make sense?”
“I was interested to see that the National Security Adviser was listed as being involved in that meeting. The National Security Adviser is a political appointee—he is a special adviser—and that is usually the reason why the deputy National Security Adviser is put forward to take all the flak. If the NSA himself is participating in policy meetings about this matter, why does he not come forward? Why is he sheltering behind a full-time official who is being hung out to dry?”
“Can the Minister explain to the House, once and for all, how it is possible for a Government to believe that China is responsible for posing a wide range of threats, but is not a threat itself? He would clear matters up, and allay suspicions that the Government are holding back for economic reasons, if he would simply say that China is a threat to our national security. Will he say that?”
“Of course, the previous Government did subsequently introduce new legislation. However, under the 1911 Act, if the Government had been prepared to state that China was a threat, the case could have gone forward and would likely have been won. The hon. Member cannot blame that Act.”