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 agree entirely with the Chairman of the Committee that reconciliation depends upon uncovering the truth. Does her Committee’s report go into the incompatibility of that aim with the reinstatement of trials that the previous legacy Act would have prevented, given that when people face the prospect of being put on trial, they are less likely, rather than more likely, to say what actually happened?”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“America is going through a phase at the moment—which seems to hinge on a number of personalities who hold power in that great democracy, apparently with the approval of a majority of the electorate—in which its commitment to European and thus world security is in doubt. This is the chance for Europeans, whether inside the EU or, like us, outside it, to show that we can do our bit. We have to keep the show on the road until America once again stands up for the policy of the second half of the 20th century, which stopped the third world war, rather than it reverting to its policy of isolationism from the first half of the 20th century, and standing by, which caused two global conflicts that could have been prevented.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That third element fortunately became redundant as West Germany developed into a democracy—so quickly, in fact, that in May 1955, 10 years virtually to the day from the surrender on Lüneburg heath of the Nazis to General Montgomery, Germany itself was admitted to the NATO alliance. I ask people to take another counterfactual look at history. If the Kaiser had known in 1914 that if he invaded neutral Belgium, he would immediately be at war with the United States of America, would he have done it? I think the answer is no. If Hitler had known in 1939 that if he invaded Poland, he would immediately be at war with the United States of America, would he have done it? I think the answer very probably is no to that as well. Therefore, the secret to keeping the peace in the world is to keep America engaged with the security of Europe.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is quite clear that it was the most successful alliance in history: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It grieves me to say that because of some of the occupants of high office in the capital of our ally the United States, the future of the NATO alliance—and therefore the future of world peace, frankly—is hanging by a thread. It was the chief staff officer and representative on the war time chiefs of staff committee of Winston Churchill, General Sir Hastings Ismay, who became the first Secretary-General of NATO. He is credited with having made the rather pithy but nevertheless very accurate observation that the purpose of the alliance at the time it was founded was threefold: to keep the Americans in, to keep the Russians out, and to keep the Germans down.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have often said—and I make no apology for saying it again—that it is worth looking at the two halves of the 20th century. In the first half, we had two global conflicts—two world wars. In the second half, despite the intense ideological and military rivalry between the communist world and the democratic western world, we had no global conflicts—no third world war. I put that down to two factors. One was unprecedented: the nuclear balance of terror. But it was not enough to stop all forms of conflict, because it is possible for conventional conflicts to go ahead under the threshold of the nuclear balance without necessarily triggering Armageddon. That is why we have to have strong conventional deterrent forces, too. So, what was the other factor preventing the cold war from becoming the third world war?”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What would have happened—knowing what we know now about the nature of Soviet communism—if, instead of the victorious western allies maintaining a very large military presence in occupied western Germany, they had said, “Right, we’ll demilitarise this and clear out, but we’re going to give the West German politicians who follow a security guarantee that if any trouble happens, we will stand by them”? The only thing that stopped a conflict breaking out between the Soviet occupying forces and the western world was the fact that, right up against the dividing line between Soviet-dominated East Germany and the rest of Germany, there were western allied troops, and it would have been impossible for the Soviet forces to move against West Germany without immediately triggering a major military counter-action.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), among others: any settlement that does not have a military presence on the ground of unoccupied Ukraine from the country or countries offering a security guarantee will be a disaster. I ask the House to consider Europe at the end of the second world war, when the tripartite alliance had largely broken down, and Stalin was in occupation of eastern Europe and, of course, the eastern half of Germany, which his troops had conquered. The west was in occupation of the remainder of the European continent—literally, in the case of West Germany.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the advantages of being called at a late stage of the debate is that I can put my hand on my heart and truthfully say that every single speech in this debate so far has been outstandingly good. I have agreed with virtually every word of every one of them, and looking at the calibre of the remaining people, including all three Front-Bench representatives, I have every confidence that the standard will be maintained till the end. A former occupant of your chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, used to give courses in good public speaking technique. He always said, “If you wish your speech to have any useful impact after the event, it should not contain more than one, or at most two—and that is stretching it—key points.” So here is my one key point, which, I am delighted to say, has been touched on very effectively by the hon.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Has the hon. Gentleman noticed that point 26 of the 28-point Witkoff plan is a general amnesty for everyone? That would mean that whoever committed the most atrocious war crimes would never be held accountable at all.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One way in which we could continue to lead would be by giving a very firm commitment that if the frontlines are indeed frozen, a coalition of the willing would have military assets on the ground, at the invitation of unoccupied Ukraine, so that there could be no question but that a future attack would trigger a response from that coalition. Otherwise, any security guarantee is not worth the paper on which it is printed.”
House of Commons4 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government seem to be keen to maximise the gravity of the OBR’s accidental leak while minimising the gravity of the Chancellor’s deliberate leaks. The Minister has twice frankly admitted not being aware of the case of Labour Chancellor Hugh Dalton, who resigned for inadvertently leaking to a journalist a single sentence of his 1947 Budget moments before it was due to be announced. Now that he has understood what actually happened then and that that was the paradigm case, does he think it holds any lessons or examples of conduct that the Chancellor ought to consider following?”
House of Commons3 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Having previously read out in this Chamber the relevant section of the Official Secrets Act 1911, I am pleased that the report concludes that the decision not to prosecute under the terms of that Act flies in the face of common sense. What also flies in the face of common sense is the Government’s previous position that China poses a range of serious threats but does not constitute a threat itself. Is that still the Government’s position?”
House of Commons3 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“President Trump would no doubt argue that there is a parallel between this situation and George Bush senior’s invasion of Panama in late 1989, but does the Minister agree with me that it will be interesting to see, if something like this goes ahead, what sort of outcry there is from either Russia or China? If there is no sort of outcry, would that not suggest that there is some sort of understanding between these three major powers that they each leave each other to get on with, shall we say, unilateral actions within what they regard as their own spheres of influence?”
House of Commons3 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister has indeed been most accessible, and I am extremely grateful to him for the meeting he held with members of the ExxonMobil pensioners group. I am still being lobbied very hard by ExxonMobil pensioners who are concerned that whereas changes introduced in the Budget will benefit members of the FAS and PPF schemes, private defined-benefit scheme members will not benefit. He knows far more about the subject than I do, but can he not see that there is a feeling that they are being discriminated against? Is there nothing he can offer to make them feel somewhat more included in the beneficial steps being taken for members of other schemes?”
House of Commons3 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The problem, as the Minister knows from our meeting, is that the trustees are rather hemmed in by not having the leverage or the freedom to act if the company itself—particularly if it is headquartered abroad—is disinclined to pass on any surpluses that it might have available.”
House of Commons3 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I applaud what the hon. Gentleman has said about the AEAT pensioners’ difficulties. It is quite shocking that, despite the fact that a previous Conservative pensions Minister, Paul Maynard, said that he would instruct his civil servants to work on a redress scheme, changes of Minister and Government have meant that the machine has carried on as before, even though a parliamentary Committee did an investigation, found in favour of the pensioners and said that they should get redress.”
House of Commons3 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The House is rightly united in horror at what happened to Sarah Everard and in sympathy for her family. Returning to an earlier exchange about vetting, which I understand will be coming up in the next stage of the Angiolini process, can the Minister tell us whether it will examine the effect of extreme pornography online and of toxic masculinity influencers online, and whether there is any prospect that a vetting process would enable people to be, at the time of recruitment, spotted as having watched this stuff and commented favourably on it, even on the dark web?”
House of Commons2 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have come along to genuinely learn more about this and to ask a question about the single identifier raised by my constituent Catherine. She points out that the General Medical Council, in particular, has advised against using the NHS number to supply an effective identifier and that it should not be used outside the Department of Health and Social Care. Does the Minister recognise people’s concerns about a possible loss of data? Does she accept that we do not want to be introducing a form of digital ID that might persist after the children become adults?”
House of Commons1 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Despite the Secretary of State’s robust answer on Chinese influence on academia, dare I set her a little homework? If she would like to take a look at the relevant section of the non-partisan Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on China, published in July 2023, she would find a lot of interesting and worrying information in it.”
House of Commons1 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government will not apologise for this sorry and tangled affair, but will they at least learn a couple of lessons, such as the fact that there have always been very good reasons for observing total secrecy until Budget day and, secondly, when not in a financial black hole, do not start digging oneself into one?”
House of Commons1 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have a history with this story. Back in 1999, the late Lord Chalfont and I tried to draw attention to the fact that even at the time, the rules said that only if there was no doubt whatsoever should dead airmen be blamed for gross negligence. Since this case, under no circumstances are dead airmen blamed for gross negligence. That should be some comfort to the families, at least those of the airmen, because there have since been cases in which the Chief of the Air Staff has rightly ordered records to be changed retrospectively to clear airmen in other crashes who were unfairly blamed. That is a result of the furore about this terrible case—it is something for which the relatives of those who died can take credit. It will never happen again to any other airman who dies in the course of fulfilling his or her duty.”
House of Commons26 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I apologise for intervening after having stepped out for part of the debate—this may already have been covered. Has any consideration been given to possible embarrassment over the decision to put so many staff, in so many sensitive positions, into a single aircraft? Despite my past interest in this case, I am not sure that I have ever heard that rules have been changed so that so many precious resources are not put at risk all in one single vehicle.”
House of Commons26 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I ask the Prime Minister to focus on the question of effective security guarantees? Security guarantees deter aggression only if there is no doubt that the guarantor will act in accordance with the guarantee that he has given. Therefore, if there is a security guarantee to unoccupied Ukraine, it is absolutely essential that the guarantor has some forces on the ground, because otherwise a guarantee to an unoccupied region that is a strategic vacuum can lead to a wider war by miscalculation by the killer in the Kremlin.”
House of Commons25 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It sounds as though the Minister is getting to grips with this, and I am very grateful for that. Will she accept that the counterpart or corollary of operational independence for the police is their political impartiality, and does she agree with me that the last thing we want is a poisonous cocktail of football hooliganism infected by the hatreds arising out of the middle eastern conflict?”
House of Commons24 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister tell the House what is so special about the year 2035? It is the year by which the Government say they will achieve expenditure of 3.5% of GDP on defence—compared with the 4.5% to 5% we used to spend in the cold war years of the 1980s—and it is now the year by which that the Government say no more than 60% of any critical mineral will come from a single country. Do the Government not feel that the deterioration of international relationships is such that we ought to be thinking about a rather closer timescale than 10 years from now?”
House of Commons24 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend will be aware that the District Councils’ Network has been briefing Members on both sides of the House that if the Government go ahead and force these changes through, the very least they can do is to have district councils represented on the strategic authorities until all the changes have come to completion. Does he think that he might be able to persuade the Government to have that more limited aim?”
House of Commons24 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I know the Minister is a reasonable person, and I am trying to find some common ground here. I could understand it, if the transgender males held in this particular unit had at least undergone reassignment surgery. They would definitely be vulnerable in a male prison. The argument for them to be held in a truly separate unit is strong. It seems from what we heard from my hon. Friend that the people who are causing concern are those who are biologically intact. In other words, they are any male who chooses to identify as a female.”
House of Commons24 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Responding to that directly, if the Government are trying to map the capabilities of the vessel, can they tell us whether they knew in advance that it had this laser capability, and if they did, whether steps are being taken to find methods of protecting our personnel against such laser attacks? Will the Minister and the Government be careful not to fall for the bully’s playbook of the killer in the Kremlin? It is no coincidence that this incident happened now, just at the time that the Americans are coming up with a “peace plan” that plays into the hands of Putin and betrays our Ukrainian friends.”
House of Commons20 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“By putting forward proposals that could have been drafted by the killer in the Kremlin himself, it seems that President Trump has finally given up on the Nobel peace prize, and is content to settle for the Lenin peace prize instead. Do the Government share my concern at the remarks, admittedly aspirational, by the US ambassador to NATO about his long-term hope that Germany will take over America’s role at the heart of the alliance? Does that not betray the decades of peace after the second world war that NATO was created to preserve?”
House of Commons20 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons20 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons20 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons20 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons20 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons20 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons19 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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. ]”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons17 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons17 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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?”
House of Commons17 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“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.”
House of Commons13 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗