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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“The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent and unanswerable case, but the trouble is that even in the circumstances of this case, the Government have not said that China is a threat. They keep saying that it poses a range of serious threats, but they keep baulking at saying that it is a threat. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has no hesitation in saying that China is a threat, and he should challenge the Government to do likewise.”
“When severe mental illness strikes, it can be devastating and totally debilitating, but the problem from the Department’s point of view is that its symptoms are invisible. There have been reports of people faking mental illness in order to gain benefits. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that his Department has appropriate checks in place?”
“For how many years, in the Government’s estimation, will we have to keep importing foreign oil and gas, as a result of not being allowed fully to exploit our own supplies?”
“Mr Kebatu came to this country by small boat, allegedly because he was seeking asylum against oppression in Ethiopia. At his trial, however, he changed his mind and decided he would rather be back in Ethiopia. What bothers me about the state of our immigration system is that if, after he has been punished in Ethiopia, he hops on another small boat and comes back again and says that he is seeking asylum because, as a result of his conviction for sexual crimes, he faces disapproval and possibly persecution in Ethiopia, we would have to go through this farce all over again, wouldn’t we?”
“The Arts and Humanities Research Council receives £70 million in public money to fund postgraduate research. What mechanism and powers does the Secretary of State have to check that such substantial funds are not squandered on politically tendentious projects, such as those exposed by Laurence Sleator on page 27 of The Times on Saturday? Will she perhaps take a look at the article and write to me?”
“I am sorry that the Minister finds himself in a position which was not of his own making. I am also sorry that only four members of his parliamentary party out of over 400 are standing up to contribute to the debate. Does he accept that one reason for the cloud of suspicion of political interference around this matter is the decision to appoint a highly political special adviser as National Security Adviser for the first time? That has put the deputy National Security Adviser in the firing line. Can the Minister at least confirm that if and when, as I am sure it will, the Intelligence and Security Committee asks the National Security Adviser to come and give evidence in its inquiry that he will do so?”
“Hopefully we can rely on the police to arrest any hooligans who break the law, whichever team they are supporting. Will the Government take into account the fact that—knowing the way in which terrorist minds work—as there will be such a concentration of police resources on this particular location, Jewish establishments in that part of the country need to be extra careful on that day, such that advantage is not sought to be taken by people who mean them harm?”
“As young people will now have to choose between T-levels and the new V-levels, can the Secretary of State explain what are the main distinguishing features of the two qualifications, and what in broad terms are the likely differences in career outcomes?”
“My right hon. Friend is quite right. On the face of it, this does not make sense, unless we look at it in one particular way. If the Government have made a decision that they wish to have a strategic economic partnership with communist China, this makes sense, the closing of the case with the China spies makes sense, and the willingness for China to have the biggest embassy of any country in Europe makes sense. Even though the Government say that that is a quasi-judicial decision, it is interesting that for political reasons, they put it off till December. None of it makes sense, or all of it makes sense, as long as the National Security Adviser wants us to suck up to communist, totalitarian China.”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I am surprised that nobody has referred to Hong Kong. When the decision was taken and the agreement was reached in 1984 for the handover in 1997, China agreed that it would be “one country, two systems” for at least 50 years. Within less than half that time, Britain came to the conclusion that all those safeguards were being deliberately violated.”
“The only thing wrong with the Foreign Secretary’s admirable statement is the fact that it was made by a British Foreign Secretary rather than by the President of the United States, given that, only a few months ago, President Trump said that President Zelensky had few, if any, cards to play. The Foreign Secretary takes a much more optimistic view of the geopolitical situation as regards the invasion of Ukraine. Has she identified any signs that the leader of the free world is coming to a more realistic view of the nature of the killer in the Kremlin?”
“Nevertheless, once we got to know each other better on the Intelligence and Security Committee, we found ourselves making common cause on such issues as the safeguarding of the vital BBC Monitoring service for the future, the need to enhance spending on defence with an improved defence budgeting priority and, above all, the folly that could have happened of Britain intervening militarily in the Syrian civil war. In short, Ming brought courtesy, style, courage and grace to public life to the benefit of society as a whole.”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I would like to state that Sir Ming Campbell, as he then was, was the perfect example of how it is possible to disagree with another parliamentarian on a key issue and yet work side by side on other issues without any rancour or reservation. My dealings with Ming did not get off to the best start, as we were generally on opposite sides of a debate about the replacement of Trident submarines and the replacement of continuous at-sea deterrence by part-time patrols.”
“The Prime Minister has said again today that there can be no place for Hamas in governing the Gaza strip, but who can physically prevent Hamas from retaining their weapons and regaining control, as they did in 2006? When he talks about antisemitism in Britain, is there any other interpretation of the demand to internationalise the intifada than as a call to attack Jewish communities around the world?”
“It has been suggested to me that the Government are briefing the press that the remedial order will not actually be voted on until the new legacy Bill has gone through Parliament. Is that his policy, and if not, what is his policy?”
“I am surprised that no one has mentioned the letters of comfort that were given to the IRA and the question of whether or not they still hold water, but let me go back to what the Secretary of State said about the possibility of IRA bosses like Gerry Adams claiming compensation on technical grounds that the “wrong” Minister signed their internment papers. As I understand it from what the Secretary of State said earlier, the remedial order that he is laying before Parliament will open up the possibility of such people suing the Government for compensation, which the new legacy legislation that he is bringing in will nevertheless then rule out. He referred to a possible gap between the new legislation coming into force and the remedial order opening the gap.”
“Do the Government accept that it is possible to bring in elected mayors and new strategic authorities without forcibly merging county and district councils in unwanted, cumbersome and remote unitary authorities?”
“As in the case of the attack on Parliament in 2017, this attack was a combination of the use of a vehicle as a deadly weapon and an attempt to break into premises to kill people indiscriminately. On both occasions, brave men had to sacrifice their life to prevent access. Would it not be a sensible first step for all vulnerable premises to have doors that can be easily locked, so that people do not have to put themselves at risk physically holding them closed? I congratulate the Home Secretary on an excellent statement.”
“My reading of that extract from the Act is that the felony lies in the disclosure to anyone at all—it does not have to be directly to an enemy. Whether or not China was regarded as an enemy at the time, the nature of the sensitive material disclosed meant it was a felony, even if it was disclosed to a China that was not regarded as an enemy. Surely the trial should have gone ahead.”
“The Minister says that it is for another Department to decide whether the Chinese Government should have a new embassy. That is certainly true, but the proposed new embassy is so large that it would be the biggest embassy in any country anywhere in Europe. That has national security implications, and if the Minister wants to encourage people to believe that the Government are not cosying up to communist China, he should make recommendations accordingly. May I just ask the Minister about the extract he read from the 1911 Act? I will read a slightly fuller one, though still one with ellipses: “If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State…obtains or communicates to any other person any…document or information which…might be…directly or indirectly useful to an enemy; he shall be guilty of felony”.”
“As Ministers will know, some rogue builders take thousands of pounds from people, wreck their homes and leave them while they go on to do the same to other victims, yet victims are told that no crime has been committed. Will the ministerial team look at the notion of fraud when a pattern of such behaviour can be evidenced?”
“Does my right hon. Friend recall that on 21 November last, the Prime Minister was challenged to rule out appointing Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States on the grounds that he had said Ukraine would have to give up all the land Russia had occupied and that it must give up any hope of ever joining NATO in return for some unspecified security guarantees? The Prime Minister said he would not be tempted to comment on the possibility of his being appointed ambassador, and as he said it he had a very noticeable little smirk on his face. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister is not smirking about this matter any more?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have seen a rapid transformation from the Prince of Darkness into a grovelling Lord Yum Yum? One has to ask, why was the British Prime Minister surprised? Had he never heard the tale of the turtle and the scorpion that meet at the side of the river? Should the Prime Minister not have realised that the poor old scorpion simply cannot help what is in its nature?”
“Given that the Minister is such a decent Minister, who enjoys respect on both sides of the House, I am tempted to repeat the advice that Lloyd George gave to Churchill during the Norway debate of 1940, which is not to make himself an air raid shelter to protect his colleagues—in this case, the Prime Minister—from the splinters. If the Prime Minister’s case is as strong as the Minister makes out, can he explain why, if I remember correctly, only a single Labour Back Bencher has made a speech in the Prime Minister’s favour?”
“I was struck by the example that my right hon. Friend gave of someone who committed a vicious assault getting only 12 months, and now getting no months and no prison time at all. Of course, it could work the other way round: it could be that when a judge is forced to confront the fact that if he gives a sentence of only 12 months for a vicious attack the prisoner will walk free, he will feel that he must make the sentence somewhat longer—in which case the Government’s plan to free up a prison space will not even work, will it?”
“Naturally, I had assumed that if people were not going to serve short sentences, in many cases they would be tagged. It is worrying to hear what the hon. Member is saying about Serco’s performance. Is he saying that effectively the people being tagged are not being properly monitored? In which case, does that not bring the viability of the whole system into question?”
“Will the hon. Gentleman just remind the House with whom the Conservatives were in coalition for several years when they started their 14-year term?”
“Despite the party political edge to the hon. and learned Gentleman’s remarks, I want to ask him a serious question. Presumably there need to be safeguards to ensure that when people are deported before they have served their sentences, those sentences will be served in the country to which they are deported. Can the hon. Gentleman explain to the House what sort of guarantees there will be that these people will not get off scot-free after deportation? I am sure that there must be some such safeguards.”
“I am trying to go along with the thrust of the hon. Lady’s argument, but I just wonder whether it is as absolute as she suggests. Admittedly, people who undergo short sentences may be repeat offenders, and that is particularly true of shoplifters, for example, as we have heard. However, if a store is a victim of the same shoplifter over and over again, to be relieved of that shoplifter raiding the premises even for a period of eight or 10 months must be some sort of salvation, must it not?”
“As someone who chaired the Intelligence and Security Committee throughout its China inquiry and who criticised the previous Government’s position on China, I am sad to see that this Government do not seem to understand the importance of signals. It sends a signal to describe “Chinese challenges” but not “Chinese communist threats”. It sends a signal to allow China to build a super-embassy against the advice of the security services. It sends a signal not to put China in the top tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, and it sends a signal above all to allow it to buy up increasingly important parts of our economy and national infrastructure. Can we stop sending the wrong signals?”
“I have a letter from the Hampshire chamber of commerce, which, the Secretary of State will be pleased to hear, says that businesses are not opposed to all the changes that will be made to employment legislation, but it does focus on several areas of concern, such as the involvement of a tribunal in deciding whether an employee has been legitimately dismissed during their probation period, removing statutory sick pay waiting days, and changes to trade union recognition and industrial action thresholds. Will the Secretary of State do more to engage with chambers of commerce about these concerns?”
“Despite the atrocious terrorist attack in Jerusalem, I have to agree with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) when she says that blowing up the enemy’s negotiators does not exactly suggest an interest in a negotiated solution. However, I would like clarification on the Government’s position on recognition of a Palestinian state. On 1 September, the then Foreign Secretary said that he proposed to recognise a Palestinian state, but that Hamas would not benefit from it, because they would have to be disarmed. Does that mean that Hamas must be disarmed before recognition, or will recognition go ahead, as seems to be the case, whether Hamas are disarmed or not?”
“I entirely agree with the Minister when he says that NATO is the most successful defensive alliance in history, but the reason for that is that, until recently, the commitment of the United States to NATO was never in question. It is in question now because of the nature of the incumbent of the White House. President Putin either has some sort of hold over Donald Trump, about which we do not know, or he successfully flatters him. When President Trump is in the country, can we point out to him in the strongest possible terms that this response by Russia a couple of weeks after rolling out the red carpet for the killer in the Kremlin shows nothing but disrespect to the White House and its occupant?”
“That is probably not something that will be decided today, but I hope the impeccable logic of my argument will appeal to the Minister and that within 12 months he will take the action requested.”
“The review did not consider adding companion passes to the statutory criteria for the scheme.” The answer then added a standard formulation that I have received in response to other questions on this topic: “Currently, local authorities in England have the power to go beyond their statutory obligations under the ENCTS and offer additional discretionary concessions, such as extending the travel time criteria for the ENCTS.” I simply put it to the House that if a pass-issuing authority has a statutory duty to provide disabled people with a free bus pass, there ought to be a statutory duty to require a designated companion to be included on that same pass for those who cannot use it without a companion.”
“A number of county councils, for example, allow this, but it is a discretionary power. That seems rather strange, because a number of aspects of the scheme are statutory requirements. I believe this should be one of them, if it is not to make a nonsense—as I have already explained—of the statutory requirement that disabled persons should have a free bus pass. I have tabled a couple of written questions on this topic. One in particular—number 48343, tabled on 27 April—asked the Government whether their review of the English national concessionary travel scheme had made a recommendation on the question of companion passes for the disabled. The answer read, in part: “The Department for Transport conducted a review of the ENCTS and is currently considering next steps.”
“I was first alerted to this problem by some very effective lobbying done in Parliament a few months ago, which other right hon. and hon. Members may well remember. I was lobbied by a number of my constituents, who said to me that there was not much point in having a concessionary pass to use buses free of charge if they were unable to do so except when helped by a companion. It rather made a mockery of the concession. I followed this up with a visit to the New Forest branch of Mencap, and the implications of the scheme were impressed on me as being so obvious as to require little supporting argument. What is the point of giving somebody something for free if they cannot use it without the assistance of someone else, unless a designated companion is able to travel with them for free on the same bus pass?”
“I rise to support new clause 47, which stands in my name and that of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon). I will also make a passing reference to his excellent new clause 2, which I wholeheartedly support and which—as we have heard—is designed to remove the time restrictions on when disabled persons’ concessionary bus passes can be used. New clause 47 is very simple and, I would like to think, very logical. It simply requires that the Secretary of State should, “within 12 months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, bring forward proposals to extend the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme to include Companion Passes for disabled persons who require the assistance of a designated companion in order to use the bus network”.”
“It is good news that 66% of local authorities recognise the importance of companion bus passes for those disabled people who cannot otherwise use a bus, but given the lack of logic of giving somebody a pass that they cannot use, is this not one of those cases that ought to be taken away from discretion and simply added to statute as a matter of common sense?”
“I welcome the Minister to the world of “neither confirm nor deny”, though I fear it may cramp his inimitable style somewhat. Does he accept that there are broadly three categories of hacker? There are the show-offs, who are aiming to boost their egos in the online world; the wreckers, who are usually working on behalf of hostile countries or political ideologies; and the extortionists to whom he referred earlier, who are out to blackmail people and relieve them of large amounts of money. In every case, though, there is always the anxiety that people’s personal data is going to be compromised and publicised. To that end, is the Minister really satisfied that so many Government services that deal with personal data—the latest being His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs—insist that people go online to supply that data to Government?”
“Admiral Lord West has been referred to twice so far in the debate. My right hon. Friend may be unaware that Admiral Lord West had a letter published in the national press on 28 May in which he talked about the “disgraceful decision to hand over ownership of the Chagos archipelago”. He added: “I do not accept that the move is ‘absolutely vital for our defence and intelligence’, as the Prime Minister claims.” I wonder what Government Back Benchers who have been slavishly reading their scripts make of that from someone of that calibre—a former director of Defence Intelligence.”
“If this means that we do not have to inform Mauritius in advance of a direct armed attack from the base, presumably it means that we have to inform it as soon as possible after such an attack. If such an attack were an overt attack, Mauritius would presumably know about it already because everyone would have seen it, so this rather suggests that we might have to inform it if there had been some sort of covert attack that other people had not seen and that it would otherwise not know about. Is that a satisfactory situation?”
“The Defence Secretary says that the Chagos giveaway will amount to no more than 0.2% of our defence budget. Does that not suggest the cost of the Chagos giveaway will in fact come out of the defence budget?”
“As I have indicated previously, I have my doubts about whether the terrorism label is most suited to a group that is certainly criminal, certainly violent, and arguably seditious, in its attacks on the assets of our military, but I have a positive suggestion to make. Will the Minister undertake fully to brief the Chairman and members of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which I used to chair but on which I now no longer serve? If they were able to see information that the Minister cannot share publicly and say to us that they were satisfied with the terrorism designation, I for one would find that reassuring.”
“Does the Minister accept that ever since the Saudi nationality of the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers became known, there has been deep suspicion about the role of the then Saudi Government in the atrocity that took place? To what extent do the Government believe that the nature and attitude of the Saudi Government have changed over the past 24 years?”
“Now that the killer in the Kremlin has reinstated the serious prospect of all-out war on the continent of Europe, does the Minister accept that this places a premium on national autonomy in our procurement process? In future with procurement issues, will the Government make it clear to what extent we can proceed with acquiring the necessary munitions, irrespective of what is happening to the allies with whom we might normally co-operate?”
“After that tough question, may I ask an easy one? Can the Minister explain to the House what the funding level is for the new places, and in particular whether it fully compensates for an average £18,000 increase in the bills that nurseries have to face as a result in the rise in national insurance contributions?”
“I do not purport to speak on behalf of my party, but rather as an individual who has long had an interest in the positive role that the Lords play in revising legislation, which any elected and strongly whipped House would not be able to do. The Minister partly anticipated the point I want to make, when he mentioned the ability to appoint some of what would otherwise be outgoing hereditary peers to life peerages. That may be a way forward for people of good will to pursue, but given the quite high number of people who find themselves in quite responsible positions in the Lords, what sort of numbers does he have in mind to allow the parties that will lose a large number of hereditary peers to appoint as life peers?”
“I do not expect the Minister to be specific about numbers, but can he at least tell the House whether he accepts the principle that a considerably larger one-off tranche would be needed to cater for this unique situation?”
“The hon. Gentleman makes the point extremely well, and I think that people with a mind to compromise would like to go down that road, but does he recognise that the usual handful of allocations will not be enough on this one-off occasion to meet the requirement that he has so ably outlined?”