Social Cohesion Action Plan

Debate between Julian Lewis and Steve Reed

Monday 9th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I of course recognise what my hon. Friend says. We have a situation where over 40% of all recorded religious hate crimes target British Muslims. That is wildly out of proportion with the number of Muslims in our country. The reason we are publishing this strategy today, and the reason that it includes the anti-Muslim hostility definition, is so that we can better tackle the problem by describing it and then reviewing how we disseminate it with partners, institutions and groups across the country to give Muslims access to the freedom and rights they deserve, just as much as anybody else in this country.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

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.

[Steve Reed]

There is an awful lot in the report, and I cannot go through all of it because I will further annoy Madam Deputy Speaker by using up too much time, but if I might point to one area, we are allocating £500,000 to link together schools from different communities so that children growing up, perhaps with their friends from the same community, can get to know and better understand children from other backgrounds as well, and to understand that they live in and are part of a thriving, diverse community.

Grenfell Tower Annual Report

Debate between Julian Lewis and Steve Reed

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

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?

[Steve Reed]

In fact, the police are investigating an incredibly complex set of circumstances. That is why one of the biggest teams in the Met’s history is focused on getting to the bottom of this and of whether there is a need to pursue any prosecutions. It is one of the biggest and most complex police investigations ever—rightly, because we need to follow culpability, find those responsible and bring them to justice. The victims deserve that justice, but so do the survivors and relatives, so that they can at long last have closure on this tragedy, which has affected their lives. The Government will ensure that we provide the Met with the resources they require to fund the team sizes necessary to deliver that justice.

Local Government Reorganisation

Debate between Julian Lewis and Steve Reed

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

My hon. Friend always ensures that I take a special interest in Amber Valley and the impact of decisions on the people who live in that beautiful part of the world. We have announced additional capacity funding to help councils to deal with the kind of challenges that he just described, recognising that reorganisation has a capacity impact on local authorities.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

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. 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?

[Steve Reed]

I reassure the right hon. Gentleman on his latter point. I also reassure him that concerns have been raised across the political spectrum, including by council leaders from his own party, about the capacity to complete local government reorganisation. That is why we have announced additional capacity funding to support those councils to be able to complete this important reform. The consultations are still under way on the exact form of the reorganisation that will take place, and it would be wrong for me to comment on that today.

Electoral Resilience

Debate between Julian Lewis and Steve Reed

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I preface my response by saying that the review is not looking at individual cases, but the broader issue of gifts and hospitality and how they may be used by malign, or potentially malign, foreign agents or state actors will be in scope for the independent review.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I hope that the Rycroft review will take account of the fact that the giving of money is by no means the worst aspect, or the main aspect, of treacherous behaviour, because very often these people do what they do out of a genuine belief in a potential enemy’s point of view. It would be interesting to know whether the crime would have attracted such a large sentence as it did if, instead of just money being given, it had been a matter of clandestine contact because the person was willing to spout the Russian line anyway. Let us not be overconcerned with the giving of the bribe, which is often a bonus to people who want to betray us to a potential enemy in any case.

[Steve Reed]

The right hon. Member makes a very important point. The Security Minister, who is sitting alongside me, leads the defending democracy taskforce, which will be taking a wider view of the threats to our democracy as they evolve, and so too must our safeguards evolve to keep our democracy safe. Philip Rycroft’s review will focus on malign foreign financial interference, given that we know from the Nathan Gill case that there may be weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and we want to ensure that our safeguards are as robust as they can be.

Thames Water

Debate between Julian Lewis and Steve Reed

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

I agree. The whole mess we inherited was due to the previous Government letting the water companies get away with it; people were paying themselves multimillion-pound bonuses as they profited from pollution. That ended when the Conservative Government were defeated. We are putting the water companies under tough special measures and we will focus them on serving their customers and the environment, not themselves.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State think that the situation might improve if Thames Water executives were obliged to sign up to performance-related pay?

[Steve Reed]

That is a very interesting proposal. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will suggest it to Sir Jon Cunliffe, who is currently looking at a better way to regulate.