Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

rose—

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

rose—

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am being very generous with my time, and I know many want to speak, but I will give way.

[Dr Lewis]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. Does he appreciate that what he has just said about the Sue Gray report explains why some of us at least have asked time and again for it to be published in full, unredacted, immediately?

[Sir Robert Neill]

Yes, and I agree with my right hon. Friend in that respect. It was unfortunate—I say no more than that—that the way the police investigation has been handled has led to a delay that may not have been needed in terms of prejudicing any ongoing investigations. As a matter of fact, I believe the report should be published in full at the earliest possible opportunity.

Easter Recess: Government Update

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much. I repeat what I said in my statement earlier, which is that I fully respect the decision of the police.

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

Does my right hon. Friend have the power to authorise Sue Gray to publish her report in full? If so, will he use that power to put an end to this matter, so that we do not get diverted —as we are being—from such crucial questions as the supply of armaments to Ukrainian democrats?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much, but I think it very important that the Met should conclude its investigation before Sue Gray’s final report.

Parole System: Public Protection

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

Let me start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his support for the decision taken today in the Tracey Connelly case. I think he also gave wholesale backing to the reforms I set out in my statement, which is important. I want to welcome what I therefore hope will be cross-party support when we come to legislate for them; he cannot support the aims and then not will the means, and I hope that that becomes clear as we take the proposals through the House.

The hon. Gentleman asked about absconds, which is an issue of significant concern. I should say to him that between 2009-10 and today, the level of absconds from prisons has fallen to a third of the level it was under the last Labour Government. He might want to think a little about that before he makes unfounded assertions.

In fairness, the hon. Gentleman did ask about the case of Shane Farrington, who absconded on 24 March but was rearrested on 26 March. He is ineligible for a return to open conditions for two years. The hon. Gentleman made a point about our being empowered to do something; actually, that took place in October and I changed the rules in December, as I have made clear to the House.

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman said about the role of victims. We are making important changes and I welcome his support for them. I gently point out that, even before the spending review, the level of victims funding was three times the level it was at under the Labour Government. He talks about victims; our record is infinitely better, but we are restless to do far more.

More generally, the history of the reforms we are undertaking took place on Labour’s watch, because in 2008 Labour gave up the power to block the release of prisoners who had been sentenced to more than 15 years and then legislated to make the changes—in fairness, they were forced on that Government by the Human Rights Act—permanent. As a result, the number of those recalled on life licence skyrocketed, going up almost sevenfold. The hon. Gentleman should, then, have a little more humility about where the problem came from.

The hon. Gentleman criticised our approach to the Bill of Rights, but it is clear that we cannot pursue the reforms I have set out and reverse the challenges that were made under the Human Rights Act without our Bill of Rights. Again, the question for the Labour party is going to be whether it just wills the ends or is willing to back the means.

Last month, I picked up my copy of the Daily Mirror, as I do, and read through it. I read that the hon. Gentleman had said that under the previous Labour leader, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), Labour had appeared to care

“more about criminals than their victims”.

That is a greater measure of humility, but the hon. Gentleman should take a bit of responsibility for his record. He and the shadow Cabinet voted against extra funding for more police officers. They voted against the tougher sentences for dangerous offenders in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill—the kind of thing that would protect victims and the public. I am glad that, on this issue at least, the hon. Gentleman is showing that he is willing to support measures that will stand up for victims and protect the public. The proof of the pudding will be in how the Opposition vote when all the measures come before the House.

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

The statement was excellent. My right hon. Friend is clearly revelling in an area of policy in which he has a great deal of expertise. One aspect of which I did not hear mention was the concept of punishment. Some offences, particularly the sort we are dealing with in this context, are absolutely heinous. It baffles the public as to why, for example, someone who led a home invasion in the New Forest that resulted in the burning alive of an entire family, although not until after the woman had been repeatedly raped, should be considered for release at the end of what is admittedly a long sentence. Most people would feel that people forfeit their right to liberty when they commit offences of that gravity. Where does punishment fit into all this?

[Dominic Raab]

I totally understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes. In truth, parole is about risk and, rightly, public protection. Either the tariff or the overall sentence should deal with the element of punishment, rather than parole. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend makes an important point. He will know that whether it was Harper’s law, Tony’s law or the wider reforms to sentencing that we are making in the PCSC Bill, we have strengthened sentencing, in the teeth of opposition from Opposition Members.

In fairness, I do need to draw a distinction in respect of the reforms I have set out: they are really about public protection and the amorphous concept of risk in these cases. That itself also goes to the issue of public confidence in relation to the tariff and the punishment element that my right hon. Friend mentioned. Both are important, but with parole we focus on risk. I say that because I want to be clear that we are not adding another sentence on top of a sentence. The question, from the point at which an offender becomes eligible for parole, is whether they satisfy the statutory criteria. Is it safe to release them, or do they present an ongoing risk to public protection? That is the core focus of the reforms I have announced today, but I heed my right hon. Friend’s wider point.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

The Bill passed through the other place, where it was carefully scrutinised and amended in only one respect: to seek to retain a role for this honourable House in respect of Dissolution. The Lords amendment provided that the Prime Minister could request the sovereign exercise—the revived prerogative powers to dissolve and call Parliament—only when this House agreed the motion

“that this present Parliament will be dissolved.”

That would create an untested, hybrid system by imposing statutory arrangements on top of the prerogative system that existed prior to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Such statutory constraints would undermine the flexibility that for generations characterised the pre-2011 arrangements that the Government want to reinstate. With respect, the Government therefore firmly disagree with the Lords amendment.

In fact, the Government and the Opposition both committed—in their manifestos, no less—to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. The Lords amendment would repeal that Act only to retain one of its fundamental flaws. That is not our wish or our intention and it does not meet the commitment that we made to the electorate.

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

I am hugely relieved to hear the Minister say that. I have stood in every election since 1997. Only when we saw the chaos caused by a Government who did not want to continue and an Opposition who did not want the chance to face an election could we see how dreadful that old system was. We need to get rid of it, bag and baggage.

[Michael Ellis]

I agree with my right hon. Friend; there is of course a good reason why the 2017 to 2019 Parliament is referred to as the zombie Parliament.

I remind the House of the commitments that both parties made in 2019. The Conservatives committed to repealing the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that intervention. I strongly believe in the maxim that how you do one thing is how you do everything, and I believe that the same cast of characters will broadly act in the same way at every opportunity. That tends to be, as with all the pieces of legislation that I listed, that the Government see things through a very narrow political prism, and that is what we are seeing today.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

How is it an abuse of power and a strengthening of the Executive for the Executive to say, “We want to go to the people and let the people decide whether we should be allowed to continue in government or be chucked out”?

[Alex Norris]

The Lords amendment is a very modest safeguard to that in saying, “At least demonstrate that a majority of the legislature agrees with you.” It is not unreasonable to say that Parliament could be involved in the Dissolution process in the way that noble Lords have said. It is a modest hurdle. All it asks is that the Prime Minister of the day be able to command a majority, and in different scenarios.

I know that the Minister is keen to avoid hypotheticals, but we do have to think about how these powers may apply in future. In a balanced Parliament like the previous one, the amendment might mean that the Government work a little bit more broadly to secure the election. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) referred to the dreadful election of 2019. I would argue that it was the Government between 2017 and 2019 who were dreadful rather than the election itself, being a passive process. Indeed, the Minister characterised it as a zombie Government. Given that he served in that Government, I think he does himself a disservice in characterising himself in that way.

[Dr Lewis]

I do not think it was a dreadful election—it was a brilliant election. What was dreadful was the fact that it was in the power of the Opposition to stop that election happening and to not allow the people to have their say.

[Alex Norris]

I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The idea that it was dreadful that a Government who did not command a majority of this House could not just always get their way—that is how the system is supposed to work, I gently suggest.

Where a Government have a clear working majority, as we have today, the amendment would insure against a capricious Prime Minister—perhaps one losing the confidence of their own Benches in the light of, in a hypothetical, significant issues of judgment or personal character—just going and throwing everything up in the air in their own interest. Indeed, there is the scenario, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said, where someone else might be able to form a Government, but the individual who would be most harmed could just call an election without that being explored.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I rise to speak in favour of the Lords amendment, which would require any Government seeking to dissolve this House early and call a general election to first seek and receive the support of a simple majority of the Members of this House.

Last year, when the Bill was first introduced by the Government, it was presented as a non-controversial resetting of a mistake that David Cameron made in his attempts to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. We were told that Cameron had made a bit of a mess of things, that this Bill would simply take us back to exactly where we were prior to 2010, and that we could almost pretend that it never really happened. However, as we have heard in this place and in the Lords, that is not the case. The Bill is not about reinstating what was in place prior to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, but rather creates a situation whereby the Executive have even greater powers and the monarch, who hitherto had prerogative powers, merely enacts the Executive’s will to dissolve Parliament.

This Lords amendment seeks to place a very minimal check on the Executive’s power by making any Dissolution of Parliament a decision that has to have the support of the majority of this House. I do not think that our constituents would think that it is too much to ask for those who have been elected to this place, and who serve their constituents in this place, to have some say if a Parliament is to be dissolved early and a general election called.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, which is typically gracious of him. He calls it a “minimal check,” but the reality is that it is an absolute veto. If a Government do not have a majority in the House and if the Opposition sense that a Government might well win a majority if they went to the people, the Opposition are basically saying, “We are not going to allow the Government to get a mandate from the people.” That is precisely what would have happened in 2019 if Labour had not, for some reason, given way in the end.

[Brendan O'Hara]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but that is a decision for this Parliament to take. We are elected to take decisions, and to abdicate that responsibility to the Executive is a dangerous route to go down; we should not do that. He says that it is the people, but we in this Parliament are the voice of the people, and there has to be a check on the powers of the Executive.

Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady. I hesitate to give the House a running commentary on what seems a very fluid and dangerous situation, but to the best of my knowledge she is right in what she says.

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

For the best part of 50 years, Britain gave sanctuary to the Governments in exile of the occupied Baltic states. If, as appears likely, Ukraine gets overwhelmed, will we offer to give sanctuary to a Government in exile, pending Ukraine’s future freedom?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend, and of course we will give all the support we can, logistical or otherwise, as Britain always has done, to Governments in exile. One of the points I made to President Zelensky this morning was that it might be necessary for him to find a safe place for him and his Cabinet to go.

Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. Again, I am grateful to the right hon. Member and the Liberal Democrats for their support of the position that we are taking. We are indeed cracking down on ill-gotten gains in London and on the cronies of Vladimir Putin, as I detailed, and there is more to come. On defence spending, the right hon. Member should acknowledge that the recent increase was the biggest since the end of the cold war. On his point about sporting events, as I said, I think it inconceivable that major international football tournaments can take place in Russia after the invasion of a sovereign country.

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

Does my right hon. Friend accept that too many NATO Governments and political parties have accepted energy dependence on Putin and financial dependence on dodgy donations from Russian oligarchs? Given that we spent between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on defence throughout the 1980s until the end of the cold war, will he now accept 3% of GDP on defence as a suitable future benchmark?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is completely right to say that we have failed to wean ourselves off dependence on Russian hydrocarbons since 2014. That has been a tragic mistake by European countries. In the UK, we are in the fortunate position of having only 3% of our gas coming from Russia, but other European countries have learned that they have much more to do. By the way, I salute the decision of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to cancel Nord Stream 2. It is a brave step by Olaf and the right thing to do. On my right hon. Friend’s point about defence spending, actually we are up at 2.4% of GDP—I think that is one of the highest figures in NATO—and we are the second biggest contributor and military power in NATO already.

Sue Gray Report

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No. I stand by what I said, and I would simply urge the hon. Member to wait for the outcome of the inquiry. That is what he needs to do.

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

May I advise my right hon. Friend publicly what I have said to emissaries from his campaign team privately? It is truly in his interest, in the Government’s interest and in the national interest that he should insist on receiving the full, unredacted report immediately, as I believe he can, and that he should then publish the uncensored version without any further delay.

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, but I think extensive legal advice has been taken on this point and Sue Gray has published everything that she thinks she can that is consistent with that advice.

Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much, and I think he is completely right in his analysis of Russian, and certainly Putin’s, intentions towards Ukraine. I am sure he has read the 5,000-word essay by Vladimir Putin about Ukraine and the origins of Russia. It is clear what the psychological and emotional wellsprings of his thinking are.

I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman says on sanctions. As he knows, we are bringing forward a statutory instrument greatly to toughen up our ability to sanction people, and I hope he will support it.

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

President Putin has not even waited for the gas to start flowing through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline before exploiting the stranglehold that he has been building on the German economy. My right hon. Friend has already indicated that it may be difficult for Germany to impose severe sanctions against Russia if this invasion goes ahead, so does he not agree that it is vital from our security point of view that anyone with strong Russian or communist Chinese links should be kept well away from our own critical national infrastructure?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is completely right. That is why we brought in measures to protect our national security and our critical national infrastructure, and to ensure that we are able to stop investment that we think would be detrimental to our national security. I am afraid that he is also right about the German dependence on Russian gas. We have to be respectful of this, but the simple fact is that about 3% the UK’s gas supplies come from Russia, whereas about 36% of German energy needs come from Russian gas. Germany is in a very different position from us, and its sacrifice is potentially very large. We must hope that in the interest of peace it is willing to make that sacrifice.

Armed Forces Bill

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend has raised such an important question. We are hugely grateful for the amazing contribution that our foreign and Commonwealth servicepeople make. I cannot pre-empt the Government announcement on the results of the consultation, but return of service is an important principle and I think it will be at the heart of the Government’s policy when it is announced in due course.

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

Will my hon. Friend allow me?

[Leo Docherty]

I would be delighted.

[Dr Lewis]

I am glad to be such a cause of pleasure to my hon. and gallant Friend. I am not a lawyer, so this might be entirely irrelevant, but I do not think so: before he leaves this first amendment, could he say whether those serious cases of murder abroad, such as has been reported in relation to an incident in Kenya some years ago—I appreciate that that case may still be live—are affected by this tussle between the upper House and this House on the question of whether such matters should be considered by court martial or civilian court? In other words, where there is a failure of the local police in another country, is it the Government’s case that the court martial system or the civilian legal system is better able to deal with it?

[Leo Docherty]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s contribution; that is a very good case in point, and points to circumstances—although the numbers may be very small—in which the British military has to deploy to ungoverned spaces, let us say. Of course, that is not the case with regard to Kenya, but there are definitely advantages to the expeditionary capability of our service justice system.

I move now to Lords amendment 2B, which would require a report to be laid within six months of this Bill’s receiving Royal Assent, setting out the implications of not applying the new covenant duty to central Government. The Government have already committed to reviewing the operation of the covenant duty to inform us on whether other policy areas or functions could be usefully included. Having listened carefully to the issues that have been so vigorously raised, and recognising the strength of feeling across both Houses, I can now commit to going further.

Indeed, we are going further than Lords amendment 2B in the scope of the review we have in mind. We will review the operation of the new duty across the UK and will consider whether it would be beneficial to add to its scope. That will include specific consideration of whether central Government and any of their functions could usefully be added. The Government will report on the review as part of the covenant annual report in 2023, 18 months after the new duty is expected to come into effect. That timescale is more realistic than the six-month timeline from Royal Assent suggested by their lordships, which in our judgment is too short a period for any meaningful review to take place.

Given that we expect to see the new duty standing up in law by the middle of 2022 at the earliest, we also need to allow for an implementation period to give local authorities time to adjust to their new responsibilities. We therefore believe that to conduct and publish a review at the 18-month point of the new duty having been in operation is most appropriate. However, given the level of interest in the new duty, we will provide an interim update in the covenant annual report in December 2022, some six months after the duty is expected to come into effect. At that point, we will be able to say more about the scope and methodology for conducting the review, and MPs will have the opportunity to assess and comment in the 2022 covenant report debate.

The Government are committed to ensuring that parliamentarians from both Houses can contribute and give their views as part of the review process. I put on record my thanks and appreciation for the contributions of Lord Mackay of Clashfern and Lord Craig of Radley. They, like us, want to see good law put in place to support our armed forces. In the light of the commitment that I have given, I urge the House to support the Government in resisting Lords amendment 2B.

COP26

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

On the right hon. Gentleman’s last point, yes, of course that it is right. We are abandoning export finance—I made that clear earlier—for the hydro-carbon industry. That massive change has been difficult because businesses in this country have benefited from export finance for many years, but we are making that change because we want the world to move away from hydrocarbons.

As for what the right hon. Gentleman said about India, I accept the points that he made, but, as I think I said, we will help the Indian Government in any way we can to move beyond coal as fast as they can. Of course, it was disappointing to see the language changed from “phase out” to “phase down”, but we have never had any commitments whatever on coal in COP before. I think that what will now happen is that the global peer pressure on countries to move away from coal will intensify very rapidly and the change will happen much faster than people think.

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

After the downfall of the Soviet Union, it was discovered that various multilateral agreements that we thought we had over things such as biological weapons had been systematically flouted. What confidence can we have if open societies observe the rules but closed societies cheat? Is there a regime in play to make sure that we would discover that?

[The Prime Minister]

One of the things that we agreed at this COP—and one of the reasons why I believe it is so historic—is, finally, the Paris rulebook, which contains, among other things, provisions for transparency and agreement about how we measure what we are trying to do around the world. That is immensely significant and it gives a tool to everybody who cares about it. Even in closed societies—about which my right hon. Friend knows a great deal—where they may not take voters very seriously, there are consumers whom they take seriously and people who are willing to protest, whom they take seriously as well.