Tag: Julian Lewis

Julian Lewis – 2025 Speech on Access to NHS Dentistry

The speech made by Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP for New Forest East, in the House of Commons on 22 May 2025.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for that no-pressure introduction. I congratulate the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on her speech and I agree with every part of it. I was hoping to quote from individual cases raised by constituents and from the local Women’s Institute, but all that will have to go by the board.

I have a wonderful briefing from the British Dental Association and, in the remaining two and a half minutes, I would like to make one pertinent observation, from which everything else flows. Dentistry is a highly skilled profession in which practitioners can charge colossal sums of money in private practice, which gives them a financial incentive to steer clear of working for the NHS. That is the root of the problem.

On 13 March, I put a question to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about a point made by the Darzi report, last September, which says:

“There are enough dentists in England, just not enough dentists willing to do enough NHS work, which impacts provision for the poorest in society.”

I was pleasantly surprised when his reply was:

“NHS dentistry is in a terrible state and, in fact, in many parts of the country it barely exists. There are lots of reasons for that, and it is a source of constant astonishment to me that the dentistry budget was underspent year after year despite that situation.”—[Official Report, 13 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 1298.]

In reality, as the BDA points out, the reason why that budget is underspent is not because of the lack of demand, but because NHS practices cannot fill vacancies and are unable to meet contractual commitments. Therefore, those who do work with and for the NHS are having to deliver dental care at a loss. There is a fundamental requirement for a rewritten constitution and contract by which it becomes worthwhile for people to practice dentistry in the NHS, because otherwise we will see a two-tier society, in which only the rich can get the dental care that people so desperately need.

May 29, 2025
Julian Lewis – 2024 Speech on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

The speech made by Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP for New Forest East, in the House of Commons on 29 November 2024.

In the past I have voted against this type of measure, and for one overriding reason: namely, the impracticability of effective safeguards. Even if practical safeguards could be erected against external coercion, I have always felt that there was no prospect whatsoever of having effective safeguards against internal pressures on someone to request assisted dying or even euthanasia.

For example, as we have heard, an elderly person in a care home, knowing that the legacy they could bequeath to their children was being reduced by tens of thousands of pounds every few weeks, would be highly likely to feel obliged to ask to die. I cannot conceive of any safeguard against self-sacrifice of that sort, whether for financial reasons or in order no longer to be a burden on one’s nearest and dearest relatives and friends.

However, there is an additional point that I wish to inject into the debate. In my opinion, the key to this dreadfully difficult conundrum—about end of life care, pain and the possibility of assisted dying—lies, or should lie, in the ability of medical personnel to administer effective pain relief even if it shortens the patient’s remaining time. In my view, there should be no bar on the use of painkilling medication, if that is the only way to ease human suffering, even if it leads to a speedier death—hence the frequent references to putting dying people “on an appropriate pathway.”

It was therefore most alarming to me to read a very important paragraph in a letter sent to me in favour of changing the law and voting for the Bill by my constituent, the distinguished broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen, in which she explains that doctors no longer feel able to follow this humane course of action since the atrocious Harold Shipman case, which was briefly alluded to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis). If there has been such a change in regulations, as Dame Esther believes, it is imperative that that should be reversed. That is something positive that could come out of the imminent debate.

Another issue that has been touched on more than once is the uncertainty and the postcode lottery surrounding effective palliative care. Dame Esther’s view is that there are some people, who have some conditions, for whom palliative care never can be effective. Other people expressed the view that there is always a way in which painkilling medication can be used in order to prevent suffering. I suspect the answer to that riddle lies in the fact that that painkilling care, in some cases, might lead to a shortening of life.

Therefore, I conclude that there are three issues that should be in our minds. Can safeguards be effective? My answer to that, I am sorry to say, is still no. Can pain be alleviated sufficiently by palliative care? The balance of the argument is in favour of saying “probably yes”, but it is too uneven across the country and would certainly need the sort of investment that would be necessary to set up system that would work for assisted dying. Above all, have doctors the freedom to administer pain relief that may shorten life? We need to know the answer to that question, because if, since Shipman, they have been prevented from taking such merciful measures, that is a classic example of hard cases making bad law. Doctors need to be able to humanely ease people on their last journey, and the country needs to know where the medical profession stands on that central matter to this debate.

December 7, 2024
Julian Lewis – 2024 Speech on the Loyal Address

The speech made by Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP for New Forest East, in the House of Commons on 17 July 2024.

Who would have ever dreamt, Sir Edward, when we first met in October 1981, that so many years later both you and your equally radical and progressive friend, my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), would successively grace this House by occupying the Speaker’s Chair?

I wish to make congratulations a theme of my short contribution. I want to congratulate in particular the three maiden speakers we have heard so far. It takes quite a bit of doing to make one’s maiden speech so soon after entering the House of Commons, and it is greatly to their credit that they made such generous tributes to their predecessors. The hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) talked about working across party boundaries, which I wish to come back to. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) concentrated on housing issues and the great sports record and legacy of his beloved Wolverhampton. I, too, can remember Billy Wright from all those years ago. The hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley), who has just spoken, showed an intimate knowledge of the local issues affecting his new seat, and I am sure he will be extremely assiduous in attending to them.

I said that I believe congratulations are a theme that is in order, and I wish to echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) said about the result of the election and the way in which power was transferred. It goes without saying that whenever we have a general election and one side achieves a significant absolute majority, as has happened in this case, there will be a majority of people in the Chamber who feel self-congratulatory, but I suggest that we all ought to congratulate ourselves and each other on the way in which we have handled the transfer of power. It is a cause for great concern that when we look among modern democracies, both in western Europe and, sadly, across the Atlantic, we see that the cause of democracy in those countries is currently so ragged and threadbare. Let us hope it is but a passing phase.

To those situated on the Opposition Benches, I have to say that, bad though the result was for the Conservative party, those who observe these Benches today should not think it was quite as much of a wipeout as it might appear. I think that two of us at least have had the experience of sitting on these Benches before. I was one of 32 first-time Conservative MPs elected in the Blair landslide of 1997. I had 13 years on the Opposition Benches, and then after that I had five years in a coalition. Which was the worse I am not sure, but I offer a piece of advice to all new entrants to the House, including on the Government Benches: if you want to enjoy your time in this place, ask yourself the following question, and hopefully give yourself the right answer. Would you still want to be here if you knew that you were going to be a Back Bencher for all of your parliamentary career? If the answer is yes, you are in the right place. Cling to it, because then anything else that happens is a bonus. If the answer is no, you made the wrong career decision. Get out at the next possible opportunity, because you will never be satisfied. People who come in with that attitude are disappointed. They may make it to the Front Bench but not make it to be a Cabinet Minister. They may make it to the Cabinet but not get to be one of the top four, or they may make it to the top four but not get the top job. We know what happens even to many Prime Ministers who get right to the top. So enjoy the status that you have got, bank it and look on everything else as a dividend.

I turn to the King’s Speech, on which I will make just a couple of observations, because we do not have the time for anything more detailed. On planning presumptions, I am always a little bit worried about presumptions in favour of this and presumptions in favour of that. Let us hope that is not a shorthand for ignoring what people want. In my constituency of New Forest East, the biggest local issue for the first six years of my time in this place was a proposal to build a giant container port on reclaimed land on Southampton water called Dibden bay. Associated British Ports said that, without doing that, the port of Southampton would begin to die. We fought that for six years and we won. Guess what? The port of Southampton did not die; it found other ways of dealing with the container traffic, which has thrived. Now we have the prospect of a freeport in the area. I like to think that the new people in charge of Associated British Ports will be a lot more sensitive about what they plan for the delicate parts of the constituency. All I would say is: do not trample roughshod over communities’ concerns about major infrastructure projects, because sometimes that may not get us the best projects.

On conversion therapy, I just leave a question hanging in the air. Anybody who votes for this change needs to be able to answer this point: what is it that you are proposing to outlaw that is not already forbidden under existing laws? The danger with well-intentioned laws of this nature is that we can end up really talking about thought crime. Seventy-five years after George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published—technically speaking, perhaps it is now 76 years—we need to be wary of that.

I have a constituent with whom I happen to disagree about abortion. He is totally opposed to abortion; I am not, and I do not think that there should be demonstrations outside abortion clinics. He wants to be able to stand silently by himself on the pavement and pray internally. If he is asked by the police what he is doing and he says, “I am thinking about my shopping list”—or some other domestic issue—he is fine, but if he admits that he is praying in relation to the abortion issue, he could end up being accused of committing an offence. We should be careful before going down that road too far.

When it comes to modernising the membership of the House of Lords, we must be careful about blanket proposals. A well-informed group led by Professor Lord Norton of Louth have been grappling with sensible ways of trying to modernise and reform the House of Lords for quite a number of years. Such voices need to be listened to. The House of Lords, though some people are appointed to it on the wrong basis, does an important job.

If I may please have a few more moments, I have one last point, which is significant and relates to the Intelligence and Security Committee. This is an essential matter that will need to be incorporated into one of the pieces of legislation that the Government are to introduce. A single amendment to the Justice and Security Act 2013 is required to protect a particular aspect of our parliamentary democracy that is currently being undermined. The amendment would establish an independent office to support the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament—which I chaired until recently—in order to safeguard the Committee’s independence.

For the benefit of the newer Members of the House, the ISC is a cross-party and cross-House Committee created by statute. Under the Justice and Security Act 2013, the ISC has the legal responsibility for overseeing the UK’s intelligence community on behalf of Parliament. Newer Members will be surprised to hear that the ISC’s office—a very small number of staff—belongs to the Cabinet Office, when the ISC oversees large parts of the Cabinet Office. They would be right to be surprised. That is a fundamental conflict of interest. That is why, at the time of the Justice and Security Act, the Cabinet Office was supposed to be only a temporary home but, in the more than 10 years that have elapsed since then, the Committee’s office is still beholden to, vulnerable within and unfairly pressurised by the very part of the Executive that it is charged with overseeing.

The Executive should not be able to constrain and control the Committee’s democratic oversight on behalf of Parliament by exerting control over the Committee’s small team to the extent that the Cabinet Office officials are actually overriding the Committee, as has happened repeatedly in respect of staff assessments in recent years, or starving it of resources so that it is unable to fulfil its legal responsibilities.

The members of the ISC in the last Parliament therefore determined unanimously—across all parties and both Houses represented by its membership—that it was essential for parliamentary democracy that the Committee’s office move out from under the control of the Executive and be established instead as an independent body corporate with a link to Parliament rather than the Executive.

In the King’s Speech—this is my final point—we heard this morning a programme outlined that gives an obvious vehicle for putting this matter right: the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross Status Bill, which is designed to change the status of those two organisations. That is therefore the obvious place to include a short amendment to the legislation necessary to change the status of the Committee’s organisation as well. I hope that we can work across party boundaries to ensure that the resources and the independence of the staff of the Intelligence and Security Committee can now be secured after a difficult time in which the excellent staff have helped to produce many important reports. However, they should not have to be looking over their shoulders with a problem of this sort.

July 18, 2024
Julian Lewis – 2023 Speech on Holocaust Memorial Day

The speech made by Sir Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP for New Forest East, in the House of Commons on 26 January 2023.

In a debate featuring successive powerful speeches, the one that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) has to rank among the most powerful, and I congratulate her on it. I also congratulate the Holocaust Educational Trust, because it is a sign of its success that in these debates, held year after year, such enormously influential contributions are made by new generations of MPs such as the hon. Lady, who I believe has been in the House only since 2019. Clearly the process is working.

I have spoken in two of these debates previously. I find that, as I age, time seems to race along more and more quickly, so it was with surprise that I found that it was fully 10 years ago that I last told the story of two ordinary people caught up in the holocaust. I think I may be forgiven for telling it again, after this lapse of time; I have the permission of my researcher, Nina Karsov.

Some people may see Nina around the Estate, not particularly noticing anything about this petite lady that would ever make them think that, at the age of two, she was thrown by her parents from a train on its route to Treblinka in an attempt to save her life. Somehow the three of them leapt from the train. There was deep snow. Nina, a toddler, landed in it and was badly frostbitten. Her mother was killed instantly in leaping from the train, and it took her father some time to find her in the snow. They got back to Warsaw, and were taken in by separate gallant Polish non-Jewish families.

When the Nazis were closing in on the part of Warsaw where the father was in hiding, he, in order to protect those people who would have been killed if they had been caught with him in hiding, made his way across the square to the top of another building and threw himself off it so that he could not be forced to divulge where he had been kept. Nina, however, was kept safely through the war, and many years later, was able to secure for the lady she called her Polish mother recognition amongst “the righteous”, which was clearly an honour richly deserved. It has to be said that both her Polish mother and Nina herself were then persecuted by the communist regime, Nina spending two years of a three-year sentence in a communist jail before Amnesty International successfully campaigned for her to come to this country. So that is one ordinary person whom one might bump into on the Commons Estate without knowing much about her.

One person who cannot be bumped into on the Estate is my cousin Chana Broder, who now lives in Israel. Chana, her parents Abraham and Rachel, and her grandmother Rivka were holed up in a ghetto in Siemiatycze in November 1942 when they were tipped off that the ghetto was about to be cleared, so they made a run for it. The grandfather was killed, but the other four got away. They were turned away from one place after another, and eventually somebody gave them shelter for a little while, but the people who saved those four lives, as I told the House on a previous occasion, were the Kryński family.

The father was Konstanty, the mother was Bronisława and the children were Krystyna and Henryk. They were a poor farming family, and they had known my cousins before the war. My cousins had had a little convenience store in the main square of Siemiatycze, and I visited it a few years ago—it is now a flower shop. The Kryński parents went to the shop in the days before the war and, because they were very constrained economically, my cousins would sometimes say, “Mr and Mrs Kryński, take what you need for now and pay us when you can,” little imagining that, a few years later, those acts of simple kindness would be rewarded by an act of outstanding bravery.

The Kryńskis took them in for months. They hid them while their farm was occasionally searched by German troops, and they got away with it because they had constructed a bunker underneath a barn, in which the grandmother, the two young parents and my four-year-old cousin, Chana, were able to stay throughout the day. They could not stand up, so they would just sit and wait until they could come out at night.

This went on for months, until the Russians overran the area. The family were able to get out, and they were then taken in by Canada. The grandmother sadly passed away very soon after liberation, but the young parents and the little girl were able to go to Montreal, where my cousin graduated from McGill University. Both she and her mother subsequently moved to Israel, and she is still alive today.

Chana’s mother’s book, originally published in 1967 as “Out of the Depths” because of how the family had hidden underground, was republished in 2020 as part of the Azrieli Foundation’s holocaust survivors’ memoirs programme as “Daring to Hope.” For anyone who is interested in seeing how one ordinary family came through an extraordinary experience with the help of outstandingly brave people—the Kryński family were honoured with the presentation of the Righteous Among the Nations award in Siemiatycze on 24 May 2016—it is all there in black and white.

I hope not to have to tell this story again for another 10 years, and I do not think I will, because this debate has been so well informed by so many MPs of older and younger generations that we are in no danger at all of forgetting what happened.

January 30, 2023
Julian Lewis – 2023 Speech on Lifeboat Services – Search and Rescue

The speech made by Sir Julian Lewis, the Conservative MP for New Forest East, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 10 January 2023.

It is a privilege to take part in this debate, and our thanks are due to my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for making that possible.

We all come to an awareness of volunteer lifeboat crews in different ways. In my case, it was as a schoolboy growing up in Swansea. I remember in the 1950s visiting the Mumbles lifeboat and noting its unusual name. It was called the William Gammon, and it was in later years that I learned the reason for that. It was named after a particularly heroic coxswain of a previous lifeboat—a man who had been awarded a bronze and a gold medal for incredibly brave rescues in 1941 and 1944, but lost his life, together with seven colleagues in his crew, in the great disaster of 23 April 1947, when a former Liberty ship, the SS Samtampa, broke up off Sker Point off the coast of south Wales.

I remember going to the reference library on a research project and looking at the South Wales Evening Post report of that disaster. The headline—I think I am right in rendering it—said: “One terrible tragedy after another in the channel”. It showed the upturned lifeboat and the wrecked ship. That image has never left me. It is a tradition of which everybody who volunteers to serve in lifeboats is all too aware.

In those days, one had to go back to the newspapers to try to relive the experiences and heroism of the lifeboat crews, but today we have modern media. If colleagues on both sides of the Chamber take away only one thought from my brief contribution, it should be this: I urge them to go online and have a look at a BBC documentary called “Cruel Sea”. They can find it on YouTube. It was made in 2006 to mark the 25th anniversary of another disaster—the loss of the Penlee lifeboat. It is a quite extraordinary piece of television; they will never forget it, and I advise them to have a box of Kleenex tissues by their side. I have seen it several times, and I always find it hard to maintain my composure.

The documentary is about the way in which that crew and its coxswain, the late Trevelyan Richards, went out to try to rescue eight people on a vessel, the Union Star, whose engines had failed and was drifting toward the rocks. It contains the actual recordings of the messages that went back from the Penlee lifeboat to the command station, which tried to communicate with the boat. At one point—this was watched by a helicopter crew who were powerless to intervene but saw everything—the crew had managed to get four of the eight people off the ship. The waves were 60 foot high. The Penlee lifeboat was lifted up and actually came down on the deck of the ship it was trying to save the crew from, before being washed off. The crew went back one last time to try to get the last four people, and at that point they were lost.

The thought that remains with me is the calmness of the voice of Trevelyan Richards in moments of extreme peril, right up to the point at which the radio goes silent and we just hear the command station calling, “Penlee lifeboat, Penlee lifeboat, come in.” Of course, it never could. It is an unforgettable programme. It is a great tradition that, to this day, comes down to independent lifeboats such as Solent Rescue, which operates from Lepe in my constituency, and to RNLI stations such as RNLI Calshot. It operates with a 112-foot tower at Calshot Spit, with the aid of the National Coastwatch Institution, spotting the people who get into difficulties in the Solent. Frankly, these are the finest people we will ever know. I do not think I can say anything further than that.

January 16, 2023
Julian Lewis – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Lewis on 2015-11-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy not to levy telephone charges for enquirers to the International Enquiry Service in addition to the standard rate until such time as the free alternative methods of contacting the organisation are working reliably.

James Brokenshire

The Home Office will continue to charge for telephone calls to the International Enquiry Service. Customers can access a range of information on our application processes for free through our pages on gov.uk. The Home Office works closely with the Government Digital Service to review and improve our guidance on gov.uk.

January 1, 2023
Julian Lewis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Lewis on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assistance his Department gives to former service personnel who are approached by officers of the Police Service of Northern Ireland investigating allegations of criminal behaviour during the Troubles; whether such assistance is given before or after that person has been charged; and if he will make a statement.

Penny Mordaunt

In accordance with its normal policy, the Department funds the provision of legal advice to current or former Service personnel whose conduct in the course of their duties in Northern Ireland is being investigated by the police with a view to possible prosecution. This support includes the services of a barrister wherever necessary. The support will be available from the point at which the individual is notified that the police wish to interview him or her as a suspect, which will of course be before any charge, and will continue until the determination of the proceedings. In addition, the Department works closely with Regimental Associations and other Service and veterans’ welfare organisations to ensure the provision of appropriate pastoral support.

January 1, 2023
Julian Lewis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Lewis on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the implications for the technological competitiveness of the UK of the proposed takeover of ARM Holdings by the Japanese company Softbank; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Nick Hurd

The UK remains open for business and we welcome firms that want to invest in growth here. The UK’s technological innovations, skilled workforce and competitive business environment make it one of the world’s best destinations for investment.

ARM Holdings is a highly respected company who have achieved great things: working with the UK’s Takeover Panel, Softbank have published a set of clear and binding undertakings, including that ARM’s global headquarters would remain in Cambridge and that the UK workforce would at least double if the acquisition is finalised. This provides reassurance that ARM would continue to develop leading-edge technology in the UK as part of the UK technology industry.

January 1, 2023
Julian Lewis – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Prime Minister

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Lewis on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Prime Minister, with reference to oral statement of 26 November 2015, which main groups comprise the 70,000 moderate fighters in Syria he referred to in that statement; what estimate the Government has made of the number of fighters in each such group; and what the political and religious description is of each such group.

Mr David Cameron

We estimate that there are around 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters on the ground who do not belong to extremist groups, many of whom are linked to the Free Syrian Army. In addition to these 70,000, there are around 20,000 Kurdish fighters in Syria, who are also playing an important role in combating ISIL. The information we have on individual groups which forms the basis of this estimate is drawn in large part from intelligence. It would not be to the benefit of these non-extremist opposition fighters if we were to make it public to ISIL and the Syrian regime. We have very close intelligence relationships with a range of allies and partners, and share assessments with them as a matter of course.

January 1, 2023
Julian Lewis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Lewis on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what assurance the Government has given to (a) former members of Irish terrorist organisations and (b) former service personnel on any continuing liability to prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the Troubles; and if she will make a statement.

Mrs Theresa Villiers

Criminal investigations and prosecutions throughout the United Kingdom are matters for the police and prosecuting authorities acting independently of the Government and politicians. If there is considered to be evidence or intelligence of involvement in crime, individuals will be investigated by the police. That applies equally to everyone, without fear or favour.

As I made clear in my response to Lady Justice Hallett’s report on the so-called ‘On-the-Runs’ scheme established by the former Labour Government there is no immunity from prosecution for terrorists in Northern Ireland. This Government believes in the rule of law and we would not countenance amnesties or immunity from prosecution.

January 1, 2023