Speeches by Lewell.

“Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.”

“Order. The debate may now continue until 4.55 pm.”

“Order.”

“On resuming—”

“On resuming—”

“I genuinely respect my friend the shadow Minister, but seriously, defence was hollowed out in his party’s time in government. Our safety is the primary responsibility of any Government, and more must be spent on our defence. However, that should not come at the expense of pensioners and people with disabilities receivi…”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention—possibly one of the nicest interventions I have ever had in this place. I hope that if those children I worked with are listening now, they will know that I have honoured my word to them. It may have taken me a decade and they will now be adults, but I sincerely ho…”

“A decade ago, I raised the heartbreak that siblings in the care system suffer when they are separated and have no contact with each other. My aim was simply to create parity in legislation, by extending the requirement for a looked-after child’s reasonable contact with their parents to contact with their siblings or ha…”

“What does “walk out as part of a policy” mean?”

“Is it a private phone, or are these phones all in public places? My understanding is that, initially when you join the college, you cannot leave for a number of days and you are restricted in when you are allowed your mobile phone. So again, my point is: where would I go and what would I do if I had been sexually assau…”

“The Ofsted process is slightly different for you. I am an ex-children’s social worker, so I know what these inspections look like. I would say that the inspections that have been held at the college are very different from those that would be held at any other residential establishment for children. I just point that o…”

“Do you know when her report is due?”

“I am sorry to interrupt you, Sam, and I do not want to go around in circles, but would they have access to a computer? We could go on all day, but I am just trying to get to the practicalities. There is clearly something not right; the data does not back up. There is something clearly going awry at the college, because…”

“My question is directed to you, General Walker, and it is about the Army Foundation College at Harrogate, where junior soldiers, 16 to 18-year-old children, are trained. We as a Committee have visited the college, so my line of questioning today is no reflection on the impressive young people we met or the staff there.…”

“I was referring to the Children’s Commissioner, who has statutory rights and would visit any other residential college. I think it would be good if she could visit, because it does look like there is a two-tier system for the military college compared with other residential colleges for children.”

“I do not wish to interrupt you, General Walker, but some of the safeguarding notifications concerned staff at the college, so that was not young people but staff. This is what I am trying to get to the nub of. The data does not bear out that things have improved there, and if I was a young woman studying or training at…”

“I am interested in whether the general knows, because it is the general’s remit.”

“And the safeguarding alerts in the other residential colleges are nowhere near as high as this. I do not want to hog time, Chair, but I think it is important to put that down.”

“But how far down the line? The data that we requested from the MoD is not forthcoming on this. Had they been subjected to further abuse before it eventually got reported? We don’t know.”

“But 89 of the referrals to North Yorkshire safeguarding are about staff. Again, if I could not go to those staff, because it was one of those staff—”