Speeches by Lewis.

“I hope that the Secretary of State will give a little more consideration to the rather important point raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) about 16 and 17-year-olds not being able to be vaccinated. If any junior doctor—whether or not a member of the BMA, but particularly if a member of the BMA—decides…”

“I welcome the Government’s commitment ultimately to spend 5% of GDP on defence—as we used to do in the cold war years of the 1980s—but not the target date of 2035. Do the Government really believe that there is no threat of attack from Russia on a NATO country for the next 10 years?”

“Is the strategy going to emphasise in any way the role of parents in trying to protect their sons from a torrent of online violent abuse of women, which inevitably is going to distort their attitude to relationships? Schools can do some things, but some things, surely, have to be done within the family?”

“Like every other communist regime that has ever existed, the Chinese Government behave with ruthlessness, impunity and unmitigated mendacity. I therefore welcome the strong words in the statement from the Foreign Secretary, but what Members on both sides of the House wish to see is stronger actions. It is not so much a…”

“I find it rather shocking that when the Secretary of State for Health has offered the BMA leadership an opportunity to strike a few weeks later, they have turned it down, presumably because they prefer to strike at Christmas, when, frankly, lives will be lost as a result. Am I missing something here? Why is it, accordi…”

“I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that running any double agent inside a murderous organisation is bound to be a moral nightmare. The justification for such action is always—as it should be—that many more lives will be saved as a result, even if the agent is implicated in illegal and, indeed, murderous activi…”

“Few of us here today were present in 2003 when the then MP for Keighley, Mrs Ann Cryer—a courageous Labour Member on the left of her party—spoke out about the grooming gangs. For her troubles, she was smeared as a racist, she was shunned and she was threatened to the point at which she had to have safety devices and em…”

“I am afraid that the Minister’s treatment of the 60% figure only tends to confirm my belief that one is better off with the common sense of 12 ordinary people than with one legal professional. [Laughter.] Even she is smiling—good for her. Can she look again at this point? Yes, it is disastrous if 60% of women who alleg…”

“It is fairly clear that my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) is right that this was a predetermined decision, and that the evidence was something for which West Midlands police scrabbled about later, but whatever the outcome of the Minister’s inquiries, whether it turns out, heaven forbid, that the…”

“It is hard to think of a comparable disaster without going back to perhaps the early 1960s and the cancellation successively of Blue Streak and Skybolt. I worry that if and when the decision has to be taken that this platform is not fit to be issued to our armed forces, there will be a huge legal stand-off between the …”

“Have the Government formed a view as to why President Putin—the killer in the Kremlin—chose to target Sergei Skripal after he had been pardoned and exchanged? Nothing that I am saying now derives from my time chairing the Intelligence and Security Committee, but I recall speculation in the press that it was because Mr …”

“I agree entirely with the Chairman of the Committee that reconciliation depends upon uncovering the truth. Does her Committee’s report go into the incompatibility of that aim with the reinstatement of trials that the previous legacy Act would have prevented, given that when people face the prospect of being put on tria…”

“One of the advantages of being called at a late stage of the debate is that I can put my hand on my heart and truthfully say that every single speech in this debate so far has been outstandingly good. I have agreed with virtually every word of every one of them, and looking at the calibre of the remaining people, inclu…”

“Has the hon. Gentleman noticed that point 26 of the 28-point Witkoff plan is a general amnesty for everyone? That would mean that whoever committed the most atrocious war crimes would never be held accountable at all.”

“One way in which we could continue to lead would be by giving a very firm commitment that if the frontlines are indeed frozen, a coalition of the willing would have military assets on the ground, at the invitation of unoccupied Ukraine, so that there could be no question but that a future attack would trigger a respons…”

“The Government seem to be keen to maximise the gravity of the OBR’s accidental leak while minimising the gravity of the Chancellor’s deliberate leaks. The Minister has twice frankly admitted not being aware of the case of Labour Chancellor Hugh Dalton, who resigned for inadvertently leaking to a journalist a single sen…”

“Having previously read out in this Chamber the relevant section of the Official Secrets Act 1911, I am pleased that the report concludes that the decision not to prosecute under the terms of that Act flies in the face of common sense. What also flies in the face of common sense is the Government’s previous position tha…”

“President Trump would no doubt argue that there is a parallel between this situation and George Bush senior’s invasion of Panama in late 1989, but does the Minister agree with me that it will be interesting to see, if something like this goes ahead, what sort of outcry there is from either Russia or China? If there is …”

“The Minister has indeed been most accessible, and I am extremely grateful to him for the meeting he held with members of the ExxonMobil pensioners group. I am still being lobbied very hard by ExxonMobil pensioners who are concerned that whereas changes introduced in the Budget will benefit members of the FAS and PPF sc…”

“The problem, as the Minister knows from our meeting, is that the trustees are rather hemmed in by not having the leverage or the freedom to act if the company itself—particularly if it is headquartered abroad—is disinclined to pass on any surpluses that it might have available.”