G20 Summit

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously it is difficult to be in two places at once, so I did the G20 and the Deputy Prime Minister was at the Rio+20 summit. We discussed it a great deal in advance, and I think it did make some useful progress in terms of sustainable goals. I am also going to be working, through this high-level panel to which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed me, to make sure that we put in place the right replacements for the millennium development goals and that they take into account sustainable concerns as well.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that events in the eurozone have predictably proven that the creation of the single European currency was a disastrous mistake?

[The Prime Minister]

It would have been a mistake for us to join the single currency, because we did not want to give up the necessary sovereignty to make a single currency work. We have to respect the fact that there are countries in the eurozone that want to make it work, and we have to allow them that opportunity. It would clearly be in our interests if we had a working single currency on our doorstep, rather than a dysfunctional one, which, I am afraid, is slightly what we have at the moment. So we have to make our own choices, and other EU countries must make their own choices, but the key point—this is where I agree with my hon. Friend —is that a single currency will not work unless it has at least the underpinnings that other single currencies, such as our own, have: a central bank right behind it; a means of supporting the weaker parts of the union at various times; and some sort of joint debt issuance. Those are the sort of things that all single currencies, the world over, have. To that extent, I agree with him.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

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

Can the Prime Minister reassure the House that we are getting maximum value for money, in these cash-strapped times, from the office of the independent adviser?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The situation with Abu Qatada is completely unacceptable. As I said when I went to Strasbourg to make a speech to the Council of Europe about this issue, it is not acceptable that we end up with a situation where we cannot try, detain or deport someone in our country who threatens to do us harm. That is why the Government will do everything they can, working with our Jordanian friends and allies, to make sure that he can be deported. Again, instead of the hon. Gentleman sniping about this, the whole House ought to unite to help sort this out.

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

As recently as last September, only a tiny handful of the 165 acute mental health adult in-patient beds in Hampshire were vacant, yet the trust concerned proposes to cut those 165 beds to 107, replacing them with something called a hospital at home, or a virtual ward. Given my belief that the statistics on which that decision is based are inconsistent and unreliable, will the Prime Minister support my call for independent experts from the Audit Commission to look at those figures before those beds are closed?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, we are putting extra resources into the NHS, but there needs to be a clear series of tests—as there is now under our plans—before any facilities are changed or closed. That is about ensuring that there is GP backing for what is proposed, and ensuring that any such changes will improve the health of the area. I will happily look at the issue that my hon. Friend raises, and ensure that the Department of Health engages on it with him.

Informal European Council

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Thank you very much—you are so charitable.

On unemployment, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) is absolutely right. There was a very good and strong discussion in the European Council and it is really worth looking in particular at examples of countries that have lower youth unemployment than Britain—there are many with higher youth unemployment —to see what lessons we can learn from them.

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

Does the Prime Minister agree that the question of European bail-outs would be much less likely to arise if different countries with different economies had different currencies? Will he therefore recommend this tried-and-tested model for the eurozone countries?

[The Prime Minister]

We have a very strong view in this country that we should keep our own currency, but that does not let us off the need for fiscal discipline, proper monetary policy and keeping inflation under control. It is not a free lunch or a free ride. We have to take tough decisions, but clearly we have to show some respect for the 17 eurozone countries that want to make the euro work. It is no good wishing away what is there. The responsible thing to do is not to stand in their way when they are trying to put out the fire in their own house, but to ensure that they do so in a way that does not threaten our national interests. That is exactly what I have done.

Individual Voter Registration

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is right to remind the House that in 2002, when individual electoral registration was introduced in Northern Ireland, there was a huge fall of 11% in the number of people on the register. I hope that this Government, like the previous Government, have learned the lessons of those changes. I shall come to that point shortly, if he will allow me.

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

This is a genuine inquiry: will the right hon. Gentleman inform the House whether a significant proportion of that 11% subsequently rejoined the register, or whether very few did, which would suggest that the 11% were not entirely genuine in the first place?

[Sadiq Khan]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman raises a good question. The evidence from the experts is that of the 11% who were taken off the register about 5% should not have been on there. There has been increased integrity in the Northern Irish system but there has also been continued instability. Those who were originally taken off but should not have been have not come back on as quickly as we would have hoped. One reason for that was that there was not the carry forward—but I shall come to later.

To be fair to the Deputy Prime Minister, he has already confirmed one concession—that the Government are minded not to pursue the so-called opt-out, which would have allowed people effectively to exclude themselves permanently from the electoral register. We welcome that and are looking for more movement from the Government. In that spirit, we have called this debate—so that the Government can hear, at a relatively early stage in the process, some of the concerns that experienced colleagues on both sides of the House have about the Bill.

I remind the House that it was the previous Labour Government who legislated to introduce individual voter registration, with cross-party support. The Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 made provision for the phased introduction of a system of voluntary individual registration up to 2015 and compulsory registration thereafter. The full and final move to an individual voter registration system would not take place until after 2015, the intention being to pace the transition, allowing the Electoral Commission to monitor registration levels adequately and guarding against any adverse decline in the size of the roll. There was genuine cause for a cautious, phased introduction. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) has already referred to the Northern Irish experience, but when Northern Ireland shifted to individual voter registration in 2002, there was an 11% drop in the size of the electoral roll. In the aftermath of that dip, lessons were learned from Northern Ireland’s experiences which were built into our phased approach, complete with safeguards.

The 2009 Act received cross-party support. The individual voter registration provisions—in particular, the timetable and the phased introduction—came in for particular praise. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who now sits on the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, but who was then the Conservative shadow Minister, said:

“I am very pleased to have the opportunity to put it on the record once and for all that we agree with the Government that the accuracy, comprehensiveness and integrity of the register and…the system is paramount. That is one of the reasons why we will not oppose the timetable the Minister has suggested this evening…the Electoral Commission, electoral registration officers and others who will be involved in the implementation of the Government’s current plans are concerned that this should not be rushed, but taken step by step to ensure that the integrity of the system is protected”.

She also made a commitment that

“any future Conservative Government would never take risks with the democratic process. They would take absolutely no risks with the integrity or comprehensiveness of the register or with its accuracy.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 108-109.]

The then Lib Dem spokesperson, the former Member for Cambridge, David Howarth, said:

“I do not think that anybody was suggesting that the timetable be artificially shortened, or that any risk be taken with the comprehensiveness of the register.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 112.]

I am afraid that some of this Government’s proposals renege on the cross-party support for the 2009 legislation, raising suspicions—fairly or unfairly—about the motives behind the shift in policy. Somehow, during that frenzied period of coalition building in 2010, the coalition agreement conjured up a specific commitment on individual voter registration, saying:

“We will reduce electoral fraud by speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration.”

That expediting of the process was new, having been in neither of the coalition parties’ manifestos.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s conclusion, which is that we should try to maximise the number of eligible voters—obviously, people who are on the register are entitled to vote—but I do not agree that individual registration is likely to reduce that number. To return to the matter of Northern Ireland—I shall expand on this later—given what we now know about the register in Great Britain, which is that about 85% of voters are registered, that register is in no better shape than that in Northern Ireland, where individual registration has already been introduced, as have a number of measures on continuous registration, such as data matching, which we propose to have at the same time. There is good evidence that if individual voter registration is introduced properly, with some of those other measures, a register may be achieved that is both more accurate and more complete than the one we have today.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

In general, I am happy with my hon. Friend’s proposals, but the one thing in the Opposition motion that strikes me is the abolition of the sanction if people do not register. We do not believe in compulsory voting, but up to now we have always believed in compulsory registration. Will he reassure us on that specific point?

[Mr Harper]

Let me come to that point in a moment, because I want to spend a little time on it, if I may. If my hon. Friend does not think that I have addressed it, I shall be happy to take another intervention from him.

Let me run through one or two parts of the motion that are defective, and which lead me to urge my hon. Friends to oppose it. I hope that I shall do so with the same tone with which the right hon. Member for Tooting introduced it. It is true that we supported the proposals for individual registration in the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, but it is worth reminding the House that the previous Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to include them. They were not in the Bill when it was introduced in the House of Commons, which is why we voted for a reasoned amendment. In fact, they were not in the Bill at all when it left the House of Commons, although by that stage the Labour Government had made a commitment to include them, and they were introduced in the other place.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude), who was leading for us on the issue at the time, said:

“I am glad that at the eleventh hour the Government have, at last, agreed to move ahead with individual voter registration, albeit in what still seems to be a lamentably leisurely time scale. They committed to the principle of individual voter registration many years ago, but a bit like St. Augustine, they seem to be saying, ‘Make me chaste, but not yet.’”—[Official Report, 2 March 2009; Vol. 488, c. 695.]

My right hon. Friend made it clear that we approved of the decision to proceed with individual registration, which we thought could be accomplished earlier. We said that it would be our intention to do so, but that is not what the right hon. Gentleman said. On page 47 of our 2010 manifesto we made a commitment to

“swiftly implement individual voter registration”.

It is not fair—or, at least, it leaves out something quite important—to say that there was complete cross-party consensus on that measure.

EU Council

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that I did not at any stage walk out of the meeting. What I did was to press Britain’s interests as a British Prime Minister should.

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

Now that the Prime Minister has cast his vote on Europe so effectively in Brussels, does he think there is any chance that the British people might one day have an opportunity to do something similar over here?

[The Prime Minister]

I wondered how long we would take to reach that issue. I believe that this is the most important use of a referendum: if there is a proposal for this House of Commons, or any Government, to pass powers from this House to somewhere else, we should ask the British people first. That, for me, in a parliamentary democracy, is the right use of a referendum. However, as we are not signing a treaty, I think that the whole issue of a referendum does not arise.

G20

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In the interests of accommodating more colleagues, I now appeal for single, short supplementary questions and the Prime Minister’s characteristically pithy replies.

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

Why does the Prime Minister seem to think that the Greeks will be any more successful at staying in the euro than we were at trying to remain in the ERM?

[The Prime Minister]

One of the few advantages of the ERM was that you were able to get out of it, but one of the issues with the euro is that there is not a mechanism, properly and legally, for leaving it. If a country wanted to leave the euro, of course it could, but in the end this is an issue for the Greeks. They have to decide: do they accept the deal on the table that cuts their debt, and stay in the euro, or do they take a different path? The point I have been making is that they have to make up their mind for the rest of the world to move on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

To stick to the point that arises from the question that was initially asked, I can assure the hon. Lady that there is no difference of view between my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and myself on this matter. As she will be aware, in 2003, the previous Government introduced the power for magistrates to increase sentences as part of custody plus, but were never able to implement it because, I think, they were concerned about the rise in the prison population. There remains an issue of debate about the value of increasing those powers. It would undoubtedly put more cases into the magistrates courts, but at the same time it would run the risk of increasing the prison population. The problems remain much as they were under the previous Government. My right hon. and learned Friend has therefore taken the decision that it is best to keep this power in reserve, even though the way it is expressed at the moment is by no means perfect—it is linked to custody plus in the Criminal Justice Act 2003—and to consult thereafter on whether it could be brought into operation profitably to improve the working of the criminal justice system or might have to be replaced by a similar provision that was not linked or worded in the way that it is at present.

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

Is it correct that, on average, magistrates have imposed significantly longer sentences for offences committed in the context of the riots? If it is correct, does my right hon. and learned Friend welcome that, as I do, and will he confirm that magistrates are absolutely right to take the context in which certain offences are committed into consideration when determining sentences?

[The Attorney-General]

The courts always take the context in which an offence is committed into consideration in determining the appropriate sentence. Few people would disagree with the principle that it is a serious aggravating feature if an offence is committed in the midst of riotous assembly and general mayhem. As usual, if for any reason the courts have passed a sentence that is excessive or inappropriate in any way, it can be reviewed by the Court of Appeal. I am afraid that I cannot help my hon. Friend on the precise statistics. Quite apart from anything else, many cases are still coming into the courts in respect of behaviour and crime committed during the riots, and it is far too early to make a final assessment.

Libya

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2011 Commons Chamber

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

As well as the Gibson inquiry, does the Prime Minister see a role for the Intelligence and Security Committee in investigating the allegation, which if true would be shameful and shocking, that Britain had a part in handing suspects over to the Gaddafi regime, even in the context of 2003?

[The Prime Minister]

It is absolutely a matter for the Intelligence and Security Committee what it examines, but I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) will want to look closely at those allegations. As I say, I do not think that any of us should rush to judgment. We have to remember the situation that the world and this country were in post 9/11, when there was a real concern about people who wanted to damage our country. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was allied with al-Qaeda. It is not any more and has separated itself from that organisation. Let us allow the inquiries to take their course and not rush to judgment.

Afghanistan

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised this issue. Obviously, as the constituency MP, I take a close interest in it. I have tried to allow for the greatest possible consultation with the armed forces, the MOD and local councils in Carterton town and across West Oxfordshire district council. I believe that we have arrived at a sensible route with a far better centre for families within the airbase. Money is also being spent on a proper memorial garden where families will be able to show their respects to their loved ones. A lot of thought has gone into this, and of course we must keep it under review and ensure that it is done in the right way. However, there is sometimes a great danger—whether it is the local MP or the Prime Minister—of stepping in without allowing people to determine what is a good outcome that will be well done. Let us see how it works in practice before we jump to conclusions here.

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

If we are to achieve a political settlement involving the Taliban, there must be an incentive for the Taliban to negotiate. At the moment, however, there is no such incentive. Has the Prime Minister received any indication from our American allies that they are contemplating the preservation of a long-term strategic base and bridgehead area in the region that would demonstrate to the Taliban, in any future Government in which they participate, that the return of al-Qaeda or other international terrorist organisations would not be tolerated and could easily be punished?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. However, I think that there is an incentive to join a political process, because Taliban mid and high-level leaders are being killed in ever larger numbers. Actually, we are now seeing, in some cases, lowering morale among the Taliban within Afghanistan because their “brave” mid and high-level leaders are cowering over the border in Pakistan. That is what has happened, and we need to keep up that pressure. Of course we need to work with the Afghans so that they have the long-term capability to go on dealing with the insurgency, if it continues—even in a minor way—along the lines that he suggests. However, no one should think that the Taliban are not under pressure; they are under huge pressure because of the surge and the effectiveness of the operations in which we are also engaged.