Speeches by Lewell.

“I have watched this whole sorry saga play out for weeks now. Like the public, I feel let down, disappointed and angry. Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed. That was a fundamental failure of judgment. Matthew Doyle should never have been given a peerage. That was also a failure of judgment. I feel the way t…”

“Order. The sitting is suspended for a Division in the House.”

“The sitting is resumed. The debate may now continue until 4.15 pm. I call Chris Kane.”

“Order.”

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

“Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.”

“On resuming—”

“Order. Could the hon. Member reassure me that there are no ongoing legal proceedings in relation to the case he is referring to?”

“Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.”

“On resuming—”

“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…”

“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…”

“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 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…”

“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…”

“Do you know when her report is due?”

“These are children, General.”

“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.”

“I do not want to hog any more time, General Walker, but I am not convinced that if something had happened to me of a sexually abusive nature, as a young recruit in that college, I would know where to go and I would have the confidence to go to somebody. Do you not feel that there is a two-tier system compared with othe…”