Speeches by Lewis.

“I am very sorry, but that answer did not address the question of principle. The fact is that, unless the Secretary of State’s chum, Professor Sands, and three other equally distinguished professors of law were mistaken, there is no reason in principle—regardless of how flawed he, and the courts, even, may think the pre…”

“May I remind the Secretary of State that, at a hearing in 2017, the Defence Committee took evidence from four distinguished professors of law, including Philippe Sands, with whose work he is no doubt very familiar, and they made it very clear to us that in principle there was nothing illegal about having a statute of l…”

“The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. His thesis seems to be that, because the direct hunting of foxes was made illegal, trail hunting is being us as a cover for it. What would happen if he had his way and trail hunting was banned as well? Would it not then be possible for drag hunting to be used in …”

“The Secretary of State will be aware from the Second Reading debate in the Lords that a number of what I shall gently refer to as Eurosceptic peers have expressed concerns that the Bill is a form of dynamic alignment with the European Union, and that, far from taking back control over which standards are involved and w…”

“Two of the four ugly totalitarian sisters have been included in the list so far, and I trust that China and North Korea will both be added to the enhanced tier in the fullness of time; but will the Minister take back to the Government the message that the House is concerned about the building of the biggest Chinese com…”

“Given the recent love-in between Washington and Moscow, it is hardly surprising that the killer in the Kremlin is encouraging all his sidekicks to stir up trouble in areas such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. Are the Government aware of and keeping under very close scrutiny other potential areas where allies of Mr Putin can…”

“May I give the Minister some friendly advice and suggest that he does not try to write this off as a little local difficulty? I am half expecting to hear him use the phrase, “Crisis, what crisis?” He cannot be blamed for not remembering the winter of discontent—using the wonders of Wikipedia, I see that it happened a y…”

“Can the Minister explain a bit more about the mechanism by which any aid donated in this country will reach people on the ground in Myanmar? Particularly given the airstrikes we have heard about, it is hard to imagine how such aid would get to areas that are currently under attack by the regime.”

“That is exactly right. The problem is that people are going back for partial remediation time and time again, and it is not achieving the desired outcome. When we move on to the question of how someone can get financial redress other than by virtue of a Government scheme, we find that of the 1,252 legal cases initiated…”

“I must say, the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards) has done us all a service by outlining in detail one case out of what are understood to be a minimum of 10,000; some estimates put the number of people damaged by mesh as high as 40,000. We should bear that statistic in mind when we think about …”

“I think it is true to say that the author of the Hughes report anticipated that the Government would want to take their time over these matters, but that is why Dr Hughes—and Baroness Cumberlege, I believe, as well—recommended an interim payment. If at least that interim payment could be made, people might be more pati…”

“The Leader of the House will surely agree that when we send our armed forces into dangerous situations, they deserve to be protected against vexatious litigious claims that are ultimately thrown out, but only after great expense, distress and strain. There was a rather inconclusive exchange at Defence questions on Mond…”

“I welcome the Chancellor’s emphasis on defence expenditure and her support for the nuclear deterrent, but does she agree that, by his actions in Ukraine, Putin has restarted the cold war? Will she bear in mind that during the 1980s, up to the end of the cold war, we were regularly spending between 4.5% and 5% of GDP on…”

“I am sorry, but that answer had nothing to do with my question, which was to ask why the Government are ordering the permanent sealing of Britain’s only two shale gas wells. The Government are perfectly entitled on environmental grounds not to exploit such wells in normal conditions, but does the Prime Minister not rec…”

“Q3. For what reason the Government has ordered that the UK’s two shale gas wells be permanently sealed.”

“In this age, when the plot of “The Manchurian Candidate” appears more like a documentary on US politics than a work of fiction, have the Government received any indication that their efforts militarily to support Ukraine would be actively opposed or blocked by the Trump Administration?”

“The shadow Leader of the House referred to his admirable father’s national service in the course of his tribute, and that took place during a cold war that was prevented from turning into the third world war by the presence of American forces in NATO, led by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Up to now, that has alwa…”

“Have the Government received any indication or formed any view about what the current Israeli Government would do if—admittedly against all expectation—Hamas were to release all the hostages forthwith?”

“Does the Secretary of State agree that one of the worst and most intractable problems that the founders of the NHS had to deal with was the involvement of medical practitioners and consultants who were used to receiving a private income in a national service where they would not receive anything like the same remunerat…”

“As a believer in parliamentary democracy, I fully support the Government’s right not to exploit shale gas deposits in the UK on environmental grounds. However, may we have an urgent statement from the appropriate net zero Minister on the Government’s decision from next week to start filling in and putting permanently b…”