Did you mean addressed speaker:Julian Lewis?
Julian Lewis: A few days ago, after the Leader of the House gave us the good news that she would table a motion to enable the privacy and security of our home addresses to be maintained, an honourable Labour Member approached me and said in all seriousness, "Julian, what do you think about the prospect of establishing a trade union for Members of Parliament?" I think that he had me in mind for the role of...
Julian Lewis: ...for her statement robustly defending the right of Members of Parliament to enjoy the same degree of privacy and security that any other citizen is entitled to enjoy if he wishes to keep his private address private? May I thank her also for drawing attention to my early-day motion 1620, which has so far been signed by 88 hon. and right hon. Members? [That this House believes that the home...
Julian Lewis: ..., supported by the wisdom of the High Court, proposes that we should rely on. I say it again: there is an exemption through which if a particular MP has a special reason for keeping his or her address confidential—because of a stalker, terrorist or other criminal threat—the address may be redacted. Right, let us think about that. Let us take half a dozen female MPs as an example, and...
Julian Lewis: I think that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) has put his finger on a key issue, which I hope to address if I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I should like to press one point in any case. Just because once every four or five years we have to disclose one of our addresses on certain documents to do with elections does not...
Julian Lewis: ...than being put in the position in which they are seeking to put Members of this House. That is why I have, not at all facetiously, put in freedom of information requests asking for the private home addresses of High Court judges in general. Now that we know the names of the three High Court judges who took the decision, my parliamentary assistant has put in a supplementary request for...
Julian Lewis: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission whether incoming mail for hon. Members will continue to be screened at the House after the home addresses of hon. Members have been published; what arrangements will be made to screen incoming mail sent directly to hon. Members' home addresses (a) at those addresses and (b) at the House after re-routing;...
Julian Lewis: .... It was certainly the case that someone would not be able to identify which particular chief executives had received massive salary increases. How would those chief executives like their home addresses to be published? They were so concerned about their privacy and about not getting nasty letters from irate taxpayers, that they did not even want it to be known that they had had such large...
Julian Lewis: ...various Ministers, shadow Ministers and the Electoral Commission, and from a campaign earlier this year. As we are all aware, on 16 May three judges, in their wisdom, ruled that the private home addresses of hon. Members should be published in response to freedom of information requests. That led to a great deal of heart-searching, anguish and concern on the part of Members, 256 of whom...
Julian Lewis: Since I last raised the question of the judges' dangerous decision that MPs' home addresses should all be published, the number of signatories to early-day motion 1620 has risen from 77 to 159. [That this House believes that the home address of any hon. or Rt. hon. Member should not be published if he or she objects to publication on grounds of privacy or personal security. ] Every party in...
Julian Lewis: I am sure that the whole House will be as dismayed as I was that the Minister with responsibility for freedom of information turned down my request for judges' homes addresses to be released on the same day as those of Members of Parliament. He said that that was because "High Court judges...are entitled to a private life and levels of privacy that accord with this", and that releasing their...
Julian Lewis: I hesitate to take up the House's time by further referring to the issue of Members' private home addresses being published, but this is one of the few opportunities available to me to develop the argument, which I shall do in detail. Every hon. Member has a few special skills, some of which are more valuable than others. I have very few special skills, one of which is particularly...
Julian Lewis: ...of a more positive nature about this matter? I was pleased to see that, in publishing some of the material, The Daily Telegraph has been careful to black out such information as Members' home addresses. That is reassuring given that The Sunday Telegraph has been the newspaper that has been arguing for so long that Members' private home addresses should be published to all and sundry. I...
Julian Lewis: Earlier this year, the Leader of the House made a decisive intervention on the question of the confidentiality of Members' home addresses. Will she consider doing the same thing again in the light of the fact that the Ministry of Justice is considering whether in future candidates' addresses at general elections must be revealed when they nominate themselves and on various documents later?...
Julian Lewis: Some 235 right hon. and hon. Members have so far signed early-day motion 1620. [ That this House believes that the home address of any hon. or Rt. hon. Member should not be published if he or she objects to publication on grounds of privacy or personal security. ] It is about the dangerous decision of judges that MPs' home addresses should be published. Will there be an opportunity to...
Julian Lewis: That fine newspaper of record, The Sunday Telegraph, found plenty of space to attack me last week over the freedom of information matter concerning the publication of Members' home addresses, but curiously found no space at all to record the fact that the House had unanimously passed the resolution that those addresses should not be disclosed. I am sure that that had nothing to do with the...
Julian Lewis: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman had many important things to do at the time, but if he had attended some of the earlier debates, he would have heard me address those points in detail. It is not fair to the House for me to go over them again now. Let me put it in a nutshell. First, anyone who wishes to disclose a home address and put it in the phone book can do so—it is a matter for him or...
Julian Lewis: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what account the Minister of State with responsibility for Freedom of Information took of the security implications of disclosure of people's home addresses in preparing the letter dated 2 June to the hon. Member for New Forest, East on such disclosure; whether the security implications were considered as a factor in refusing disclosure of judges'...
Julian Lewis: ...put it to the test. After one of the earlier debates on the subject, I took the liberty of sending the relevant Hansard to each of the three judges, who had, in their wisdom, determined that our addresses should be published en masse. I asked whether I could have their home addresses for future correspondence. Every one politely but firmly declined. There is a postscript. One—the right...
Julian Lewis: This is a rather personal speech, and I apologise for that. Shortly after it became clear that we had won the campaign to prevent MPs' home addresses from being disclosed as a result of future freedom of information requests, an honourable Labour lady Member who had suffered badly from the disclosure of her address approached me with a warning. She said, "Be careful Julian, you will be...
Julian Lewis: To ask the Leader of the House pursuant to her statement of 22 May 2008, Official Report, column 399, on publication of hon. Members' addresses, what assessment she has made of the effect on the (a) personal safety and (b) ability to speak on controversial issues of hon. and right hon. Members if their home addresses are published and accessible; whether she has (i) sought and (ii)...