Julian Lewis MP (Conservative) MP for New Forest East, Member Intelligence and Security Committee

Contacts

Office:3 The Parade, Southampton Road, Cadnam, SO40 2NG Tel:023 8081 4817

Career

Julian Lewis contested Swansea West 1983 general election. He was a member for New Forest East 1997-2010, for New Forest East (revised boundary) since 6 May 2010 general election. He was also an opposition Whip 2001-02; Shadow Minister for: Defence 2002-04, the Cabinet Office 2004-05, Defence 2005-10. In September 2010, he was appointed to the Intelligence and Security Committee. From November 2002 until May 2010, he was the Shadow Defence Minister for the Royal Navy, the nuclear deterrent and strategic issues. He held this post continuously, except for a period as Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office between September 2004 and the May 2005 General Election.Currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow of the Centre for Defence Studies, in the Department of War Studies, King's College, London,

Education

Julian Lewis read Philosophy and Politics at Oxford before specialising in Strategic Studies.

Issues

Electronic Voting

Electoral Commission Committee - Online Voting 16 December 2002

What assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the implications for privacy of voting of the introduction of online voting.

...

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the reassurance that the commission is aware of the possibilities of abuse, but is it not also the case that the best and most effective forms of abuse are those that are least capable of being detected? If there is good reason for us having separate booths for privacy when we go to the polling stations to cast our vote, surely voting at home online opens up the possibility of undetected fraud whereby pressure is put on some members of a family to vote en bloc in a way that they might not in the privacy of the polling booth.

Open Source

Written question Defence Software Procurement 29 January 2003

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to mandate companies tendering for the supply of future software systems for the Royal Navy to use Open Source Software for the engineered operating systems.