Sir Edward Leigh
MP for Gainsborough · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Those of us who love the Jewish people and faith know that the reason why they have overcome all the empires that have tried to destroy them is that they are primarily people of the book and not the sword, but what is happening in the west bank is violent and egregious.”
“I am grateful to the Secretary of State for looking again at Lincolnshire. I made the point to her predecessor that the proposal for a Greater Lincolnshire authority was, in the eyes of many people, just a gerrymander. Will she look again at it and stop dividing West Lindsey and North Kesteven in half?”
“If the centre does not take action, nasty extremes will take over. The fact is that we are in acute danger. These people can now launch from anywhere on the north French coast and are escorted to our shores. Frankly, we are being invaded, and the public are completely fed up.”
“May I congratulate the Prime Minister on what he said about Ukraine and on how he conducted himself there? Our enemies should know that this House is completely and utterly united in standing behind the Ukrainian people.”
“What concerns me is the jobs of my constituents who work at Scunthorpe. That is all I am worried about; I have no ideological objection. If it is what is needed now, fair enough. As long as the blast furnaces are totally uneconomic because of high energy costs, however, it can only be a sticking plaster.”
“One of the poorest wards in the entire country is Gainsborough south-west ward. Why is the Secretary of State splitting West Lindsey in half? Why is he taking Scampton away from Gainsborough? It makes no sense. Why is he cutting away the nuclear fusion site from Lincoln?”
The complete record
Every one of 6,092 lines we hold for Sir Edward Leigh, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 10 of 122.
“I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a particular point of view, but what I am trying to explain to the House is that the convention was never intended to apply to immigration. The refugee convention applied to it, and under the refugee convention we can export criminals. It is judges who have extended the European convention on human rights. Unless we persuade the Court to change, I am afraid that if we want to solve this problem—if we want to stop people coming across the channel, and if we want to detain and deport—in the end we will have to grasp the nettle and get out of the European convention on human rights.”
“Then they have come up with a ridiculous figure of £24 million. How could it cost £24 million to build a bridge? This is only a small country station with just one footbridge. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham campaigned for years for a bridge, did he not? And he got it for far less—£1 million, was it not?”
“Perhaps once in 100 years there might be some sort of injury; in fact I doubt whether there would ever be any injury. So, why are we stopping the whole service because, apparently, the existing pedestrian access could be blocked? It is funny—the operators never give an explanation. They say, “Oh, we now have a problem with the disabled access and it must be in a certain part of the train.” But surely there are solutions. This is a sort of not-can-do attitude, which is driving the country crazy. Whenever we write to bodies such as Network Rail, instead of their having the attitude of, “Let’s work together, let’s make this work,” once again we get fobbed off with ridiculous excuses and they never actually explain their actions. Then they say, “We have got to build a bridge.” All right, they build a bridge.”
“I go all over the country and I see trains stop at short platforms, and they announce, “Will you please go to the first four carriages because it’s a short platform?” Then we got the excuse that if the Azuma train stopped at Market Rasen, it would somehow cover the pedestrian crossing, which is apparently unacceptable. Is somebody going to try to go across the railway line and climb underneath the train to get to it, stopped at the platform? It is ridiculous. I am not sure that it is even possible to climb underneath a train. Are people going to sprint down the track, leaving the platform altogether, to get round the back of the train? This is all just ludicrous. There is absolutely no reason why the train could not stop there, blocking the existing pedestrian access.”
“Yet the Azuma train runs perfectly well to Lincoln and it would make no difference to capacity on the main line if that train carried on to Grimsby via Market Rasen, so that point does not hold. We made some progress eventually and I thought that we finally had a commitment that this train would happen. Indeed, we had a test run in June 2023. I was there—I saw it. Everything worked perfectly smoothly. The train arrived from Grimsby, there was no problem, we had our photograph taken, everybody was very happy, but we have still had no progress. Now we have had this bolt from the blue: it is no longer the capacity point, but apparently we cannot have this train because the platform in Market Rasen is too short and there is no bridge. That is an absurd point.”
“We are talking about a catchment area of a quarter of a million people with no direct train to London. I cannot think of any other country in Europe that would have such a situation for huge conurbations like Grimsby and Cleethorpes and a place like Market Rasen—which is a small station but serves a vast rural area, perhaps 20 miles in every direction, going all the way to Louth. Yet every time we have been to see Ministers with campaigns, over many years, we get fobbed off with every single excuse. I cannot count the number of times we went to see the Transport Minister in the last Government; now I am boring this Minister instead, but I will go on boring him and we will go on making this point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham said, we were first fobbed off with the view that there was no capacity on the main line.”
“I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers), for securing this important debate and for emphasising the national importance of open access. His point about Hull Trains and the opportunity it has given us is very powerful. I want to speak about our little local problem, to which he and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) alluded. Originally, there were two trains every day going up and down to London via Lincoln and Market Rasen, ending up in Grimsby. That was then cut to one train and we were given a solemn promise that that train would never be taken away, but decades ago it was taken away. I have been campaigning for decades to get that service up and running again.”
“There is nothing party political about this matter. What we are doing—the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham and I—is begging the Minister to please intervene to knock some heads together to get this train going and stopping. That is all we ask.”
“I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. This is a serious issue. There is absolutely no reason why the great conurbation of Grimsby and Cleethorpes should not have a direct train to London, and there is no reason why the good people who live in the rural areas around Market Rasen should not have a direct train. What has actually happened—one might argue that this is not really LNER’s fault—is that since we have had the Azuma train going directly from London to Lincoln, our indirect service has got worse. There are more delays and there is a reduced service. It really is hard work to get from that part of my constituency to London. So, enough of excuses. We had a tremendous relationship with the Transport Minister in the last Government and we look forward to our relationship with this Minister in this Government.”
“May I press the Minister further on the issue of transparency? He says that Ministers did not wish to prejudice the trial, but the murderer’s possession of the ricin and the terror manual was revealed before the trial. There is a suspicion that this information was not released within days because there was a feeling in Government that it might inflame racial tensions, but this lack of transparency unfortunately simply fed conspiracy theories. Will the Minister confirm whether Ministers took a conscious decision not to reveal that information, and have they learned the lesson so that in future, should such an outrage occur—which we all hope will never happen again—we can be completely transparent?”
“In my experience, parents have a pretty good instinct for what is a good school, and the great generator of progress has been the academy programme, with headteachers responding to what parents want. We should be giving them more freedom, not less. Is there not a danger that if we create highly complex Ofsted reports with league tables across 40 different areas, we will replace headteachers concentrating on what parents want with a tick-box culture focused on appeasing the man in Whitehall? The solution is not endless auditing but delivering what parents want.”
“I refer the Minister to the last words in her statement, which were that the Government will “ensure that families have lower bills.” There will always be a problem with insulation in a country with a massively degraded and older housing stock, which underlines the vital importance of cheap energy. We have had a month with virtually no wind and no sun, and so-called green energy is producing hardly any of our energy. We are importing energy, we are stopping drilling in the North sea and we are not building gas-fired power stations. What about old people? Their heating allowance has been taken away, and we are crucifying them with ever higher bills. Meanwhile, China—its annual increment in emissions is more than our entire emissions—is going on pumping out emissions, and “Drill, baby” Trump is pumping out emissions.”
“None the less, there has been a growth in appreciation of the architecture of 18th, 19th and 20th-century churches. Indeed, Augustus Pugin, the architect responsible for much of what we see around us, designed many Catholic churches that are now listed. Of the 3,000 Catholic churches in England and Wales, 750 are listed, and many have had their listings upgraded to grade I. I urge the Minister to listen to the debate, concede, and carry on with this wonderful scheme.”
“She obviously speaks very much from the heart. We have some glorious countryside in Lincolnshire. I spent many years as president of the Lincolnshire Ramblers, and one of the great joys of being the MP for Gainsborough is walking in the wolds. The old church at Walesby, which is known as the ramblers’ church, is open to one and all to come and spend a moment of quiet contemplation. Thanks to the efforts of many volunteers, we also have the West Lindsey churches festival every year. Across two weekends this May, 88 churches will be open to the public, completely free of charge, and church volunteers will be present to explain. Public places of Catholic worship were not allowed until 1791, so our medieval churches today are only slightly more than a handful.”
“As pubs, shops and post offices shut, the churches in our villages remain, whether or not services are held regularly. Lincolnshire is not unique in this regard, as colleagues from all over the country know. I want to quote a worshipper and member of the parochial church council at St Chad’s church in Dunholme: “We are all deeply concerned that the above scheme is due to expire in March 2025 and fearful that it may not be extended for another term. I am sure you are well aware of the plight of fund-raising in rural areas in order to maintain and improve Grade I listed buildings plus the absolute need to, to ensure they are there for future generations. We are constantly fund-raising to ensure that our beautiful rural church is fit for purpose to meet the needs of both the community and worshippers”.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) on his speech. As the Government are making a written statement today, this might be one of the shortest and most successful campaigns ever. Churches are one of the great glories of Lincolnshire. We have 124 listed churches in my constituency alone, and I have visited them all—often when I have had a rest from canvassing in the 11 general election campaigns I have fought. The later editions of the Pevsner guides describe Lincolnshire as “incredibly rich in medieval churches from Saxon times onwards, many of them still little known”. In villages and towns up and down the county, there are small churches, often medieval, that are precious works of art. They are also focal points for the community.”
“When I visited St Barnabas hospice in Lincoln recently, the chief executive told me that it was having to pay £350,000 extra every year to cover the national insurance increase. I do not expect an answer now, but as we all agree that palliative care is so important and we want to encourage it, and the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill started its Committee stage today, will the Government keep that increase for hospices under review?”
“Will the Secretary of State forgive me if I give the House a few seconds’ respite from the blame game by trying to make a positive suggestion? Everyone accepts that the real problem facing our hospitals is the number of frail and elderly people who do not need to be in hospital and should be in some sort of care facility. Does the Secretary of State agree that while building brand-new, all-singing, all-dancing hospitals is very expensive, there is a future for smaller cottage hospitals such as the one in Gainsborough and a case for opening other facilities so we can move elderly, frail people out of those big hospitals into a caring environment and free up space?”
“I think the Foreign Secretary has spoken for the whole House today with his tone. I am sure he would agree that it is possible to be four-square behind the Israeli Government in their right to defend themselves and defeat Hamas and at the same time to care about the suffering of the Palestinian people. Will the Foreign Secretary use his charm or whatever influence he has on the incoming Trump Administration to persuade them to use their power to convince the Israeli Government that these illegal new settlements in the west bank must stop, and the pressure on the Palestinian people in the west bank must stop, because it is fuelling a sense of despair and future extremism?”
“T3. Leaving aside whether it is wise to spend £9 billion on giving away what is already yours, given that the Trump Administration is now less than a week away, would it not be wise to wait another week, pause these negotiations, have a quiet word with the incoming American Secretary of State, and then work out what is in our interests and those of our closest ally?”
“On Friday, I went to St Barnabas hospice in Lincoln, our local hospice, which does wonderful work, and talked to its chief executive officer, who is tearing his hair out. Because of the national insurance increase, he is losing £300,000 a year. He pays his nurses less than the local hospital; he has to. He is literally funding the NHS and cutting his own service in the hospice. I beg the Government to think again about the national insurance increase on hospices.”
“On 6 November, the Chancellor said: “We have now set the envelope for spending for this Parliament, and we are not going to be coming back with more tax increases or, indeed, with more borrowing.” I am sure, because the Chancellor is an honourable lady, that she will not be opening that envelope, putting her sticky fingers inside and coming out with more borrowing or tax increases. Will the Minister give an absolute assurance of no more tax increases or borrowing?”
“One of the most impressive aspects of the previous Government was the work instituted by Michael Gove to build on the reforms of Tony Blair, and carried on by successive Secretaries of State, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). Will my right hon. Friend commit the next Conservative Government to reversing these changes and ensuring that we have more choice for headteachers on curriculum, hiring and firing and expulsions so that we bring competition to the schools sector, not the dead hand of a Whitehall bureaucrat?”
“We all know that we live in a parliamentary democracy and that there does not need to be an election until summer 2029. There probably will not be an election before then, however many petitions are produced, but I think it would be foolish to ignore this petition, as an expression of public disappointment and anger. I do not want to be overtly party political, but I do think it would be useful for the Government not just to dismiss the petition as having been cooked up abroad—apparently—or by nefarious anti-democratic forces. I think it would be quite wise to listen to the public. If they are in a black hole—if indeed there is a black hole—I say to the Government: just stop digging. If they have to raise money, there are mechanisms, such as income tax, where—”
“Well, actually, the Liberal party seems to have done very well from this system by focusing its attacks on Conservative constituencies. It seems to have many more seats than the Reform party, for instance, and less votes, but I will leave that aside.”
“We are all going to be more frail in our old age, and to need more and more help. There has to be some sort of political consensus on how we will pay for it, and my own view is that we will have to pay for it through some form of social insurance. My advice to the Government is: you can ignore this petition—of course, you will ignore this petition, in the sense that there will not be a general election—but do not ignore the sense of alienation and frustration that lies behind it.”
“Let us have more solar farms on rooftops or on industrial warehouses, but when people see good agricultural land being taken away from them, with solar panels made by dodgy Chinese companies benefiting large landowners, that again leads to a sense of alienation. Both parties have to listen to the people; they cannot go full-steam ahead with their own policies, ignoring what many are frustrated about. I have one last point to make. We have just had a statement in the main Chamber about the NHS and social care. Frankly, we have to have some sort of cross-party consensus on how we will pay for our increasingly elderly population. We cannot just throw brickbats at each side, saying, “It’s the fault of the Labour Government” or “It’s the fault of the Conservative Government.” We are all living longer.”
“If it isn’t—and it wasn’t since the 1980s—low-income and low-educated people pay the highest price for poor integration. It is not the wealthy neighbourhoods that have to integrate most of the children. On the contrary, the areas where the traditional social democratic voters and trade unionists live face the greatest problems.” Both parties have to solve the problem of the sheer level of legal and illegal migration. I will make one other point. We all believe that we must solve climate change, but we must do it in a moderate and sensible way. Many people in rural areas, such as the area I represent, are worried not only about the farmers tax but that, if they live in Gainsborough, they will see the 10,000 acres around their small town covered with solar farms.”
“I know that this Government are not going to follow our Rwanda policy, but they simply cannot talk in easy terms about smashing the gangs when we all know that unless we have an offshoring policy, we will never stop people crossing the channel and making us a laughing stock in the world. Another issue I want to talk about, on which people feel very frustrated, is the sheer level of legal migration. I want to put this particular point to the Labour party. This is not a right-wing point of view. This is Mattias Tesfaye—a Danish Immigration Minister and the son of Ethiopian refugees. He said: “If you look at the historical background, it is completely normal that left-wing politicians like me are not against migration, but want it to be under control.”
“Unless the two major parties actually listen to the public and respond to their concerns, this country will simply see the rise of more and more populism of far-right and far-left parties. There is a particular issue where people feel alienated. They cannot understand how in the last year, in a country like ours, something like 35,000 people jumped the queue, crossed the channel, and were put in hotels to stay here forever and break the rules. They cannot understand why no Government—either the previous Conservative Government or apparently this one—are actually solving the problem.”
“Or if they wanted to rake in more money from national insurance, perhaps they should have absolved, for instance, hospices from those proposals. I just give that advice to the Government. Of course they will not take it, but it is always useful when bringing in reforms to think of the general public, and how those reforms will impact on people and relate to their sense of alienation. That is what I want to talk about now, because there is undoubtedly a sense of alienation in the country. It is partly due to the issues that I have been talking about, but also to do with general issues. I sit on the Council of Europe, and I see how other countries—France, Germany and Italy—are coping with political unrest.”
“No, I do not want to get involved in all this. I have given way once; I will conclude my remarks within the time limit. I think it would be quite foolish for the Government to ignore this petition. If I may give some fatherly advice, it is always good to compromise when bringing in reforms. For instance, if the Government were worried about winter fuel payments going to everybody, perhaps they should have cancelled them for higher taxpayers. There would have been very little controversy about that, but taking the winter fuel allowance from somebody whose total income is only £13,000 a year is bound to cause great hardship. If they were worried about large estates escaping any inheritance tax, perhaps they should have focused their tax on the very largest estates of more than 1,000 acres, rather than picking on family farms of 250 acres.”
“I welcome the consensual parts of the Secretary of State’s statement, but I wonder whether we have been entirely honest with the public about the sheer unaffordability of the cap proposed by Dilnot. I do not absolve my own Government from this: maybe we should start telling the truth to the public. Does the Secretary of State think we need a new social compact on bringing in social insurance so that people can plan for their entire life? They would know that they will have to pay more in taxes during their life for their old age, but at least they would have certain rights.”
“When Russia cruelly invaded Finland in 1940, she not only took territory with force majeure, but imposed neutrality on that country for 50 years. There was a phrase for it: Finlandisation. I know our influence is not overwhelming, but when it comes to the Trump presidency, will the Minister assure me that the Government will stiffen the sinews of the Trump presidency and ensure that there is absolutely no question of any war aim of Russia’s being achieved, namely taking territory and neutralising Ukraine? We therefore must fast-track NATO membership.”
“I will call John Milne to move the motion, and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in 30-minute debates. It is not normal for other Members to make a speech unless they have the permission of the Member in charge and the Minister, but they can intervene. I call John Milne.”
“Can the Minister enlighten us as to the attitude on the deal of the incoming Trump Administration? Does he know, or shall I ask the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)?”
“We had this great debate on assisted dying where every single person who spoke said it was essential that we improve palliative care. I wonder whether we could form a consensus in this Committee. One compromise that the Government could make is to take hospices out of this tax. That would be so popular, achieve so much and ensure that our elderly and frail people were properly looked after. I give that one compromise to the Government.”
“My hon. Friend is a fellow Lincolnshire MP. In Lincoln we have St Barnabas hospice, a greatly loved local institution where most people would want to spend their final days. We also have the Lincolnshire air ambulance, and we have GPs all over our huge county who are struggling. Can he explain how it is in the public interest to attack these people?”
“The Government say that they want to end the top-down approach. How does that square with a district council such as West Lindsey in Lincolnshire being denied any say in massive solar farms or wind turbines? Will the Minister do me a favour and confirm that his aim is to pass more power back to district councils? Indeed, will he promise that he will not unilaterally abolish them just because we have a new mayor for Lincolnshire?”
“Thirty-one years ago, when I had the Minister’s job, I was trying to privatise the Post Office, but I was stopped by rebellious Tory Back Benchers—nothing new there. I was sacked a week later. So I warn him that this is quite a difficult issue. What people were worried about was the universal service obligation—it costs so much more to deliver in rural Lincolnshire than in central London—so I think that what we are all worried about is that, as the Royal Mail moves ever further away from public ownership, this new private company will try to chip away at the universal service obligation, particularly in rural areas. Can the Minister reassure us that he is really on the case?”
“What concerns me is not the past but the future and how to protect the public. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the screening process is sufficiently robust to ensure that violent and dangerous criminals are not released into the community?”
“Order. I remind all Members that they should bob if they wish to speak in the debate. Twenty-four Members have put in to speak, so I will have to impose a time limit of six minutes, because I am anxious that everyone should get in. I remind you all that the more interventions there are, the more likely it is that someone may not get to speak at all.”
“There is nothing more controversial than Governments seeking to bypass local democracy. I saw that with the desire of the last Government to bypass local democracy by imposing a special development order on RAF Scampton, and I see it now with the many applications to build solar farms that are ostensibly national infrastructure projects. The present planning system was largely created by the Labour Government, and has stood the test of time. Can the Minister assure me that whatever he decides finally, we will not degrade local democracy? It is essential that people join a council, and join a planning committee, knowing that they have real powers and are not under the cosh of Government, or plans imposed by Government.”
“I agree with the Home Secretary that the failure of the last Government to control immigration was unconscionable, and our new leader has rightly apologised for our failure. Some of us on the Back Benches warned the Government at the time, but there we are—that is the past. Looking to the future, I agree that we all want to return illegal migrants to where they came from, but will the Home Secretary list the countries that human rights lawyers say are so unsafe that people cannot be returned to them? What is the deterrent for people from those countries if we do not have an offshoring policy?”
“Were this to change, then we would not be doctors in the eyes of many, but bringers of death, agents of a state which counts its weakest members as expendable and worthy of nothing but an early grave. I do not want to be a member of a profession which has that reputation or role”. Those are two witnesses who have written to me. I have taken an increasing interest in this whole issue of palliative care, and the law frankly—”
“Thank you for reading this.” I will read another letter, from a doctor, which I think encapsulates some of the problems that we encounter in this issue: “Only recently, I was giving my condolences to a grieving woman who had lost her husband in the early hours. He had been given a few small doses of pain relief and mild sedatives over the last few nights for symptom control and had passed away peacefully at her side. She asked me in all seriousness, ‘Doctor, did the nurses give him something to make him die quicker last night?’ This was an awful lingering doubt that she had. I was able to firmly reassure her that, no, the medication would not have sped up his passing. For her, and the vast majority of other patients, doctors are there to prolong life and palliate symptoms.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), and I want to follow her in talking about palliative care. Let me start by reading an email that was sent to me only yesterday by a personal friend and constituent: “I apologise for adding to the thousands of emails you will be receiving. I just wanted to tell you why I oppose the right to die Bill. I know you are aware of the experience I had when my husband was dying. In hospital we had a dreadful experience because they had no end-of-life care and he suffered. Once in the Hospice it was a different story and he received the loving care he rightly deserved. My argument is that, instead of assisted dying, we should be spending much more money on end-of-life care and funding the wonderful Hospice movement.”
“We must consider it in terms of society as a whole. What sort of society are we? Are we a society that loves our NHS, that loves life, that loves caring and that loves the hospice movement? Or are we a society that believes that there is despair? I will vote for hope at 2.30 and I will vote against the Bill.”
“We had hundreds of hours of debate, questions and scores of civil servants crawling over the issue. Surely this issue is even more important. Surely we should have had more than just two or three weeks to consider this Bill. We should be looking at the detail, because the devil is in the detail in respect of possible coercion, the facilities available to the hospice movement and the issues I have talked about, including the lack of clarity in the law as to how we can or cannot relieve pain. Can we not pause a moment? Those are the practical points that I want to make. This is so important: the futures of so many vulnerable people are at stake. I was struck by the comment made earlier by the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) that we cannot consider this issue just in terms of individual hard cases.”
“Many people are conflicted, and we have heard many moving stories about people’s fear of dying in agony, but until we clear this up, I do not think that we can make the progress that this issue deserves. Yes, we have to fund our hospice movement seriously. It is very worrying that we are going to fund the NHS to fund death, but that we are not adequately funding our hospice movement. Before we take this momentous decision, we have to be realistic about it: if the Bill were to pass at 2.30 pm, that would be it. I do not believe that a private Member’s Bill, which has only five hours of debate and on which many Members of Parliament will not be given time to speak, is the right mechanism. In the last Parliament, we discussed a certain subject that we all know about—it was a very different issue.”