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
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“Interestingly, Scampton Parish Council has put in a freedom of information request to the Home Office about a community impact assessment, but the FOI request has been turned down by the Government. Astonishingly—the House will be amazed at this language coming out of government— it was turned down with the excuse that the Government need to have, “A clear space, immune from exposure to public view, in which it can debate matters internally with candour and free from the pressures of public political debate.” That is a reply to Scampton Parish Council, which is only trying to do its job; 700 people have put their life savings into buying a house on this base and the Government say that they need a clear space free from public scrutiny.”
“There is an understanding that they will be illegal and that they will be detained, but the Government have now determined that they are going to send 2,000 illegal migrants to the former RAF Scampton base in my constituency. We are still awaiting any clear idea of when they will arrive. Have serious impact assessments been carried out on the pollution levels that naturally remain at this base, which was originally the home of the Dambusters, for a long time was used by Vulcan aeroplanes carrying nuclear bombs and was used latterly by the Red Arrows? Surely there should be a proper, published impact assessment of environmental pollution and of security arrangements. Apparently, these 2,000 migrants will not be detained and will be able to come and go, so what is the security impact on the 700 residents who live there?”
“We should be very wary of meddling with the structure of that place, because it seems to be able to scrutinise legislation more effectively than we do in this House. In recent weeks and months, I have been particularly involved with a lack of impact assessments in terms of my own constituency. If we look at all the borders Bills and the recently passed Illegal Migration Bill, we can see that some sort of impact assessment would have been very useful in determining whether that Bill was going to achieve what it set out to. I am particularly interested in how illegal migrants are going to be dealt with when they arrive on these shores, whether or not the Government win their Supreme Court case.”
“I welcome this Bill. In the light of recent experience, it seems to be an excellent idea. It gives Parliament more power to scrutinise what is going on. A Conservative Government surely, above all, is about low taxes and deregulation, but unfortunately—maybe for reasons beyond our control, and we all know what those reasons are—we have had too many taxes and too much regulation. I will not deal in detail with the whole covid saga, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) has dealt with that powerfully, but the fact is that we all now know that there should have been far more consideration within Government of not just regulatory impact but every other kind of impact. In terms of ensuring scrutiny of Government, we have the other place, and it does its job.”
“For years, I have been arguing for us to have a through train from Grimsby and Cleethorpes through Market Rasen and Lincoln to London, which would cost £1 million. I have been told, “No, no, there’s no money, but we’re quite happy as a Government to spend £100 billion on HS2.””
“As the environmental enforcement authority, West Lindsey District Council put a stop notice on the Home Office a few weeks ago, and the Home Office simply ignored it and carried on working, presumably because it thinks the land is Crown land. If the Home Office were a private sector employer, it would be taken to court and made to pay huge fines, but the Government think they can get away with it. My constituents and I are victims of a lack of candour by the Government—a lack of proper impact assessments in a variety of fields. We have seen that with the whole covid saga, of course, and above all, we have seen it with High Speed 2. We need not go on about HS2, but it is probably the biggest waste of public money that any Government have ever indulged in. It is ludicrously over-engineered and we are still facing the consequences of it.”
“We cannot do an impact assessment on what is going on in the minds of people fleeing various hellholes in the world, but I can tell the House one thing: someone fleeing Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan is not going to be deterred from coming to these shores because they might end up in a comfortable room in a former RAF base. So this provides no value for money or deterrence, there are worries about security, pollution and community impact, and no assessment has been made, yet the Government just carry on. The worst thing is that I keep emailing, writing to or texting Ministers, but I never get a serious response. The parish council and West Lindsey District Council are treated with contempt and given generic replies.”
“I believe in transparent government and what I fear about this whole RAF Scampton episode is that this is not being done to save money or to look after migrants properly—obviously, it is not in their interest to have 2,000 migrants in one place, overwhelming local social services, the police and everybody else. It is being done because the Government simply want to make the statement, “Sadly, we have not managed to stop these people coming over in boats and therefore we are going to put them in former military bases, rather than in hotels.” But of course this has no deterrent value at all.”
“I will not go further into former grief. We are simply saying that, when it comes to housing illegal migrants, it should be done on the basis of, for instance, value for money. We have conclusively proved that, because there has not been any properly published impact assessment, it will cost the taxpayer more money to put migrants into the former RAF base at Scampton than to put them into hotels, because a 2-mile long runway has to be maintained and there are 100 buildings, many of them listed, including the office of Guy Gibson and the ones relating to the Dambusters. I have made the point about the impact on the local community.”
“Above all, there has been no impact assessment for the poor people living north of Birmingham who live on the line, whose farms have been taken and who have perhaps been forced to give up a place that they have farmed for generations.”
“The delivery authority keeps returning to this; it keeps saying that it is cheaper, more cost-effective, and all the rest of it to have the full decant. However, we have got on with repairing Speaker’s House and Elizabeth Tower, and we are going to work on Victoria Tower. We should just get on with the work.”
“We should just have got on with it six years ago, but we still have not come to a final decision. We are meeting on Tuesday—yet another meeting in which we are going to be asked, believe it or not, whether we should have a full decant. I have been arguing about this for years. We are still talking about going to Richmond House, if the House of Commons ever voted for a full decant, which is totally unsuitable. We would have to rip out the courtyard and knock down bits of a listed building. There would be years of argument, another public inquiry and more delays. This decant will not affect anybody who is now sitting in the House of Commons. It will not happen for years, but still we are returning to the same arguments.”
“It is just amazing how we walked into this disaster: how no one questioned why HS2 was so ludicrously over-engineered, with the trains running far faster than they do on the continent, for instance. Before I end, I want to deal with a matter very close to where we are now standing: this building. The whole restoration and renewal saga of Parliament is an HS2 in bricks and mortar. There has never been any proper assessment of what we have been doing. I sat on the sponsor board and I have been dealing with this matter in various Committees for years. I am now on the programme board, which reports directly to Mr Speaker. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been sunk into making ever more complex and over-engineered plans for restoring and renewing this building.”
“As a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, what I hate so much in politics is that people are so casual with the expenditure of taxpayers’ money. I loathe that attitude. If it was their own affairs in dealing with restoration and renewal, they would just get on with the job. They would get various estimates and do what was necessary—the minimum necessary—to make this building safe. But because it is public money, we set up committees and create these huge bodies such as the one running HS2 and the one running R and R, with people paid huge salaries and making endless, over-engineered plans. It is frankly disgraceful.”
“We all know how a Chamber is so important. We saw that through the extraordinarily anaemic debates we had during the whole covid period, when there was, frankly, an appalling lack of scrutiny of the Government. The Bill is extremely timely. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, I cannot understand why the Government will not accept it, but I am sure that in a few moments this eminently sensible Minister will give it the green light.”
“I am rather confused by my hon. Friend’s speech. Normally, he is a sunny chap who looks on the positive side of life, but from what he is saying, it does not matter whether or not we have a serious impact assessment and whether or not it is worked on, because Governments of all persuasions at all times are so hopeless that nothing is ever going to improve, and we are going to have as many cock-ups in the next 100 years as we have had in the last 100 years. Is that really what he is saying?”
“Given that our total emissions are less than the increment in Chinese emissions every year, my right hon. Friend is right to be pragmatic about this. At present there are planning applications for solar farms ringing Gainsborough totalling 15,000 acres—enough to feed the city of Hull every year—all based on a fiddled application for a national infrastructure project. There is currently a planning presumption against building solar farms on land graded 1, 2 or 3a, but not 3b. But for a farmer there is no difference between 3a and 3b land. Can we change that planning presumption and build solar farms on top of factories and on grey land, rather than taking good farming land?”
“One of the justifications for using service accommodation such as RAF Scampton was that it was supposed to be cheaper, but we now know the figures: it is more expensive over two years, and over three years the savings are absolutely derisory. The figures are, frankly, being fiddled by overcapitalising the value of the base, and are not based on surveys. The Home Secretary’s officials are now ripping out services. The council has issued a stop order on it. I give notice that I will report the Home Office to the Comptroller and Auditor General for misapplying and wasting public money, because using the base will cost more than hotels. The base is Crown land, so the local authority cannot enter it. Does she accept that she would be acting illegally and is liable to be sued if her officials disobey the stop order?”
“My hon. Friend has done a service to the House, because I suspect that the Government just did not like the idea of an independent-minded hon. Member being able to produce and debate 17 Bills. What is the harm of that? The fact is that these time-honoured processes are there for a purpose. They are designed to protect Back Benchers, who have very few other rights. From this saga, the Government should learn a lesson not to interfere with what we have always done in this House. These processes are designed to ensure that Back Benchers are given a voice.”
“The Prime Minister said he was going to lead by example, and that when it came to the military base at Catterick, he was going to ensure that illegal migrants were housed there. We now understand that the generals have said they do not want a bunch of Afghans and Iraqis next to their squaddies, so nothing is happening with regard to illegal migrants being put there, although the Ministry of Defence is so determined that its soldiers should not be placed near migrants that it is moving them out of RAF Scampton. When will illegal migrants be placed in Catterick, as promised by the Prime Minister? I want a date and I want it now.”
“Will he instruct Home Office Ministers to work proactively with West Lindsey District Council to ensure that we get a compromise, do our bit and take illegal migrants to a secure location, and that we do not rely on decaying bases but take action that will work in the future?”
“Of course, migration is best dealt with by international co-operation, but it also depends on decisive action at home. One thousand five hundred Indians enter this country legally every week. Last year 600 came across illegally in boats, and this year there have been 600 in just the first three months. The Prime Minister told me personally that he would lead by example by having illegal migrants based at Catterick in his constituency. This afternoon, the Ministry of Defence was unable to give me any date on when they are going to come. Meanwhile, my council has issued a stop notice against the slash-and-burn tactics of the Home Office at RAF Scampton. The Prime Minister is the head of the Government.”
“Will the Minister now drop this ridiculous scheme, which is derisory and will do nothing for deterrence, and sit down with me and West Lindsey District Council to work out a discreet location for illegal migrants in West Lindsey?”
“When the Prime Minister announced that he was imperilling £300 million- worth of levelling-up investment on RAF Scampton, he said he was going to lead by example by accepting migrants into Catterick camp in his constituency. Home Office officials have now informed us that that is not happening, so where is the leadership in that? It gets worse. I was informed by West Lindsey District Council that, despite being told that the scheme was value for money and will have to be available for three years not two, the value for money is infinitesimal compared with hotels—it will not even save money for a few days on hotels.”
“The Home Office wants to use only 8% of the footprint. Surely the majority of the site can be handed over to West Lindsey and Scampton Holdings, so that they can crack on with the regeneration that is so dearly needed. Let them get on and finish the job. I apologise for having to speak so quickly, but this is an incredibly important issue. There is an impending court case, and a lot to say, and everything must be put on the record in this House.”
“We have stated that we are willing to do our bit, but all the Home Office seems to need is a bit of hard standing somewhere—anywhere—in which to temporarily house these economic migrants in portacabin accommodation. Choosing Scampton of all places, which is on the cusp of remarkable, game-changing regeneration, is the height of folly. It is mind-numbingly unwise. It shows that any claim of the Government’s to joined-up thinking is totally divorced from reality. All is not lost; there is still time for Ministers to drop these plans. I have shown how much trouble they cause, and how little reward is to be gained from carrying them through. If our court case fails, and somehow the Home Office is allowed to advance with its proposals, we will need to see how much of the site can be freed up as soon as possible.”
“Even the grass is growing, and 100 buildings, many of them listed, are at risk. If the restricted airspace is permanently stood down, it would negate many of the air, space and satellite investments that we want to deliver. West Lindsey has brought a legal challenge to the Home Office’s plans that is proceeding at pace. My understanding is that, if the environmental impact assessment is found to be flawed, the class Q emergency powers may be rendered invalid. We seek assurance from the Secretary of State that Scampton will not be used to accommodate illegal immigrants until a final resolution is reached, after the judicial review. We in West Lindsey in Lincolnshire are part of the great United Kingdom. Time and again, this proposal has been announced.”
“The simple goal was to create a sustainable future for RAF Scampton that unlocked the fullest potential of the site. The plan that West Lindsey and Scampton Holdings came up with was funded, commercially viable and deliverable. It would keep the airfield open, creating a cascade of further opportunities. It would protect the important heritage of the base, and add amenities for people around West Lindsey, Lincolnshire and the whole country to make use of. Meanwhile, the Home Office plans throw a spanner in the works. As we have seen, its proposed timeline has been wildly off course. The investment opportunities that we want to unlock require immediate access to the site in order to kick-start delivery. Key features of the site, such as the runway and its associated operational functions, are being neglected.”
“My fellow Lincolnshire MPs and I know how badly things can go when surplus Ministry of Defence properties are just dumped on the open market: no consultation with locals, no discussions about local needs or priorities, and no crafting of investment or creation of economic opportunities—just flog it off and it is no longer the MOD’s responsibility. That is what we saw with previous disposals. I was determined, and West Lindsey was determined, that we must not let that happen this time. Here is an ideal site, just miles from Lincoln, and precisely where our economy could use a shot in the arm. West Lindsey District Council engaged with local people and communities, and consulted and listened to stakeholders, businesses and partners.”
“EGR313, the restricted flying zone above and around Scampton, would be maintained. It could still be used by the Red Arrows. The last time the Red Arrows left Scampton, they came back because the airspace was ideal. Even though they will not be based on the ground, they will still be able to use the skies. The longer-term hope, as I said, is for Scampton to be developed as a spaceport. There is potential for horizontal launches of small satellites. Since RAF Scampton’s closure was announced in 2018, West Lindsey District Council has moved heaven and earth to try to come up with a good regeneration bid.”
“There are plans for a business incubator to help small businesses to grow into larger ones. Scampton Holdings wants to promote small businesses even beyond the business incubator zone by creating a number of low-cost live work units to help microbusinesses. The protection of RAF Scampton’s history is at the heart of the regeneration package. It would see historic buildings used by the Dambusters restored and utilised for educational, informational and touristic purposes. Scampton will become a centre for aviation heritage and the maintenance of historic aircraft. A conference centre will link it with hotel and hospitality facilities, but Scampton’s aviation history would not be dead. The runway would be kept operational and licensed under the Civil Aviation Authority.”
“Meanwhile, we have a £300 million regeneration package signed, sealed and champing at the bit for delivery. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We can transform Scampton into a mixed-use site, protecting the history of the base while opening up commercial, aerospace, defence, hospitality and educational opportunities. There will be a Red Arrows visitors centre. The runway will be kept open for use, and the skies will still be used for Red Arrows training and practice flights. Business jets will be able to use Scampton, opening up opportunities for enterprise across West Lindsey. A space innovation business park would bring research and development to Lincolnshire. Drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles can be developed at Scampton. The A46 midlands aerospace corridor can be an engine for growth.”
“They notified West Lindsey District Council of that on 17 April 2023, so their emergency powers will expire on 16 April 2024. Under class Q, any and all development related to those powers must be removed from the site by 16 April 2024. That is under eight months from the actual date illegal migrants are expected to arrive at the site. West Lindsey applied to get the former officers’ mess listed on 24 March. It has chased that up and understands that it will be presented to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport imminently, but we are still waiting. Perhaps the Home Office should accept our advice that Scampton is far more complicated a site than it anticipated at the beginning of this saga. Any temporary housing of migrants there risks being so temporary as to be useless and ineffective.”
“He reported: “During that time the RAF ensured that our working clothing was regularly laundered to ensure complete removal of all ‘Radiation’ particles in the interest of our health and safety…The Vulcan aircraft were covered in Radiation particles particularly during high level sorties and we were tasked to wash them down on a regular basis at a specially prepared area on the airfield…The Wash Teams were supplied with special protective clothing to undertake this task.” I am afraid that the Home Office’s reply was less than reassuring. It merely asserted that it will “ensure that all accommodation is safe, habitable, fit for purpose, and meets all regulatory requirements”. The Government have utilised class Q emergency powers for their plans.”
“We know there is certainly asbestos on the site. Unfortunately, despite my requests, the Home Office refuses to release the material safety data sheets for Scampton. Earlier this month, I tabled a written question asking what assessment the Home Office had made of the potential radioactivity levels at Scampton. I received an email from a cold war RAF veteran, who spent nine years at Scampton servicing Vulcan B.2 bombers.”
“On 1 March this year, the Home Office stated that within four months—that is now—RAF Scampton would be up and running to its full capacity of 2,000 illegal migrants. It is now the end of July, and as of today there are zero migrants housed at Scampton. In May, I tabled a written question asking when works would begin. All the Home Office basically said in the ministerial reply was “shortly” and “as soon as possible”. The Home Office has not even taken control of the site from the Ministry of Defence. It has not commenced the survey work needed even to establish an implementation plan. It has not done an airwaves control plan, and it has not developed a mitigation strategy for safe entry to and exit from the site. It has not made any proposals regarding how to manage the wide-ranging contamination on the site.”
“The panels would stand 4.7 metres tall. I have known tenant farmers, whose families have been farming 200 or 300 acres for 200 years, who will be thrown off their land. They have absolutely no rights: the landowners can come in and throw them off the land they have been farming for generations. Who gets all the benefits? I have nothing against large landowners. Unfortunately, I am not one myself; I would love to be a large landowner. We have many large landowners in Lincolnshire. To be fair to them, they are good people. They are already quite well off, but they are going to get fantastic rewards. The rewards that landowners get are staggering.”
“Instead of seeing unique farmland stretching away to the Trent, perhaps all the way to the Pennines, there will be a sea of black. The developers have offered almost nothing in community gain. We have heard all about the threat to good usable farmland. Building solar farms on that land undermines farming as a profession and the agricultural sector as a whole. Farming is a challenging, all-consuming and difficult calling in life. It is incredibly rewarding for those involved in it, and absolutely necessary for the lifeblood of the country. As we have heard, Lincolnshire is the breadbasket of England, and we would like it to stay that way. Covering 10,000 acres around one town is not the way to do that. The land covered by the applications I have talked about could feed two cities the size of Hull for a year.”
“Solar companies are trying to conduct so-called analysis of the land to prove that it is 3b when no one in the past has cared whether it is 3a or 3b. The whole thing is a con and a cheat. It is worrying that there is some evidence that some of these companies have Chinese backing. All this stuff is made in China. What are we playing at? Opposition to the projects is both broad and deep. I have had objections from the parish councils of Brampton, Brattleby, Broxholme, Burton, Cammeringham, Fillingham, Glentworth, Ingham, Kexby, Knaith, Marton and Gate Burton, Saxilby with Ingleby, Scampton, Springthorpe, Stow, Sturton by Stow, Upton and Willingham. Consider the visual impact. Look at the cliff that runs all the way down the centre of Lincolnshire. If all the applications are granted, anyone looking from the cliff will see a sea of black.”
“Our own national planning policy framework presumes against the approval of applications that would build on highly graded agricultural land; that is because Britain’s food security is of the utmost importance. I am sure that when the Minister responds to the debate he will say that we do not want to build solar panels on good agricultural land. We all know that the protection applies to land grades 1, 2 and 3a, but we must extend the exemption to 3b as well. Talk to any farmer in Lincolnshire—my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) is married to a farmer, so she knows this issue more than anyone else—and they will say that the quality of land is all much the same for wheat, grain and barley. Any farmer will say that.”
“All three of the developers in our part of England use the same law firm. When the Department considers such applications, it must consolidate them into one and look at them as a whole. I do not think any fair public inquiry would allow development on 10,000 acres ringing one town, as long as the applications were consolidated into one. But they are trying to pick us off one by one. We all know that if the applications were approved, thousands of acres of good farmland would be lost. This is at a time when food distribution networks worldwide have been turned upside down by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Even this week, since the latest attack on the Crimean bridge, Russia has said that it is suspending the agreement to allow grain to be exported through the Black sea.”
“They say that simply because they want to bypass local opinion—that is the only reason. They want to bypass the whole planning process. They say that they are nationally significant infrastructure projects and therefore must be considered by Whitehall rather than by the local authority. That is their point of view, although when Tony Blair brought in the new planning system, it was designed for nuclear power stations, not for one little company making numerous applications and subverting the local planning process. On the other hand—this is where the devil comes into all this—the developers are dividing the projects into separate applications. One of my constituents noticed that some developers submit multiple applications, but under the same project management team.”
“Everyone is in favour of renewable energy and there is no harm in having some solar farms; the problem is the sheer scale in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. Ten thousand acres of applications ring the small town of Gainsborough, and are marked on the map in the red and black. This is ludicrous overdevelopment. To distribute, say, 1,000 acres —that is the offer—in a large rural district such as West Lindsey, covering perhaps up to 600 square miles, would be reasonable, but 10,000 acres ringing one town is just ridiculous overdevelopment. The point I want to make is that when it comes to a public inquiry—and there should be a public inquiry—the applications must be taken as one, because developers are trying to have their cake and eat it. On the one hand, they say that these solar farms are nationally significant infrastructure projects.”
“I am worried about where those companies come from. This has all grown up very suddenly and they have huge financial resources. I suspect that they are not very interested in Lincolnshire; they are based in London. They are a group of entrepreneurs who are going to make shedloads of money and then sell the planning application on. They do not care a damn about us.”
“Sit them on top of factories and industrial buildings. Put them on schools and houses, by all means, but good land needs to be kept in agricultural use.”
“In that brief period of the Government of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), tried to change the definition to include 3b land. A huge mountain of well-funded lobbying money was put in immediately to frustrate the whole process. Make no mistake: this is not about the countryside and it is not about producing green energy in the right controlled way. It is about money. Some people are going to get very rich indeed. Solar power has a vital part to play, but solar panels belong in moderate amounts—perhaps—on poor agricultural land, atop buildings and on brownfield sites, not on good farmland. Put them on top of large logistics centres at the side of motorways.”
“Industry always responds to subsidies. I cannot understand why the Government do not create a new subsidy regime whereby if someone builds a massive warehouse, it is in their benefit to put a solar panel on top of it. That is something the Government could do. Let us keep solar panels off good agricultural land, and let us have them in proportion. I hope the Minister will respond positively to this important debate.”
“T2. There can be few more exciting and innovative projects for any constituency than a spaceport to launch satellites into space. We had a done deal to build one on the runway at RAF Scampton, before the Home Office marched in and stymied the whole project. Will the Minister please lobby the Home Office to try to get the spaceport back? Why would the Home Office want a runway, or is there a darker purpose behind this?”
“I wonder whether my right hon. Friend has noted the remarks of Lord Clarke, who is not a particularly vicious right-wing creature. He said this Bill is entirely necessary and that we have to get on with it. I also wonder whether my right hon. Friend has looked at today’s remarks by Lord Heseltine. Lord Clarke and Lord Heseltine seem to have come up with a sensible option. We should go ahead with this Bill. We have to have much better European co-operation and, really, we have to build a wall around Europe. [ Interruption. ] And we have to do much more—this is what the Opposition might like—in terms of a Marshall plan to try to remove the conditions of sheer misery that cause people to want to leave these countries in the first place.”
“Presumably it is the hon. Gentleman’s most devout hope if he takes power in 15 months’ time, but charming as he is, it is a mystery to me why he thinks when he asks President Macron to take these people back, he will do so. Of course he won’t! Nothing will happen. May I gently suggest that, if there is a Labour Government, they will quietly adopt this Bill once it is an Act?”