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 45 of 122.
“Order. In view of the very large number of hon. Members wishing to take part and my intention to try to call as many as possible, I must now impose a two-minute limit on speeches.”
“Order. I know this is a very important issue, but I am afraid it is a custom of the House that the Public Gallery has to remain silent. I apologise.”
“Order. The right hon. Gentleman has to approach the microphone. Strictly, under the rules of the House, he should be sitting before he stands. I know it is difficult, but he has to be near a microphone.”
“I am grateful for Members’ co-operation. I am sorry for the short time limits, but I think we have got everyone in. We now pass to the winding-up speeches. I call Mhairi Black.”
“The solution to this is fairer funding. Does my right hon. Friend agree that those who argue for greater funding must be honest about where it is coming from? Every five minutes that our proceedings continue, national debt, already at £1.7 trillion, increases by £400,000. People who argue for more funding are arguing for more debt being loaded on to children in our schools.”
“In the 10 minutes or so that my right hon. Friend has been speaking, our national debt has increased by nearly £900,000. Will the Chancellor continue to speak up for hard-pressed taxpayers and make the point that, for all this talk of austerity, the debt is still rising? We have to look after the pennies, otherwise we will be up Queer Street.”
“There is a limit on how much we can pay from general taxation when the top 1% pay for 25% of all spending, so let us be honest in these debates. Let us be honest, finally, in our Brexit negotiations. Let us not talk about a hard or a soft Brexit. I am afraid that we have to stick to the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech. It is not hard or soft Brexit; it is inevitable Brexit. We are leaving the EU. If we leave the EU, we have to leave the single market. So let us be positive, let us be aspirational and let us, as a party, be united.”
“The first honest debate this country needs to have is about our ageing population and the cost of social care. Full marks to the Prime Minister for trying to talk about it. At the moment, we are apparently committed to maintaining the triple lock. We have not yet had a full debate in this Parliament about a future adult social care cap or floor, but we must have that debate. We have to be able to convince our ageing population that we have the resources to care for them, and that we will be humane and honest. The same argument surely applies to the NHS. Sometimes, I am the only person in this place who argues that we have not only to put more money into the NHS, but to be honest about where it is coming from.”
“The job of the Conservative party is to speak up for business, for wealth providers and wealth creators, and for taxpayers, because all this national debt has to be provided by our constituents. Sometimes that is not a popular message. I have been asked to speak today on behalf of the headmaster of Queen Elizabeth’s High School, a grammar school in my constituency that is providing the scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs of the future. It is a high-performing school, but its budget has been cut by £600,000 in the past five years. Of course I support a fairer funding formula, but we need some equality of fairness throughout the country. It is simply not good enough for us to argue continually for higher levels of public spending to accommodate this or that interest group.”
“If there is any fault with our Prime Minister, it is that during the general election we were almost too honest in explaining the level of the national debt, but in these debates we have to keep making the point. We have heard many calls for more public spending, but it all comes from hard-pressed taxpayers. I make no apology for reminding the House that the national debt stands at £1.7 trillion. In the five minutes that it was going to take me to make this speech, the national debt will have risen by £443,000—it will rise a bit less in four minutes, but it is still going up. There is no point in talking about cutting the deficit if the national debt keeps rising remorselessly every year.”
“Unfortunately, Mr Deputy Speaker, this is not my maiden speech. I am happy to welcome you to the Chair. It is 34 years since you and I arrived in this place—some would say too long—but we are still surviving. It is my great pleasure to congratulate, as I am sure all Members wish to do, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson), who made a speech that was witty and to the purpose. I am sure that the good people of Aberdeen, like those of Lincolnshire, which abuts Grimsby, will welcome our taking back control of our fisheries, which will be a vital part of the Brexit negotiations. I think that what people want, particularly young people, is for us to be positive, aspirational and honest.”
“We are of one mind anyway—it does not really matter very much. In the interests of good government, will the Minister instruct the permanent secretary to ensure that there are worthwhile discussions with a possible future Government on how we square the circle of staying in the single market but controlling immigration and of being inside the customs union, or outside it—I do not know what they are going to do—and trying to make new trade agreements? I am sure that the permanent secretary is a very clever man and that he can do all this work.”
“I have a problem, because I have got a list of at least 12 people who want to speak. I will have to impose a four-minute limit on speeches. If people intervene, then some other people will not get to speak. I should probably choose first our most senior Member here today, David Winnick.”
“Order. I am afraid that three more Members have put in a request to speak. I want to try to get everyone in, so I am afraid I have to reduce the limit again, to three minutes.”
“That, I am afraid, is not a matter for me. I am sure that in the remaining 30 seconds of her speech the Minister will do her best to answer any points.”
“11. Brexit will, in a new, deregulated environment, provide a great opportunity for legal services, but what plans do the Government have to support our legal services abroad after Brexit?”
“The great and noble county of Lincolnshire is the bread basket of England and much of the food that we eat comes from that county. Glyphosate has been proved to be harmless by scientists. It is used by farmers in the safe production of wheat and the food we eat, so can the Minister assure me that once we regain control of our destiny its use will be reauthorised?”
“T2. It is not just the coastal areas of Lincolnshire that are particularly prone to flooding. While the Government have invested record amounts in concrete defences, inland areas are also susceptible to flooding. What role can natural flood management play in protecting properties and people?”
“I can inform the House that the NAO published an investigation into the cancer drugs fund in September 2015, which set out the facts relating to the fund to inform consideration of what had been achieved. The NAO’s investigation followed up on a number of concerns raised during the earlier work on progress in improving cancer services. The investigation found that all parties agreed that the fund was not sustainable in its form at the time, and that NHS England was proposing a new arrangement for the fund. It also noted that NHS England did not have the data to evaluate the impact of the existing fund on patient outcomes.”
“I can indeed. This is a very serious matter that everybody wants to improve, so the Public Accounts Committee followed up on the National Audit Office investigation and recommended that the Department of Health and NHS England make better use of their buying power in order to pay a fair price for cancer drugs and improve data on patient outcomes. The NAO also followed up on several related issues in an April 2016 report. It recommended that the Department and NHS England should, in collaboration with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, consider affordability and ensure best prices for high-cost drugs.”
“Which drugs are approved by NICE is of course not a matter for the Comptroller and Auditor General, but I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. He makes his point well and I am sure the House has heard it.”
“I am aware of that group, and the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. We all hear in our constituency surgeries the heart-rending cases of people who are denied life-saving drugs. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee are fully aware of this issue and are going to continue to put pressure on the Government with regard to the cancer drugs fund to ensure full transparency so that we are always aware of the problems and can assure affordability for all our citizens.”
“I assure my hon. Friend that, among the many opportunities provided by Brexit, there is a chance to revise the National Audit Office’s work programme. In fact, it is determined by the Comptroller and Auditor General and is regularly revised. Taking back control and leaving the EU will be a major task for Departments, but of course some Departments will be more affected by Brexit than others. The NAO is keeping in close touch with all Departments as they make their Brexit preparations. That is likely to mean additional work for the NAO, not least the audit of the new Department for Exiting the European Union.”
“Eventually that will indeed be a matter for the NAO. We are currently at a very early stage of our work: we are simply ensuring that all Departments, particularly the Department for Exiting European Union, have their tackle in order for this monumental task. I am sure that all Government Departments will do it most efficiently.”
“The hon. Gentleman is leading me astray. As Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission, which is charged with the budget of the National Audit Office and its work programme, I am not sure whether I am qualified to comment on the nature of the negotiations. I can give an assurance that the Comptroller and Auditor General believes that that is now a fundamental and really important part of his work. There is so much that could go wrong with efficiency in Government Departments in this task, and we will be keeping a beady eye on matters. With the hon. Gentleman’s help on the Commission, we will ensure that the Comptroller and Auditor General has adequate resources to ensure that the interests of taxpayers are protected.”
“In the time-honoured fashion, my right hon. Friend has called this election in what she considers, and I consider, to be the national interest at this moment. It would be a brave man or woman who voted against this motion. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 is therefore seen to be an emperor without clothes—it serves no purpose, and many of us have questioned it for many years. Will the first line of our manifesto be to scrap it?”
“The Foreign Secretary rightly dealt at length with the chemical attack, but I was surprised he did not take the opportunity to condemn also the appalling attack on Shi’a civilians in which 126 were killed, including 68 children, when fleeing from Foah and Kefraya. This highlights the problem faced by Alawites, Shi’a and Christians in Syria: however much they detest Assad, as we all do, they rely on him to protect them. For too long in this House, we have tried to engage in regime change—in removing Saddam, Gaddafi and now Assad. We should concentrate on humanitarian work and on protecting minorities in the middle east.”
“I chair the Public Accounts Commission, and we have been looking at the accountability of local government. My hon. Friend makes a good point: the National Audit Office, which audits all central Government Departments—a massive task—is now effectively the auditor of local government. Although I favour the reform, my hon. Friend is right to raise the fact that there is undoubtedly much less detailed inspection of local government audit and finance as a result.”
“I want to speak directly to my hon. Friend’s amendment in terms of understanding what other local authorities are doing. I see the Minister sitting in his place. We have had hugely controversial arguments in Lincolnshire about whether to have a mayor, and I and others managed to defeat that. There is now a proposal—it is only a rumour—that North Lincolnshire Council may want to take over or merge with West Lindsey, which I represent. As an elector of West Lindsey, I have absolutely no way of knowing what is going on in North Lincolnshire. I think that if that is being discussed in private, electors in West Lindsey, who have a crucial interest in that, should have a right to know what is going on.”
“Why? We are moving into a completely different digital age in which people can set up blogs and Facebook pages. This is just inevitable, and my hon. Friend is slightly living in the past when he talks about the NUJ and journalists having to be accredited. He is just trying to put his finger in the dam, and it is not going to work. We need to have complete openness and complete transparency.”
“My hon. Friend speaks with authority and knowledge, so this intervention is a genuine request for information. We have the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I would like to hear from him—I suspect the House would like to hear it, too—how the ability of a member of the public to get information about local authorities relates to his or her freedom to get information about central Government.”
“My hon. Friend is on to a very good point. We are dealing with a powerful issue, and there is not really enough time for us to discuss it today, but let me explain what I want the Bill to do. Again, I am addressing the Minister, because I think that the Government must get a grip on this. I want a culture that enables all members of the public—not just members of the National Union of Journalists, not just cliques, not just councillors, not just Members of Parliament—to have access to the accounts of not only those who work in local government and health services but those who work in academies, where huge salaries are often paid. That is what should happen in a modern age.”
“As a Back Bencher, it seems to me that both the Prime Minister and the leaders of the opposition parties have set exactly the right tone today and prove that it is values that unite this kingdom. When this Chamber was completely destroyed in the war, Mr Churchill and Mr Attlee decided that not a single day would pass without our carrying on our work. The Prime Minister and her opposite number have shown today that the best way to defeat terrorism is to prove that we will not be moved from our values and our place.”
“This is not the day to labour the point—I do not expect the Leader of the House to reply to this in any detail—but when we finally have the long-delayed debate on whether the House should leave this building in the full decant that is proposed, we should, in the light of what has happened in the past 24 hours, give great consideration to both the symbolism of this place and the security considerations of dispersing MPs and peers around Parliament Square.”
“Q12. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, following the forthcoming debate on the restoration and renewal of Parliament, all Members, including Ministers, will have a completely free vote on what is a House matter? Does she understand that many of us believe that in these times of austerity, we should not be frontloading billions of pounds of expenditure on ourselves at the expense of schools and hospitals, but should carry on the work and stay in what is the iconic image of the nation?”
“T9. As the Secretary of State knows, we have a crisis in GP recruitment in rural north Lincolnshire. Does he agree that the best way to enable doctors to get to know our glorious county would be to establish a medical school at Lincoln University, and will he join our campaign to make that possibility come true?”
“Order. I do not think we need to start debating Scottish railways—unless you really want to, Marion Fellows—because I am not sure they are germane.”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that the freedom of the press, and indeed of press ownership, is a bastion of our liberties? It is for Ofcom—objectively, not subjectively—to define, as a narrow term of art, a fit and proper person; it is not for Ministers and politicians to get involved in this.”
“I am a bit insulted to find that I am Tweedledee in your estimation, Mr Speaker. This is a very serious topic. I have here a copy of the 7 December edition of Hansard. I, too, intervened on the then Secretary of State in column 822. Having raised issues concerning Lincolnshire and the desire of the county council and the Government to have a mayor and a unitary authority, I received a specific commitment from the Secretary of State that he would not use amendment 56 to force a unitary authority on Lincolnshire. I received that commitment in terms. All that the Secretary of State said to me was that he would force discussions—that is, he would not prevent discussions from taking place—but the commitment was absolutely clear. I hope that you, Mr Speaker, will protect the right of the House of Commons to hold Ministers to account.”
“11. Having been a Member of Parliament for many years prior to devolution, I am acutely aware of the total inadequacy of direct rule. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he is undertaking the negotiations with the utmost urgency and intensity to get a deal on devolved government?”
“I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) did not give way to my hon. Friend, although she did give way to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), many of whose constituents attend a grammar school in my constituency. The question she failed to answer was this: why, since the abolition of grammar schools, has there been a catastrophic fall in social mobility in the most deprived areas?”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan). He rightly had a lot to say about education in England, but we might have liked to hear more from him about education or health outcomes in Scotland.”
“The Prime Minister is trying to open up a serious and interesting debate, and the Health Secretary is starting to open up a serious and interesting debate about how we are going to fund the NHS, and the Chancellor is opening up a serious and interesting debate about how we are going to find the money to meet all our future needs. In those terms and on that basis, I welcome the Budget speech.”
“I do not think the way to approach the debate is to say, “I believe in grammar schools,” or “I oppose selective education in any shape or form.” The Opposition have to ask themselves a serious question: why has social mobility declined so catastrophically in our most deprived areas? The solution may not be to have grammar schools in our deprived areas. It may be to have more academic streams in our comprehensive schools. It may be to set up some selective schools only in deprived areas. It may be to provide places only for academically gifted children who come from deprived backgrounds. If politically and ideologically one says that we are not going to go down that route at all and believes in neighbourhood comprehensives in deprived areas, one has to ask oneself why social mobility is declining, has declined and will go on declining.”
“If you cannot afford to pay, all that will be returned to you; if you can afford to pay, you have to make a contribution. I know that these are radical ideas. However, if people are going to dismiss them, and dismiss the need for an open debate about how we are going to fund our healthcare system, they have to explain to us how they will raise the money from general taxation. There is no point simply attacking for Government for increasing national insurance contributions without proposing how they are going to tax to have a world-beating healthcare system, which is in all our interests. We want an open debate on that. We need to have a realistic debate about education, too, on both sides of the Chamber.”
“I believe—I know that it is controversial and that colleagues do not necessarily want to debate it because it is politically very sensitive—that, without appointing a royal commission and wasting years, Ministers, and the Opposition, have to have an open mind about how we are going to raise money for people not from general taxation, but by moving gradually, for parts of our healthcare, to a social insurance-based system. We also have to have the courage to think radically about following the German and French example and indeed the Australian example. If you go to see a GP in Australia, you have to pay some money; if you do not turn up, you lose the money. In France, if you go to see a doctor or go to A&E, you have to pay a “facture”.”
“Bismarck systems are based on citizens taking out insurance available from a range of providers, whereas Beveridge systems such as ours have one body that provides all the care. The ECHI says that the largest Beveridge countries—the UK, Spain and Italy— “keep clinging together in the middle of the index.” The ECHI rated the Dutch health system as the best performing in Europe. The Netherlands happens to have a contributory Bismarck-style system.”
“The King’s Fund estimates that, if we wanted to close that gap solely by increasing NHS funding from central Government, by 2021 we would need to increase our spending by 30%—a whopping £43 billion increase in real terms. That would push NHS spending to £185 billion overall. Are there any alternatives to those scenarios? I pose that question. I know that that is unpopular. I know that people do not necessarily want to debate this, but we cannot raise this money from general taxation—there is not the political will and we cannot afford to do it—not if we want to maintain the NHS as universal, non-contributory and entirely free at the point of use. Something has to give. The 2015 Euro health consumer index points out a contrast between two styles of health care: the “Bismarck” systems and the “Beveridge” systems.”
“A lot more needs to be done for our NHS. I rely, as do my family, entirely on the NHS. We have no other providers. People of my age are deeply worried about the funding crisis. We have seen what has happened on A&E—targets have been missed. We have seen the report that puts the UK just ahead of Slovenia, Croatia and Estonia. As a country, we should be doing better than that. What is worse, England was ranked 30th for accessibility because of our exceptionally long waiting times for treatment. The 2013 figures from the OECD show the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and France at the top, with their spending hovering at around 11% of GDP, while the UK’s stands at just 8.5%. Therefore, we need to have a mature debate about how we are going to meet the funding gap for all our people.”
“The Chancellor was trying to say, “We have to have a mature, grown-up debate in this country about how we are going to meet the funding gap in adult care.” That debate will run and run. We have a few months to think about it and to come up with a solution. People say to me, “You made a manifesto commitment.” Sometimes, circumstances change, and one has to do what is right for the country. It is a difficult thing to do. Manifesto commitments are not written in stone— [Interruption.] I did not mean that to be a joke. We all know the history of that particular Labour party manifesto commitment and what might have happened to those words written in stone if the Labour party had won the election. We have to have a mature debate about how we are going to pay for the NHS. Why do I say that? I am going to be completely honest about it.”