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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“He asked how the European Union has improved our security by creating, in an imperialist and expansionist way, a new trade association deal with Ukraine, which led directly to Russian fears of being encircled and to the annexation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine. By the way, I do not countenance, approve or support in any way what Russia has done. The fact is that the EU gave President Putin that opportunity. In a direct answer to my hon. Friend, is it really conceivable that, if the UK decided to leave the EU, our friends and allies in the Baltic states would want to throw us into some appalling doghouse and have nothing more to do with us when their freedom and security depends so much on us? We do have the strongest armed forces in the European Union.”
“Perhaps I have banged on a bit too much about the economy, and should briefly touch on defence and security, as it is in my hon. Friend’s Bill and is a matter of acute concern. Apart from “Project Fear”, which is based on this false premise of a loss of millions of jobs—Lord Mandelson appears to have made that up on the back of a fag packet—which no one has ever quantified in any great detail, although we wait to hear what the Government say about that, there are all these arguments about security. David Owen, a former Labour Foreign Secretary, who has now come out in favour of leaving the EU, dealt with that matter and debunked it very well on his interview on the “Today” programme yesterday.”
“We should have had more independent analysis of that. Conservative Members often criticise Gordon Brown, but we should never forget that he kept us out of the euro, against the wishes of his Prime Minister, Tony Blair. We were told that disaster would strike by some in the City of London, the CBI and so on, and they used precisely these arguments. Now the Prime Minister goes to the Dispatch Box and says as a great virtue that we are out of the euro, but we were told by all the powers of the establishment that not joining the euro would be a disaster, and many of the arguments used were exactly the same.”
“It continues: “According to estimates by the UK’s economic and finance ministry”— Her Majesty’s Treasury— “the United Kingdom will pay a net contribution of £8 billion for fiscal year April 2017-April 2018.” These arguments are therefore being set out in detailed papers by think-tanks throughout Europe, but here—in the most important decision this country will make, in just four months’ time—the Government are apparently telling us that they do not believe there should be any independent cost-benefit analysis of what that decision will mean for the United Kingdom. Shame on them!”
“It says: “One key element of the Brexit debate is that net payments have increased sharply since the global financial and economic crisis in 2008…If the United Kingdom exits the EU on January 1, 2018, this will change how the EU budget is financed”— that must be the understatement of the year.”
“The Stiftung says: “Because the United Kingdom benefits relatively little from CAP expenditures (for example, it received only €3.16 billion in 2013 compared to France’s €8.58 billion), Margaret Thatcher negotiated the introduction of a ‘UK rebate’ in 1984. At its core, this contains a refund of approximately 2/3 of the United Kingdom’s annual net contributions to the EU budget. For the years 2011-2013, the rebate averaged around €4.1 billion. A correction in how the rebate is calculated was introduced in 2008, which reduces the rebate depending on the costs of the EU expansion. According to forecasts by the UK’s economic and finance ministry…the rebate will hover around an average of €6 billion”. The Stiftung provides various detailed figures and illustrates how the UK’s net contribution has risen.”
“It is interesting that people around Europe—Stiftung in Germany and think-tanks elsewhere in Europe—are starting to take seriously the prospect of the United Kingdom leaving the EU. They are also writing studies that could form part of the independent cost-benefit analysis we want the Government to do. In the second and third columns of its detailed analysis of what countries pay into and get out of the EU, the Stiftung demonstrates that Germany, the United Kingdom and France are the biggest absolute net contributors, paying in about 0.5% of their gross national income. Eleven of the 28 member states were net contributors in the 2013 budget, and the Stiftung gives various detailed figures for member states’ gross contributions. In terms of net contributions as a share of GNI, we always come second to Germany.”
“Those of us who argue from a Eurosceptic point of view are not in any way trying to convince the British people that they should make this choice in terms of nationalism, although many will, and that is their prerogative. We are arguing that there is a perfectly good, legitimate, intellectual, rational case for leaving the EU, but we want it to be tested by the Government. I had better sit down as I have probably wearied you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I want to end with a study, which people here will not be aware of, commissioned by the Bertelsmann Stiftung of Munich—so this is not, as far as I am aware, some sort of UK Independence party front organisation, but a well-respected German institution.”
“We accept that we want to recreate the single market in some form. However, the Government immediately replied, “Well, I’m sorry but the rules of the EU are absolutely clear. If you want to be part of the single market, you have to accept free movement of people.” But that is not necessarily true. For example, it does not apply to Canada. As I understand it, Canada has created a good trade deal with the EU, but I am not aware that EU nationals are allowed to travel freely to Canada without a visa—I have some knowledge of this because my wife has a Canadian passport as she was born in Montreal. The argument about what sort of access we would have in the single market is so crucial that we must have some independent analysis. Otherwise, we are making a decision based not on facts, but on prejudice.”
“The Mayor of London and the Conservative mayoral candidate represent, or hope to represent, the powerhouse of the British economy. Presumably they deal with and talk to businesses in London every day, and significantly they have both decided that London would not be disadvantaged by leaving the EU. I am not necessarily quoting people who are friends of mine, but in evidence to an inquiry by the Lords EU Committee into relaunching the single market on 27 July 2010, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills stated that “EU countries trade twice as much with each other as they would do in the absence of the Single Market programme”, That is based on the argument that increased trade with Europe since the early 1980s may be responsible for UK income per head being around 6% higher. That is fair enough.”
“May I take up that point about history, for the sake of the record? In his own very good speech, my right hon. Friend did indeed refer to his grandfather’s speech. Winston Churchill was always a robust defender of European unity, but he made it absolutely clear that what he foresaw was continental European unity. No one has ever been able to find any quotation from Winston Churchill suggesting that Britain should join a European union.”
“The Minister cannot give me an answer now, but will the Foreign Office do some more work on this? Based on history, I think a much higher proportion of those pouring into Germany now will get passports. I would like the Foreign Office to keep an eye on this because those people would have a right to come here and it is an important issue.”
“May I say that the Minister is replying to the debate extremely well? It just shows that sometimes there is an advantage in having to wait a bit before one gets on to the Front Bench because one understands this place better. May I ask my hon. Friend a serious question about the refugees from Syria? I put this point to the Prime Minister and I am not sure I got an adequate reply. I want the Minister to try and deal with it. I am not so worried about east European migrants to this country because they work hard and integrate. I am extremely worried about the millions pouring in from the middle east, including Syria. I said to the Prime Minister that Merkel’s million would all have a right to come here once they get passports. The Prime Minister said that only 2% of people coming into Germany get passports.”
“Why is the Minister spending so much time arguing about a process for how we will get back in the European Union when we will have just left it? I am confused.”
“This Government have rightly been critical of previous Governments for not having an independent audit of our national finances, and they have set up the Office for Budget Responsibility. [ Interruption. ]”
“Well, back to my theme. We have set up the Office for Budget Responsibility. The Foreign Secretary is rightly doing a sort of cost-benefit analysis of this issue. Why do the Government not institute an independent study, by a genuinely independent body, to go in some detail into the effects of a Brexit, plus or minus, on, say, GNP? That would surely be very useful.”
“As we are talking about history, can we at least agree that the right hon. Gentleman’s late, lamented and great father and Enoch Powell were right during those historic debates in the early 1970s that this was a unique endeavour and that what we were signing up to in the European Communities Act 1972 was quite unlike any other treaty, because it established the supremacy of the European Court of Justice over this House? Can we at least agree that there is no halfway house—we are either under EU law or we are not? That is what this referendum is about.”
“Where are the people arguing for a single currency? Where are the people arguing for us to be part of Schengen? Where are the people arguing for much greater co-operation and, indeed, an ever closer union? Where are those voices in Parliament? Where are the voices of the Ted Heaths, the Barbers and all these great figures from our past?”
“We are now in a new world—I will not say a brave new world, but it is a globalised world—and we have regained our confidence as the fifth largest economy in the world. Therefore, some of these arguments are based on the past and we must certainly learn the lessons of the past, but we must realise that there is now a different future, and that the EU may have played its part but it has moved on from what we voted for in 1975. It has moved on from what was an economic community into something much more unified in that sense, and much more powerful. Interestingly, however, so few of the people here who advocate our staying in the European Union seem to have this vision; where are the speeches today or this week, or in the country that have that vision from those who favour remaining in the EU?”
“There was also a lack of confidence, I think, in that post-war generation. In the lifetime of my parents and my early lifetime, in just 20 years the world’s greatest empire dissolved—our empire dissolved. And there was a lack of confidence about our economy. When I had my first job and I was sitting across the river looking at the Palace of Westminster dreaming one day of becoming an MP, I was having to work a three-day week and was working by candlelight. Then when I arrived here in the 1980s we were shadowing the Deutschmark and it was felt that, again, we would find life outside the European Economic Community, as it was then, or the European Union a cold and hard place, but now we are in a different world.”
“I agree that we must understand the lessons of history and if I, for one moment, thought that leaving the EU would make civil war in Europe the remotest bit possible, I would not be standing here advocating that we do leave. How could I, when I come from a post-war generation where my parents constantly talked about the war? It was the essential fact of their life. My parents were 25 in 1945. My mother had to flee Paris hours before the German tanks rolled in. Her best friend, who was Jewish, had to throw herself off a train and was killed as she was being taken to the death camps. My father also had to flee France. This was a defining moment in their life, and it is not surprising that that generation wanted to create more of a sense of European solidarity and never repeat the slaughter and horror of two world wars. We all know that.”
“Winston Peters, a former deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand, has openly speculated about, as he says, forgetting the terrible betrayal of 1973 and creating a new free trade agreement not just with Australia, as New Zealand is now concluding, but with us as well. There is an exciting world out there, with India, China and so on. Do people not think—”
“Our agriculture industry creates 3.5 million jobs, provides 62% of the food we eat and contributes £85 billion a year to the UK economy. It would be rather exciting if this House and our own Ministers ran agriculture. What about fisheries? Do we remember all the arguments made by our friend Austin Mitchell, who represented Grimsby? Do we remember what Grimsby was like, when one could walk across the harbour across the decks of all the trawlers? Do we recall what happened to our fishing industry? Do we recall that it was given away in the last two days of negotiations by Mr Heath? Perhaps it would be quite visionary and quite exciting for us to create a low-tax, deregulated economy. There is a world out there.”
“Why are the Government so intent on not having a cool, calm, independent cost-benefit analysis of what would happen if we decided to leave? I suspect, having read things such as the Open Europe briefing, that the difference is marginal. Open Europe suggests that, in the best case scenario, we might gain 1.1% in gross national product, if we became a deregulated, open society and immediately concluded a free trade agreement, and that in the worst case scenario we might lose 2.2% of our GNP. It is therefore quite a narrow debate. If it is a narrow debate, can we not just raise its tone? Can we not say, “Whether we leave or stay in is probably not going to have a dramatic effect on our economy”? In that sense, it is exciting to think that we might actually be able to run our agriculture. I represent a highly rural area.”
“I am concerned, first, by the lack of vision on the pro-European side, which is something quite new in this House. It was certainly not the basis and foundation of debates in the 1970s, when principled cases were being made on both sides. On one side were the Benns, Foots and Powells, and on the other side were the Heaths and the Barbers. If there is not such a divide between us and if we are united in this House in not wanting to be part of an ever closer union, we do not want to be part of Schengen and we do not want to have a single currency, why are we told that Armageddon will take place the moment the people—not us but the people—vote to leave? Why do we get these apocalyptic visions of what would go wrong?”
“That is a weak argument, perhaps one of the weakest that those advocating our staying in the EU believe in. I am not going to repeat all the arguments about our security ultimately depending on NATO, but I will give one example, from recent history, in order to reply to my hon. Friend. Does he think that the European Union attempting, in a rather cack-handed way, to create an association agreement with Ukraine was a good move to make? Has it made Europe a safer place? Has it not led directly—I do not approve of this—to the annexation of Crimea? An imperialist Europe is not necessarily a force for security; the force for security is the best national interests of the United Kingdom, working with our partners in NATO, and that has been the case since the second world war.”
“I will not give way, because others wish to speak. My hon. Friend has already given me extra time just by standing up. [Interruption.] I will finish my speech, because I do not wish to abuse the procedures of the House. On a final note, there is a world out there. Let us grasp it; let us trust the people; let us not be afraid and let us regain our freedom.”
“Is not the measure of statesmanship the imagination to give to others what one demands for oneself? For centuries, the English have demanded full control over our spending and taxation. Why should the Scottish people feel any different? Does the Secretary of State not realise that there must be some merit in the argument that as long as we maintain the outmoded, outdated and unfair Barnett formula, which thoroughly disadvantages the English, we will simply stoke up resentment on both sides of the border, and that will ultimately lead to more calls for independence?”
“Before we get too party political about this, it can indeed be said that an individual notice should have been given back in 1995. However, shortly after that, Labour came in, and there were perhaps a dozen Labour Pensions Ministers during all of Labour’s time in office. We are 20 years on. Can the hon. Gentleman not accept that we all have lessons to learn? An individual notice should have been sent out by at least one of those Governments—by the Conservative Government or the Labour Government. The hon. Gentleman had an opportunity to do that over all those years.”
“Whether we like it or not, Russia is an essential prerequisite to any successful talks. The American Secretary of State has a close working relationship with the Russian Foreign Minister, talking to him nearly every week. When did the Foreign Secretary last talk to the Russian Foreign Minister and what is he doing to improve his personal relationship with him?”
“With respect, why does the Prime Minister “bang on” so much about east European migration? After all, the Poles have a wonderful record in this country of coming here, not for benefits but to work hard and integrate. Is it not much more worrying that millions are pouring into Europe from north Africa and the middle east? Has the Prime Minister any idea of the proportion of those people who will exercise their right to come here once they have their German passports? If we remain in the EU, the channel will be about as useful in stopping them as a trifling Macedonian stream.”
“As one, like myself, gets a bit older—some might say clapped out—one relies on the NHS more and more. People like me—I have just had an operation and might have another coming up—get worried about strikes. I hope the Secretary of State will try, from now on, to build the morale of junior doctors. Surely the NHS is not for the Conservative party, the Labour party, doctors or nurses, but for the people? Why should people like me, who are admitted to hospital on a Saturday, have a greater chance of dying? He has to take on the vested interests and stand up for the people.”
“Is not the solution to all this still to try to work towards some form of consensus? Surely it should be possible for those on the two Front Benches to work out something that actually solves this problem, and if it is not possible, we should at least try. Otherwise, what are we doing, apart from inflaming opinion against the Union in Scotland?”
“I sit on the Procedure Committee, which has done an exhaustive study on this matter, but I am speaking for myself. I must say that my problem with all this—both my hon. Friend and I are romantic Unionists, who think the Union is more important than anything else—is that we are inflaming opinion in Scotland and Wales, but our current arrangements will not change the result of a single part of a single Bill throughout this Parliament, because we have an overall majority. If we do not have an overall majority next time, the other political parties, given that every other political party in the House is dead set against it, will simply cancel the Standing Orders on a wet, rainy afternoon, and no one will care because it would have been on page 20 of the manifesto.”
“After all the debates, the truth is that 95% of Equitable Life with-profits policyholders have received just 22% of their relative losses. That is the bottom line, is it not? The Government have a responsibility, given the maladministration that clearly happened, to help the many elderly people who have faced such appalling losses.”
“In Lincolnshire, we are very grateful to this Minister, because he has done more than any other Minister to come up and spend days with the police force. We very much appreciate what he has done with this grant and so on. We have, however, had a letter from the chief constable saying that because of historical problems, increases in police salaries and increases in national insurance contributions, he still has a significant funding deficit. Will this wonderful Minister, with all his knowledge of Lincolnshire, just say a word about what more he can do to help us, please?”
“It is worth emphasising this point, because we had quite an incendiary speech from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), and we need to nail this argument on the head. As a member of the Procedure Committee, with its Chairman sitting next to me, I can say that no extra privilege of any sort is being given to any Member of Parliament. We are being put on exactly the same level as members of the public.”
“I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman and I will both vote to leave. From a Eurosceptic English point of view—we are self-confident and we know our arguments—we say to the Prime Minister, “Bring it on—no delay, don’t look worried, bring it on!”. We can have a proper debate, and we can win this.”
“I wonder whether all those years ago Enoch Powell was right, and that we have been dodging this issue ever since 1972. The question he posed was that if we join the EU, this Chamber and democratically elected House loses its sovereignty. Now an historic moment is approaching, and the British people have to make that choice. Will they reclaim that sovereignty or not?”
“My hon. Friend is so right to raise the debate above mere technicalities. He will remember that at his school he was told that the blood of the martyrs is the seed corn of his church. Is not the blood of all those parliamentarians who died in defence in this House the seed corn of our liberties?”
“It does not even meet the higher operating costs of running essential services in rural areas. Urban residents are receiving a grant settlement from a Conservative Government that is about 50% higher than that received by rural residents. It is a double blow, as we in rural areas face higher council tax burdens, which have to be extracted from people who, on average, earn less than those in cities.”
“Let us take Wolverhampton as an example. For 2015-16, Wolverhampton’s funding was £559 per head. It is being cut to £455 per head over the same period. That means that the people of Wolverhampton face a reduction of just 18.6%, while my constituents in West Lindsey will have to bear cuts of 31%. The facts are just as bad at county level. The average amount awarded in Government grant per head across urban England is £486, while the grant per head in rural Lincolnshire is just £385. Metropolitan non-fire authorities face cuts of 19% over this five-year period, while shire counties, non-fire, are being saddled with an average of 34% cuts, and predominantly rural unitaries, non-fire, face cuts of 30%. We have to face the fact that the sparsity allowance is totally inadequate.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you, with your acerbic wit, in the Chair, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall). We all know that there is not enough money in the pot. I accept that cuts have to be made, but I want to make the case for fairer funding. I know how wasteful government can be, although generally, local government has delivered broadly the same service over the last five years despite having to face considerable cuts. I want to make the case for fairness between urban and rural government. For my local district council, West Lindsey, Government -funded spending power—the overall funding available for local authority services—was £76 per head for 2015-16. The Government propose to cut that to just £52 for 2019-20. Many hon. Members here represent urban councils.”
“Closing the gap between the Government grant to the urban dweller and to the rural inhabitant by just 5% over five years would make a huge difference to service provision in rural areas. In Lincolnshire, it would mean an extra £13,130,000 per annum at the end of a five-year period. Right now, good, hard-working people in rural areas are subsidising much better provision of services to people in urban areas, and that has to change.”
“Yes, it widens the gap. We are asking the Minister not for more money but for fairer funding between rural and urban areas, which is precisely the point that my hon. Friend makes. I have worked alongside Lincolnshire County Council and West Lindsey District Council for decades, and they are not spendthrifts. They count every penny, but they are being penalised for having saved so much in the past. They know the needs of our people far more than anyone in Whitehall does. We have already given up much of our invaluable network of local libraries, and got rid of our magistrates courts and our police stations. Are we going to get rid of our fire stations now? How much more does Whitehall really expect that rural England can take?”
“Obviously that is the argument that those representing urban areas will make. I do not deny that the Minister has a delicate balancing act to make, but let right be done. Let there be justice. How can we have such an extraordinary discrepancy? People think of rural areas as fundamentally prosperous. I represent Gainsborough, a small industrial town, and the south-west ward of Gainsborough is one of the most deprived wards in the entire country under any measure.”
“No, I must finish now. Rural areas nowadays are not like some Gainsborough or Constable painting. There are real areas of deprivation, and we ask for justice. We know that it is not practical to have absolute parity per head across the country, but it is totally unacceptable that, in a time of tightening, we are not bearing the burden equally. Are we not one nation? The settlement is totally unfair to the rural taxpayer and our rural authorities. It must be revisited.”
“Since no one else has done this so far after nearly an hour, and since my mum always said that I should say thank you, may I thank the Prime Minister for giving us a choice in the first place? One question to ask about the referendum is what is the point in having an emergency brake on our car if the backseat driver—namely the European Commission—has the power to tell us when and for how long we should put our foot on the brake pedal?”
“Thank you to all those who have taken part in a most interesting debate. It was certainly an eye-opener for me. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered gender pricing.”
“When I mentioned this afternoon the case of a constituent who is a widow and is severely affected by this issue, the Minister in his reply read out a long list of benefits that the lady could receive. Unfortunately, she cannot work. In a sense, having paid in all her life—for 35 years—why should she go cap in hand to the jobcentre?”