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?”
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“Do we want to create one in which we solve our problems by killing? I admit that my religious belief informs my view, and people could ask what right I have to impose my religious beliefs—seen in opposition to abortion or capital punishment or to war or to assisted dying or death—on them. I would at least ask them this question: “What sort of society do we want to create when we feel that we can solve problems by hastening death rather than promoting life?” What sort of society are we creating if we say that we value people who are healthy, fit, beautiful and young more than we value people who are poor, old, crippled, ill and dying? We feel that in those people there is an eternal soul waiting there—a beautiful soul that needs to be nurtured.”
“I suppose people would expect me to do so, but it really has to be underlined. As we embark on the Bill and reflect on what it will mean if it becomes an Act, many of us feel that history will repeat itself. For all the controls that we are told will be there—I am not sure that the High Court’s consideration on paper for a couple of weeks or a couple of doctors in a dying clinic signing for it are much of a control, particularly when most doctors are opposed to it—more and more people will take this route, and as they become ill this general question will increasingly be put to them, “Do you want to end your life now? It is the law; you have the right to do it.” That contrasts with what happens now, where the whole emphasis is on trying to let people die naturally. What sort of society do we want to create?”
“His body was filled with morphine, which probably killed him in the end. It was not designed to kill him, however, but to relieve his suffering. My friend Father Philip Bailey took that choice as well. My view is that we do not need an assisted suicide or an assisted dying Bill; we need a movement for natural dying. We have to come to terms with death as a society and recognise that it is a journey we are all going to take. We have to promote the hospice movement and palliative care, put much more resources into them and be honest with people that increasingly intrusive, difficult, painful operations and medications may not be the way. In that sense, I think we can resolve this issue and emerge with credit from what I regard as a moral maze. I have one important issue to mention.”
“The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) has read us a very moving letter, and I think the whole tone of the debate does the House credit. This is an extraordinarily difficult issue, and we are all going to face this awful journey—I use “awful” in the old-fashioned sense of the word. We are frightened of dying, although perhaps for religious people it is not so much of death but of dying, and we have to respect each other’s opinions. When my good friend Father Philip Bailey of Holy Rood Catholic church was dying—he had kidney failure—he was sent to Scunthorpe hospital, which offered him very painful and very intrusive treatment to try to enable him to live a few weeks or days longer. He, a Catholic priest, chose not to take it. I was with my best friend Piers Merchant, a former Member, when he was dying of cancer.”
“No one doubts the right hon. Lady’s humane instincts, and of course we should not be hard-hearted, but we have to be hard-headed. Given that millions are displaced in Syria and there is, quite understandably, no limit to how many want to come here, will she say exactly how many migrants Labour wants to admit to this country?”
“The Prime Minister defended the recent action against ISIL on the basis of specific intelligence and specific targeting. When it comes to the debate we are going to have on bombing Syria, may I commend that approach? I think many of us want to be reassured that we have a specific intelligence-based approach, not just a generalised one of bombing our enemies’ enemy.”
“With respect, I think that this is legalistic claptrap. I do not remember the Prime Minister being particularly constrained in arguing his case during the general election. What is important is that the process is considered to be fair. Why can we not just cut to the chase and accept amendment 4, which was tabled by the Opposition, under which we would have full purdah and do what we do in general elections, so that everybody thinks it is fair?”
“As a Minister I sat on Telecommunication Councils and it is incredibly detailed stuff. Surely we could wait 28 days to publish such material. That would be perfectly possible. I do not know what hack in the Foreign Office is writing the Minister’s speech, but the reality is that it just does not add up.”
“I wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and his new clause 11, but the House will be relieved to hear that I shall do so rather more briefly. There is a quote by Sir Winston Churchill in the No Lobby, which says that he wanted to spend the first million years in heaven painting. As much as I love my hon. Friend, I fear that I might spend the first million years in purgatory listening to his speeches.”
“Members: “Why not?”] There will not be a surge in support for the SNP after this referendum; there might be a surge in support for somebody else, which SNP Members might not welcome. I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate he will try to convince us that the Government do want a broad equality of resources during the campaign, so that we can feel that the yes and no campaigns have put their points of view fairly, that the public have listened to their arguments and that a fair decision has been made.”
“The arguments were put, there was a clear decision and people accepted it. Surely we do not want to be in the situation that has arisen with so many other referendums in Europe, in which there is a sense that the political establishment—the European establishment—has a massive imbalance of resources on its side when it comes to spending. That creates a sense after the referendum that it has somehow been unfair. Our sole UKIP Member is not present for this important debate, but we do not want to create a situation like the one that existed after the Scottish referendum, do we? There was suddenly a great surge in support for the SNP, and we would not want to recreate that position. [Hon.”
“However, a general election is somewhat different. Separate political parties all have their own position that they are putting forward, rather than ganging up, in a sense, on one side of the argument. There is no sense of unfairness at the end of the process, or a sense that one important political point of view has been massively outspent by the other side. Although I accept that the Minister will make those arguments, I hope he will feel that there is some sort of moral force in what we have said. For instance, the official yes side in the AV referendum spent £3.436 million and the official no side spent £2.995 million. There was a broad equality in what the yes campaign and no campaign were spending on the AV referendum, was there not? I think we all felt it was a fair referendum.”
“Their ability to spend will be based on the votes that they got, with the Conservative party allowed to spend £5 million, the Labour party £4 million, the UK Independence party only £3 million—they will be the only people on the other side—and the Liberal Democrats £2 million. We could reach a situation in which the yes campaign is spending up to £17 million and the no campaign only £8 million. That has already happened once before. In 1975, the no side was outspent 10:1, which simply cannot be fair. When I put those points to my hon. Friend the Minister in the past, he said that although he accepted that morally and logically there was force in my arguments, that was not in our tradition, as we do not have limits for general elections. I am sure that he will make the same argument again tonight.”
“Friend the Minister has taken seriously the points I have put to him. In our earlier debates, the way he put it was that there should be a “broad equality” of forces, but we fear that that simply will not happen. Although there are sensible, firm and clear limits on how much public money will be available to the no and yes campaigns—say, £600,000 or something on each side—and that is completely fair, the party establishment of the main political parties, the Conservative party, the Labour party, the Liberal party, and the SNP, will almost certainly campaign to stay in Europe.”
“My hon. Friend has identified an important point. The Minister will remember that I made precisely this point in my amendment 53 in Committee, before our summer break. Although there has been a lot of fire and emotion and a vote tonight about purdah, the question of spending by both sides is probably more important. Lord Lamont, the former Chancellor, has written a number of articles about it. It is incredibly important when we have the referendum that we get a sense of closure. At the end of this, whatever the result, people should feel that it has been broadly fair. Otherwise, we might reap the whirlwind. We should remember what happened after the Scottish referendum. If the yes campaign should win, we do not want to create a sense of unfairness for the other side. I know that my hon.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am very interested in your ruling. In future, will it not be open to members of the Whips Office, either Government or Opposition, to drag people in late in a debate to speak? Will that not be open to the Whips Office?”
“With regard to the point about removing tax credits to families with more than two children, I want to establish a principle which I think is quite important. Perhaps I should declare an interest: I have six children. I apologise for that. I just want to establish that the Government are not following the sort of liberal line that there is an ideal family—that a family of two children is more worthy than one of one or three or four or five. The Government are not approaching the subject from that viewpoint, are they? We can at least establish that principle, can we not?”
“I agree that we should keep the embedding of five pilots in hundreds of missions in perspective, but the fact remains that we were given a solemn promise that if British service people were to bomb in Syria, we would be consulted. I urge my right hon. Friend to learn the lessons of these incidents. Twice bitten, twice shy; twice we have relied on faulty intelligence to undertake disastrous invasions of Libya and Iraq. Two years ago we were told that we had to bomb Assad; now we are told that we have to bomb his enemies. I say to my right hon. Friend, please do not take us for granted; tell us all that is going on.”
“Last week I and some other Members mentioned these Barnett consequentials and expressed our concern about that. The Government deserve some credit for the fact that they have listened to the points we made and the Leader of the House has amended his Standing Orders to ensure, as I understand it, that proposals relating to the Barnett consequentials have been withdrawn. I see the Leader of the House has just come back into the Chamber and I would like to publicly pay tribute to him for having handled this issue in a model way and listened to representations.”
“The hon. Gentleman knows that I share many of his views. I admire his Unionism and I am as strong a Unionist as he is. Would he give credit to some Conservative Members who have at least ensured that this is not a total exclusion, but a sort of double veto? We have made some changes. May I assure him that whatever the SNP does to provoke English Members, for instance on hunting and on other issues, I for one will put the Union first? Many of us do not want this compromise to be changed; we do not want this to be a more extreme measure and we are listening to what he is saying.”
“The Secretary of State is a most cerebral Minister, so I wonder whether he can help with a problem that I am grappling with. One way in which the north has competed with the south in the past has been through lower wages. I am not saying that that is right, but how will the living wage impact on it? When employers increase wages, they normally do so as a result of an increase in productivity. If there is a living wage imposed by the state, how will we avoid increased unemployment or lower productivity —or both?”
“I am sure the Secretary of State will want to give an explanation for how she will ensure value for money in her Department. May I give her one project for which I could ensure value for money, where it takes four to five weeks to see a doctor, the roads are filled with potholes and the police are in crisis? I refer, of course, to that tribe inhabiting the frozen plains of the north, the Lincolnshire yellowbellies.”
“Order. We have six Members to speak, apart from the Labour party spokesman and the Minister. I want to get them all in, so will they please keep an eye on the clock? Please, on no account, speak for more than 10 minutes. I am sure that I can rely on the first speaker, Mr Martin Vickers, to obey my instructions implicitly.”
“I remind Members that at the conclusion of the next debate, at 11.30 am, the House will observe a minute’s silence to mark the 10th anniversary of the events of 7 July 2005. The silence will begin at the point at which the next debate is to end, so I would be grateful for Members’ co-operation in ensuring that we are able to commemorate those events appropriately.”
“Order. The rules of the House state that if an hon. Member wishes to speak, she must have the permission of the mover of the motion—I assume the hon. Lady does—and of the Minister.”
“I believe that the Government are entitled to fulfil their manifesto commitment. What worries me is that the Union is at stake, and we have to be seen to be doing this in a very fair way. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be open to the idea of allowing extra time so that Members can debate this fully, are not be limited to speeches of just three or four minutes on a complex area and have all the time they need to table amendments and get them debated. I really think that that is in the interests of the Union and of the Government.”
“I actually think the SNP has quite a good record in not voting on English business unless there are Barnett consequentials. If an amendment is tabled to exclude from this provision matters where there are Barnett consequentials, which I favour as I do not want to put the Union at risk, will the hon. Gentleman be minded to support it, and the general principle of English votes for English business if there are no Barnett consequentials?”
“Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) making that point again and again. This will become a real issue, because the SNP will say, as it is perfectly entitled to do, that this is not only English business, as it has consequences for Scotland because of the Barnett formula.”
“I hope that I am not giving away any confidences here, but when we were having these discussions in the 1922 Committee before the general election, I constantly warned about the threat to the United Kingdom. I was assured by my colleagues, “No, we must have a full exclusion of all Scottish Members, as that is what the English want. They will be the Parnellites, and they will misuse this Parliament to filibuster and delay matters. We should exclude them entirely.” I said, “No, don’t exclude them, because that will be a lever to break open the United Kingdom.” I was then told by my colleagues that the Scots do not care. “The Scots don’t want to take part in English business,” they said. The trouble is that the SNP will make them care. We have already heard the hon.”
“We must assure everyone in the country as a whole that we have not just debated this matter in an afternoon, constrained by statements or urgent questions, with no real time to debate the 22 amendments to Standing Orders. Next week, we will debate this on Wednesday, but we have an Adjournment debate on Thursday. How often do the Whips run around, trying to fill up this Chamber, with no one taking any interest? Here we have a major constitutional issue with only a part of a day in which to discuss it. In all sincerity, I say to the Leader of the House that he should use his power to allow another day—a full day—for amendments, as this is a matter of vital concern.”
“It is a great honour to follow the former Leader of the Opposition, who spoke with great passion. I wish to share and agree with some of the points that he made. The Conservative party is not an ideological party; it is not a party of narrow party interest. The Conservative party is a party of the nation. It is a party not just of England, but of the United Kingdom. Our aim, our will and everything that we should strive for in this Parliament is to maintain the United Kingdom, because the United Kingdom hangs by a thread. We should not give any succour to those who wish to break up the United Kingdom. This debate is about not just the principles of these issues, but the time, and that is what I wish to speak on. We must have adequate time.”
“We are a party of tradition and history and we recognise that our nation is asymmetrical. The English, who comprise 85% of the population, must take a bit of stick on this—carry a bit of a burden. We must recognise that, occasionally, the West Lothian question cannot always be resolved. We know that, but we must be generous on these issues. In the few seconds left to me, I make one final appeal to the Secretary of State. Let us at least allow proper time for debate, and let us get this right.”
“The House might not like that, but at least it will ensure, Mr Speaker, that you are not put in the invidious position of having to certify a Bill that the Government may tell you affects only England, but that, because of Barnett consequentials, affects Scotland too. It is well known that I believe that we should get rid of the Barnett formula and replace it with a needs-based formula and that we should give full fiscal autonomy to our Scottish friends, which would solve all these problems. But the Secretary of State for Scotland has resisted those amendments, so we are where we are. I finish on this point. The Conservative party is always best when it recognises that the Union is asymmetrical. We do not believe in neat constitutional solutions, as advocated by our liberal friends.”
“Of course the SNP wants independence, but why are we making it easier for it? What we are discussing today—what we will achieve in Standing Orders—will not change the result of a single vote in this Parliament, because the Conservative party has an overall majority. If we lose the next general election, the Labour party, or whatever is in power, will simply reverse it, so why are we giving this gift to the SNP? What we need is an amendment to this motion to ensure that when there are Barnett consequentials, there are not two classes of Members, and that the Scots, the Welsh and anybody else can vote during the entire process. That is a perfectly fair amendment and a compromise.”
“Lincolnshire police are in crisis for want of a mere £3 million to £4 million. In my area of 600 square miles, there is barely one police car on duty through the night. This is a crisis: £3 million would be a drop in the ocean compared with what we spend on international development, so will my right hon. Friend persuade the Chancellor to transfer just a little money to us? Charity begins at home.”
“T6. The policy of European Governments on migrants is weak, and because it is weak, it is cruel, encouraging traffickers to bring more and more of them in. What action is the Home Secretary taking to enforce the Dublin convention, whereby migrants are returned to the place where they first entered the European Union? That is happening in only 3% of cases. What is she doing to enforce the traditional law of the sea whereby people are picked up in a humane way, looked after, and returned to where they came from?”
“That used to happen in our proceedings many years ago, when we often had longer debates, such as the famous Norway debate, which lasted more than one day.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Whatever one’s views on English votes for English business, I have considerable sympathy for the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the decision that you have made. It strikes me that so often in this place, we fill out time with Whips desperately trying to bring people in, when really important debates, such as this one and the ones on the Iraq war and the Syria war, are limited to one day. I know that you will say immediately, Mr Speaker, that you do not have control over business, but as the Chairman of the Procedure Committee is here and you are here, I just wonder whether we may look at this matter so that, in future, you might have the ability to mark business as of particular national importance so that it gets two days of debate.”
“I well recall that whereas our debates on, say, social security, when we are discussing spending extra billions of pounds, are sometimes extremely poorly attended and attract very little interest, as soon as we get into what I would call these “Moral Maze” issues, where people have strong personal views and there are often free votes, our Parliament really comes into its own. That is what makes a Parliament. It is part of being a Parliament, and what we are trying to create in the Scottish Parliament is, in its essence, a real Parliament. Scotland may be a small nation, but it is a proud nation and it has its own individual point of view, which I would have thought was best determined by the Scottish people, through their Parliament.”
“I rise to speak to my new clause 66, on health and medicines, which reads: “In Part 2 of Schedule 5 to the 1998 Act, leave out “Head J (Health and Medicine)”. In the helpful Member’s explanatory statement, which the Clerks helped me with, I say: “The Amendment would remove health and medicine, including abortion, xenotransplantation, embryology, surrogacy, genetics, medical supplies, poisons and welfare foods from the list of matters reserved to the UK Parliament, allowing the Scottish Parliament to make separate provision in these matters for Scotland.” I put forward the new clause hesitantly. I just want to probe the Government for an explanation of why the Scottish Parliament is not going to be allowed, under our Scotland Bill, to debate or decide these matters. These matters are, of course, of vital interest to any nation.”
“In a sense, we already have abortion on demand in this country—that is itself a controversial statement. For all I know, the Scottish Parliament may want to clear up the law in its own way, and I do not see why it should not be allowed to.”
“The Abortion Act 1967 never extended to Northern Ireland, where abortion continues to be regulated by provisions in criminal law. Under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, all abortions are illegal in Northern Ireland, subject to very limited exceptions specified in the Criminal Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1945 and application of case law, chiefly R v . Bourne of 1939. Abortion is currently allowed in Northern Ireland subject to limited circumstances where the pregnancy threatens the life of the woman or where it would affect her physical or mental health in a way that is permanent or long term. That is the situation in Northern Ireland and, believe me, I have no idea what the Scottish Parliament would decide if it was given this power.”
“That is fair enough. When Lord Falconer introduced his Assisted Dying Bill in the other place, he did not seek to extend it to Scotland. Obviously we trust—quite rightly in my view—the Scottish people, through their Parliament, to decide what is arguably an even more important issue than abortion, namely whether assisted dying should become legal. I cannot see the logic—this is why I am trying to probe my right hon. Friend the Minister—in allowing the Scottish Parliament to decide on assisted dying, but not abortion. Let me deal with the intervention by the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh). I know he has tabled an amendment on this issue and I look forward to hearing from him later. No doubt he can make these points far more powerfully than I can.”
“It’s not for me for decide.” Frankly, I have no idea whether, if the Scottish Parliament was allowed to decide the law of abortion, it would take my pro-life view and amend the Abortion Act 1967 or not. I have no idea and it is none of my business. I would have thought that a self-respecting Parliament could and should be trusted to deal with abortion, especially as I understand that the Scottish Parliament already deals with assisted dying. Indeed, in January 2010, the End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill was introduced in the Scottish Parliament by Margo MacDonald MSP. It sought to permit assistance to be given to persons who wished to have their lives ended under certain conditions. The Scottish Parliament disagreed with the general principles of the Bill, which is apparently being reintroduced, and that discussion is going on.”
“Yes, I was going to come to that point, which is important. I have obtained the help of the Library in finding out exactly what happens in Northern Ireland with regard to abortion, which I will describe in a moment. My research assistant shares my generally pro-life view—I suppose it is no secret that I will always take the pro-life argument, whether on capital punishment, assisted suicide or abortion. I have my own views, which I appreciate are not the views of everybody in this place. When I was thinking about tabling this new clause, he said to me, “Is this wise? What would the Scottish Parliament decide? Would its views be more like ours in the UK Parliament?” I said to him, “It’s completely irrelevant what my views are or what your views are. That’s a value judgment.”
“Member for Southport had already tabled a specific amendment. I included issues such as embryology, surrogacy, genetics, medical supplies, poisons and welfare foods because I did not want this to be a debate only about abortion. It struck me that all those other matters were of great interest, with issues of great national debate raging around them. I see no reason why the Scottish Parliament should not have some control over them.”
“The United States has an increasingly intrusive and proactive Supreme Court, but the power of states to decide on these important matters, such as the death penalty, is jealously guarded in America. Despite the power that is given to the states in the United States, I do not believe that the republic is any weaker, that the union is any weaker or that these matters cannot be properly decided by people. People can take a different attitude on these great moral issues of the day, depending on whether they live in Massachusetts or Texas, and I think that is probably the case in other parts of the world too. I am therefore not sure I understand the logic—it can presumably be explained to us—of why abortion has been excluded. When I tabled the new clause, I thought I should try to make it as wide as possible because I was aware that the hon.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for describing that bit of history. I understand that this was discussed by the Smith commission—again, we can be given further details—and there was disagreement. Presumably a majority did not want the power to be passed. However, this is not the Smith commission. We are perfectly entitled to disagree with the Smith commission and, following the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, we are perfectly entitled to give the Scottish Parliament that power. Indeed, this is a power that other devolved Administrations around the world have. In the United States abortion is a state matter, within the framework of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v . Wade, as altered by subsequent decisions. If I was an American politician, I imagine I would be quite a strong states’ rights person.”
“My hon. Friend is giving a very fine Tory speech, not one from the Whiggish camp as we have been hearing from others, but I wonder whether in the deepest recesses of his soul he is a Jacobite, and thinks that if there had been a different settlement we may not have had this problem. The serious point, however, is that we must allow the Public Accounts Committees of both Parliaments to look at the royal finances properly, which they cannot do at the moment.”
“My right hon. and learned Friend said that the Crown Estate was not the glue that held the United Kingdom together. Nothing much is going to change in regard to the Union following these changes to the Crown Estate. The Government are to be commended for the fact that we are having four days to debate these matters, enabling us to go into great detail. However, I support something that he said earlier, and I hope that others were listening. When we are discussing a subject as fundamental as English votes for English laws, which has a direct relationship with the preservation of the Union, particularly in regard to the Barnett formula, one day’s debate is simply not enough.”