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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“Order. The hon. Gentleman has been very well behaved so far and has stayed entirely in order, but he has been led astray by the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke). He should now return to the clause.”
“Order. Members cannot just make something up and say that it should be in the clause; they must relate the debate to what is in the clause already. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has been here quite long enough, should learn how to behave properly.”
“With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment 66, page 13, leave out lines 32 to 35. Amendment 165, page 14, line 2, at end insert— ‘(3) Subsections (1) and (2) may not come into force until such time as the Electoral Commission has placed before Parliament a report on the impact of subsections (1) and (2) on relative controlled expenditure by political parties and non-parties in regulated periods.’. Clause stand part.”
“Order. Many Members want to contribute to this debate, and I know that the very experienced Member speaking will want to get back to the point very quickly.”
“Order. For the guidance of the Committee, I would like to get the Minister in by 6.45, so if hon. Members could try and speak for not much more than five or six minutes, that would be a great help.”
“Order. I know that Mr Elphicke will be thinking carefully of other people, so he might like to bring his remarks to a conclusion quite soon.”
“No doubt the monarchy will be very different indeed when Prince George becomes King, but it will still be essentially the same. That is why it remains enduringly popular.”
“She is so popular precisely because she never asked for the job—she never campaigned for it. She just sees her role in terms of duty—not to be popular, but just to do her job well. The other thing about the monarchy and what it can teach us is that there are limits to the inevitability of reason and democracy, but the monarchy modernises itself in a way in which the essential structures are always kept. I was reminded of that when I went to Portsmouth the other week and looked at HMS Victory. The ship is seemingly the same as on the day of the battle of Trafalgar, but not many people know that in fact the masts are made of steel and virtually every plank has been changed. In the same way, the monarchy is constantly changing and modernising itself.”
“This is indeed a joyous occasion. It is somewhat bizarre that we are paying tribute to a five-week-old baby who is blissfully unaware of all our plaudits, but that is rather fine in many ways. For somebody such as me, with my beliefs, it sums up the virtue of the monarchy. This is an opportunity for us to ask ourselves again why the monarch is so popular. Why is something that is, in many people’s view, an essentially irrational institution so popular, when it is clearly not democratic? There are no doubt many clever five-week-old babies—highly intelligent, young Ed Milibands and David Camerons—who could never get the job, but the young prince will one day be our Head of State. I think that is a rather fine thing. We have to ask ourselves why the monarchy is so popular. I think it is mainly because of what the Queen has been doing.”
“Just because Trident is obviously the best new nuclear deterrent, surely we should still worry about, and be aware of, costs. Given that submarine programmes have a history of vast cost overruns—50% in the case of the Astute class programme—will the Secretary of State assure the House that he is keeping a close eye on costs and that he is broadly confident that he can deliver Trident on time and on budget?”
“T5. Given that for four centuries, Scotland and the Scottish people have played such a glorious part in the defence of our United Kingdom, and that from the battles of Malplaquet and Blenheim to the sands of north Africa and the mud of Flanders we have shed blood together, would it not be a good idea if Armed Forces day 2014 was held in Scotland?”
“If I am told that we are burying our heads in the sand, I would ask: are there anguished debates in other Parliaments all over Europe about whether to bomb Syria? No, they are getting on with running their own countries, and so should we.”
“It does not stack up because MPs are doing their job and listening to what the public want, and the voice of the public is completely clear: they do not want war. They are scarred by what went on in Iraq. We were lied to in Parliament and we are not going to go down that route again. I voted against the Iraq war and I will vote against this one. What would it achieve? That is what we must ask ourselves. Why is it any of our business? Has Syria ever been a colony? Has it ever been in our sphere of interest? Has it ever posed the remotest threat to the British people? Our job in Parliament is to look after our own people. Our economy is not in very good shape. Neither are our social services, schools or hospitals. It is our job to think about problems here.”
“This has been a great two days for Parliament; I think we have won. This time yesterday morning, the motion would have been used to justify war, perhaps this very weekend. War is not going to happen. The Prime Minister has listened to his Back Benchers. We made it perfectly clear to our Whips yesterday afternoon that we were not prepared to vote for any motion that justified war, and so the Prime Minister has offered us another motion. This is not a motion for war. I will not vote for war. I would never vote for war against Syria. If there is a second vote, I will definitely vote against, but I do not believe there ever will be a second vote, because I do not believe that the parliamentary arithmetic stacks up.”
“We know that no significant group in Syria would praise us, apart from these famous rebels, whom we have been supporting over the past two years. Who are these rebels? Does the west seriously want Assad to lose power? Do we want him replaced by a regime that includes Sunni jihadists? That is why we have over the years been buttressing what has been a stable regime. It is simply not in our national interest to bomb Syria. It would not degrade his chemical stocks and it might result in more pressure being placed on minorities in Syria.”
“Absolutely. Although we have spoken with great moral certitude in this debate, the fact is that our contribution to an attack on Syria would be infinitesimal. Have we not degraded our own armed forces in the past three years, contrary to repeated warnings from myself and others? Do we have an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean? In reality, we would simply be hanging on to the coat tails of President Obama. He was foolish enough to issue a red line. His credibility is on the line, not the credibility of the British people or ourselves. We do not have to follow him in this foolish gesture. We know that we cannot destroy the chemical stocks of President Assad. We know that we can only degrade them.”
“What right has the House to say with any certainty that we know what went on that day? What right have we to say that we can sort out the situation? No, there is a better way—the way of peace and diplomacy, not of war. I cannot, therefore, support the motion tonight. I give some credit to the Prime Minister, but I will not vote for the motion.”
“Absolutely. We have heard very little about what is happening on the ground in Syria. How many of those who have spoken with such moral certainty have actually visited Syria? I must confess I have only been there once, but as far as I could see, the minorities were protected. The 2 million Christians are protected by Assad. What will be their fate when Assad falls? What will be the fate of the 2 million Alawites? What will be the fate of the 22 other minorities? How much does the House know about what is actually happening in Syria? Yet we believe that we, who know so little about the complexities of the situation, have the moral right to commit execution on people. That is what we are talking about. We cannot send cruise missiles into a country without killing people. That is what we would be doing.”
“On Syria, will my hon. Friend make the very important point that the community that will suffer most in any armed intervention by the west is one that is protected by the Assad regime—namely, the Christians? It is the last major Christian community left in the middle east outside Egypt.”
“The Minister is exactly right. Those who would suffer due to the policy would be not the nanny-state elite drinking an expensive bottle of claret in their posh suburb of Leicester, but the poor. Why should we price the poor out of alcohol and why should we not trust them?”
“I do not understand why, under the terms of the motion, the hon. Gentleman would be happy with me doing what I did a few years ago, when I spent five months doing a fraud trial as a barrister, but would apparently not be happy with me attending 12 board meetings a year, all properly declared. How can attending just 12 board meetings a year prevent me from doing my job in this place? I do not understand the terms of the motion.”
“Apart from the obvious point that the motion is defective—it does not mention earnings from, for instance, rented property—it constitutes an attempt to create a political class. The only way in which such people can express themselves, earn more money, or gain more power or prestige is to become Ministers, and that plays into the hands of Front Benchers. It gives them more and more power, and puts us more and more in their pockets.”
“The hon. Gentleman talks about resentment, but the public are angry about MPs’ expenses and salaries because they pay for them. Is he really suggesting that the public are furious that a Member of Parliament attends 12 board meetings a year? Does that really make them angry when they are not paying for it?”
“I wonder whether we can get a bit of consensus across the Back Benches. Is not the real problem those second jobs that take MPs away from their constituencies, such as being a Minister? Can we agree that Ministers should not be paid any more than Back Benchers?”
“Will the Labour party confirm its admirable commitment to continuous-at-sea deterrence in any coalition negotiations? Will the hon. Gentleman say that in Labour’s view this is non-negotiable?”
“It is instructive that, despite your valiant efforts, Mr Speaker, this debate has been so discursive, because very little has changed in the other place. We had long, lyrical passages from the shadow Secretary of State about the beauty of marriage, but even a cursory examination of the amendments— [ Interruption. ]”
“They wish it would for political reasons, but by the time of the next general election, we will have a whole catalogue of new cases like that of Adrian Smith and his Facebook page, and the Wimbledon street preacher who got locked in a cell for hours for his sermon on 1 Thessalonians. We will have teachers—such as the teachers Lord Dear referred to in his speeches in the Lords—being ordered to teach that their own views on marriage amount to nothing but bigotry. And the electorate will hold us accountable for doing nothing to help them.”
“When transsexual activists—not aggressive; they have a right to their view—demand changes to the Bill, the Government jump to it, and we get Lords amendment 44 and all that goes with it. When humanist activists—not aggressive; they have a right to their point of view—demand the right to humanist weddings, the Government jump to it, and we get Lords amendment 10 and pages more like it. However, when people who believe in traditional marriage demand better protections, simply so that they cannot be mistreated for failing to support same-sex marriage, the Government harden their heart, close their mind and refuse to do a thing. I know some people think that this will all go away after the Bill becomes an Act in the next few days.”
“It is like an experiment with unstable substances that could blow up at any minute. The Government should be legislating to stabilise the situation, but they steadfastly refuse. Earlier this year, the House voted for my ten-minute rule Bill to protect employees from suffering detriment at the hands of their employers for believing in traditional marriage. Ministers kept saying, “It’ll never happen”, but of course it is already happening. We have all read about the cases, even before the Bill has become law. The Government just do not care enough to solve the problem and protect Church schools. When gay rights activists—not aggressive; they have their point of view, which is just as valid as anybody else’s—demand better pension rights, the Government jump to it, and we get Lords amendment 11 and pages of consequentials.”
“I predict that within five years a chill will descend on the 2,200 Catholic schools, because they will feel under an obligation to teach a view of marriage that is “balanced”—a word that Ministers themselves have used. I am sorry, but the view of the Catholic Church and other Churches on marriage is not “balanced”; it is a view. It is the view that marriage is between one man and one woman for life. It is not a balanced view; it is a view, and increasingly a “balanced” view will have to be taught. Ministers keep telling us that the views of those teachers and others who are worried about this issue are respectable and that they are free to hold and express them, but they have done nothing to guarantee that. That is being left to chance. When we have a toxic mix of this Bill and the Equality Act 2010, anything could happen.”
“What a bizarre country we live in, when declaring one’s support for the Marriage Act 1949, under which most of us were married, could be deemed to be stirring up hatred. Indeed, such is the risk that we have to legislate against it. I hope that amendment 53 has some read-across to the offences in section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and other offences with a much lower threshold than “homophobic incitement”. They are the laws that we should be worried about, even after our amendment to remove the “insulting” limb comes into effect. Nothing whatever has been done to alleviate the concerns of thousands of Church schools and tens of thousands of teachers, who fear that they will be ordered to teach a view of marriage that conflicts profoundly with their deeply held views.”
“I can smile, yes. Even a cursory examination of the amendments made in the other place confirms that very little has been done to protect freedom of conscience. We get a crumb of comfort, it is true, from Lords amendments 1 and 2, which tighten up the quad locks that are meant to stop Churches doing same-sex marriages. We were told repeatedly in this place that the quad locks needed no tightening, but better late than never, I suppose. A sinner—even the Government—who comes late into the vineyard of truth is just as welcome. Then there is Lords amendment 53. Apparently it means that if someone says that they believe in a man-woman marriage, they will not be deemed to be “inciting homophobic hatred”.”
“Some 20 years ago, as Post Office Minister, I tried to privatise Royal Mail. We could not get it through because of Labour intransigence. Labour Members were wrong then and they are wrong now. Has not the only result of the delay been a lack of investment and an inability on the part of this publicly owned corporation to respond to international and technological challenges?”
“I fear that the French will not be prepared to give us more freedom on agriculture, and I fear that the Spanish will not be prepared to give us more freedom on fishing. I fear that we will make very little progress, but we will try our best and the decision will then go to the British people.”
“When the Bill is finally talked out on some dark rainy night or morning, probably in the other place, and when we have ensured that all the other private Members’ Bills are slaughtered to make way for it, we will have to go back to the Government and say to our partners in coalition, “Give us a Government Bill.” If our partners refuse to give us that Bill, that will be an excellent platform on which to fight the next general election. We will remind the people again and again who killed the Bill by talking it out. We must start negotiating now. There are so many fundamental issues—on our fisheries, on our farming and on our trade—that need to be worked out. I am confident that there will be a referendum. I fear that our partners in Europe will make very few concessions.”
“Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) for the way he has introduced it, its likely progress reminds me of the games of Cluedo I used to play as a boy. In about nine or 10 months’ time, the body of my hon. Friend with his Bill will be found dead in the morning room with daggers in his back, but nobody will claim responsibility for killing his Bill. It will not be the Rev. Yellow Cleggo or Comrade Scarlet, but my hon. Friend’s Bill will be dead. The responsibility for the British people being denied a referendum will not lie with us. Sooner or later, the Liberal party and the Labour party will have to come clean with the British people and offer a referendum, as we are offering a referendum.”
“This is an historic day. For the first time in nearly 40 years, a major political party of Government is united in its commitment to give the British people a choice as to whether they stay in the EU. That is the important part of this debate. The Prime Minister and the Government have been criticised for not introducing a Government Bill. Let us be absolutely clear: there is only one party that is stopping this Bill being a Government Bill or having time, and that is the Liberal party. Let us be clear also that the Liberals gave a solemn promise at the last election to have an in/out referendum. They gave that promise only because they thought then that they would win it. They are now reneging on that promise, so this is down to them. This is only a private Member’s Bill. Despite the fact that we all salute our hon.”
“No, I am going to finish now. When we get to that point, unless major concessions are made I, like many other Conservatives, will campaign for this country once more to be free. Why should this country not once again be in charge of its own destiny? Why should we not be part of a genuine free trade area? That is our vision of a free and prosperous nation, and that is what we will put to the British people.”
“It is important that the charity commissioners realise that faith groups are entitled to their own beliefs, even if those beliefs seem idiosyncratic, even exclusive, to many in the secular world. This is often the nature of faith groups—the nature of their strong beliefs and the way they operate. It is worrying if secular-based organisations impose their own morality and ethos on faith groups.”
“It is even more serious than that. As far as I know, there is not a single Catholic adoption agency left working in this country, despite the fact that they all worked with the most vulnerable people. They were all forced to close down because they were told by local authorities that they had to abide by equality legislation, which trumps everything. Catholic adoption agencies were not prepared to allow same-sex couples to adopt children, so they have all closed down. There is a serious attack on faith-based organisations and their ethos.”
“Therefore, they want to protect their young people, but, having come to the conclusion that the only way in which they can do so is to educate themselves, they find that the Charity Commission says, “That is not good enough. You are not reaching out to the wider world.” They are in an impossible situation. I ask only one thing of the Minister. Please, ponder the debate and leave faith groups, their organisations and their ethos alone.”
“No one can deny that the faith groups, although still largely free to carry on their own services in their own churches, mosques, temples or whatever, are not as free as they were, although they are much freer than in many other parts of the world. The faith groups reach out to the community with their voluntary organisations. The Charity Commission said to the Plymouth Brethren, “The reason why we want to take your charity status away is that you are not reaching out to the community.” The Brethren know, however, that when they reach out to the community, their beliefs immediately run counter to the demands made on their organisations by the local authorities. Paradoxically, that is why the Plymouth Brethren want to retreat into themselves: they feel under threat from the wider world—their ethos is under threat.”
“We have to recognise that they have those strong beliefs, whether on same-sex marriage or anything else, and they are entitled to run their own groups how they want to. In spite of all the warm words that we will shortly hear from the Minister and the shadow Minister, that is not happening, and there is now a war of attrition. Some people say that the faith groups are whinging and whining and that they live in an entirely tolerant and free country—thank God that we do live in a country that still is largely free and tolerant, compared with many others in the world—but I do not believe that our country is as free for and as tolerant of the faith groups’ views, which are often difficult, as it was 10, 20 or 30 years ago. No one sitting in the Chamber now can gainsay that point of view.”
“Frankly, I am not so interested in covenants and all the rest; I am interested in the state leaving faith groups alone. Leave them alone! Let them run their voluntary organisations, schools, Churches and adoption agencies in the way that they want to run them. Often, the way that the faith groups want to run such organisations will be counter to modern, secular ideas of equality. The trouble with faith, however, is that it is often demanding. The books of faith in any religion make difficult demands of people. Sometimes, admittedly, they are exclusive in their demands; they proclaim a particular truth, and it is difficult for all people to subscribe to those truths. Some people may be excluded because of their set of beliefs, but that is the nature of faith.”
“Furthermore, in the wind-ups, we will hear a lot about the good work of faith groups and about how we want to encourage local authorities to work with faith groups. If we look at what is happening on the ground, however, we see that serious things are occurring. We have had a big debate about same-sex marriage, and I do not want to repeat all the arguments, but the Government have been loud in their acclamation that they want to protect the position of Churches. I believe that the marriage services carried out by Churches in their own buildings will be protected, for a time anyway, but will freedom of speech in Church schools be protected? Will freedom of action in Church groups be protected? Those are much more difficult questions to answer.”
“I mentioned the Catholic adoption agencies earlier, in an intervention on the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). I noticed that he did not answer my question—perhaps he did not want to, or the answer was too difficult. The situation, however, is serious: a mainstream Church was indulging in extraordinarily important work with by far the most difficult families in the country, trying to place children from very disturbed backgrounds with foster parents, but all those adoption agencies have now closed. An important faith group was doing important work that we all lauded and thought was marvellous, but the agencies have closed because the state said that the adoption groups had an ethos that did not fit with its equality ethos. That is extremely worrying. We have heard a lot about covenants, and we will no doubt hear more.”
“We find it difficult to understand the viewpoint of a group such as the Plymouth Brethren, who, frankly, treat life in literal accordance with the Bible. As a result, they want to have closed services to an extent, which is their right; they also want to mix and work together and to educate their children in their own schools. That sits oddly with the modern ethos of audit—that everything has to subscribe to general notions of the right way to do things—but we should consider the attack on the Plymouth Brethren by the Charity Commission as an attack on freedom of belief and association, and it is therefore very important. It is important not only for that admittedly small group of people, but for those of us who belong to Churches that are far more numerous, because we are also under attack from the same attitudes.”
“Faith groups, like other voluntary groups, have suffered from the attitude of mind that it is the state that must always take responsibility. We can have a wide-ranging debate about that, and we all know the arguments on both sides. However, there is something much more serious going on, and I want to amplify the two points I made earlier. I made an intervention about the Plymouth Brethren. I think that that is an interesting case, because it is almost a throwback to the politics of the 16th and 17th centuries. There is a religious group whose beliefs, frankly, the state thinks are weird. Most Members of Parliament either have no faith at all or belong to well established faith groups with broad views.”
“The trouble with a debate such as this is that it can be as reassuring and pleasant as a Christmas carol service. We all agree with each other. We are about to hear the winding-up speeches, and I have no doubt that both Front-Bench spokesmen will be extremely polite about faith groups and pay tribute to all their sterling work. We will all go away feeling very happy. However, a more serious situation exists, which needs to be addressed. I followed what my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) said. I do not blame the current Front Bench, but undoubtedly faith, and particularly action in faith, and faith groups, have suffered during the past century, because the state has become a kind of giant mustard tree—if we are to use biblical references—and all other activity has gradually been drained of irrigation.”
“I may have expressed myself badly, and I apologise. The hon. Gentleman has obviously misunderstood what I said. I was trying to say that if faith groups are put in a position where they feel that they must be supported by local authorities and conform to the authorities’ ethos—he who pays the piper calls the tune—there is a real danger that they gradually become impoverished in their belief. It will be a kind of vicious circle: as they can survive only because of the money that is provided, they will have to subscribe to secular beliefs and culture. They will lose their very vitality, which is formed by faith. That was the point I was trying to make, perhaps badly.”