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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“Will the Minister at least look at the successful outcomes, including some of the highest life expectancies in the world, that are being delivered in countries like Australia and the Netherlands, to see how we can deliver better outcomes? There is no point spending more money if people’s only right is to join the back of a queue.”
“Our spending on the NHS is now as much as the entire GDP of Portugal. We used to be a country with an NHS attached to it, but we are almost becoming an NHS with a country attached to it. Of course we would welcome this spending if we got the same outcomes that people get in civilised countries, like the Netherlands or Australia, but every time I mention fundamental reform, I am dismissed as wanting to bring in privatisation, so it is hardly worth raising that issue. Australia has an extremely successful pharmaceutical benefits scheme; I know that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care went out there, and I have talked to Australian doctors about it.”
“Has the Minister had a discussion with the Intelligence and Security Committee as to why our normally sophisticated operations have not succeeded in making any significant dent in smashing the gangs and stopping the boats? Perhaps he might ask the Committee whether its view is that such is the pull factor and the desperation of these people that the only way we will stop the boats is to do what my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) was going to do: arrest them, deport them and send them back to where they came from.”
“The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech. Will she make the point that we do not really understand where the Government are coming from? I understand why they want to claw back money from big estates, or from people who buy farms just to avoid inheritance tax—not Jeremy Clarkson of course; he is a fantastic chap—but I cannot understand why they are focusing on family farms. Will the hon. Lady make the point that the National Farmers Union has offered various compromises, and the Minister should meet the NFU in a positive way to ensure that we keep our family farms run by families?”
“The hon. and learned Gentleman is describing the law. One of the justifications for the Abortion Act 1967 was that it would end back-street abortions; indeed, whether we like it or not, we have abortion on demand in safe environments. If the proposals we are discussing go ahead and, de facto, it becomes possible to have an abortion at home up to birth, does he not think that could endanger women’s health? Is he not worried about that, or are the movers of the petition not worried about that?”
“Could I be counterintuitive for a moment and make a New Labour point? The cause of a lot of illegal migration is the fact that it is easier to work here illegally than anywhere else in Europe, and that is because we do not have national identity cards. The Gordon Brown Government, quite wisely, were going to bring them in, and the coalition Government wrongly stopped that idea. Why should we not have national consensus now on bringing in national identity cards, given that we all carry mobile phones? It would dramatically reduce illegal working.”
“History repeats itself. In 1935, we spent just 3% of national wealth on defence, and because we rearmed almost too late, we almost lost civilisation. By 1945, we were spending 52% of national wealth on defence. Given that we face a crisis in Europe, with an unparalleled Russian rearmament almost as great as that of Germany in the 1930s, will the Secretary of State do the right thing by history and give this House a firm commitment to 3.5%, not as an ambition, but by a set date?”
“This week I met Rana Musa of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. Under the traditional status quo, the Israeli authorities levied arnona—the property tax—only on Church-owned business properties, but they are now levying it on Church properties used for religious purposes. That is an existential crisis for the Christian churches in Jerusalem. It is part of a pattern of intolerable pressure that has resulted in a reduction of the Christian population in the west bank to just 45,000 people. That must stop. I beg the Church of England, the Catholic Church, all Christians in this country and everybody else to shout at the top of their voices that Christians in the Holy Land deserve to be treated with respect.”
“We see the real prospect that those that might fit the criteria for assisted dying under the Bill, but have no wish to accelerate their death, would feel an immediate dilemma between prolonging their own lives, and the future quality of life of their loved ones. For illustrative purposes, the six-month period stated within the current Bill would equate to between £25,000 and £40,000 of expense borne by an individual paying for their own residential care in the current system. Failings in the system mean that older people who should not be in hospital are held there, causing a burden to the NHS, and Local Authorities face an ever-growing proportion of funding needed to support social care, without a proportionate increase in funding from central government.””
“In any case, organisations, and sites, should be given the ability to exclude themselves from the act of an assisted death without prejudice to their approval as providers of services to the state.” We have experience of that, with regard to Catholic adoption agencies. There is a real risk that some care homes may feel they have to withdraw from this sector. I will carry on quoting: “Those that fund their own care pay substantial sums, often saved for over a lifetime—including property wealth. These savings will have been set aside for retirement and to pass on to loved ones. Instead, they are used to fund the costs of their own residential care, and to substantially subsidise the state.”
“To that end we believe that in order to provide the necessary protections to such a vulnerable part of our society, the Bill must be explicit in its reference to older people living in residential services.” That is why these new clauses are so important. He continues: “The Bill must take account of the current unfairness and instability at the heart of our social care system, and question whether such legislation can be introduced whilst such problems exist. The Bill must recognise that an individual health/social care professional’s ability to remove themselves from the process of Assisted Dying is so difficult, that specific exclusion of the care home sector should be a feature of the Bill.”
“I wish to speak to new clauses 16 and 17. Rather than giving my own views, I think that powerful testimony on behalf of someone who actually runs a care home should be heard by the House. I want to quote, as briefly as possible, Dan Hayes, who runs the Orders of St John Care Trust, which runs care homes in Lincoln generally and in my constituency: “we believe that the Bill as drafted is flawed, and the risks to older, vulnerable people, residing within social care environments are substantial. We believe that any assumption by those drafting the final legislation that it is not intended for use by those living with conditions regarded as part of the ageing process, would be mistaken. Any legislation would be immediately tested and assumed to be accessible to such a cohort of people.”
“A request for the company of a care professional will create a substantial moral dilemma for that person, profoundly so if they are individually opposed to Assisted Dying.” That is the choice that these loving care workers will have to make—that would be the pressure on them. He goes on to say: “Even where they are not, it will mean that they will intimately witness the death of someone with whom they have a strong bond, with that death having come about through facilitation, rather than naturally.” Imagine the pressure on the workers in that care home.”
“In an environment such as a care home, there is no way in which a professional could be fully ‘separated’ from assisted dying, should a resident they work with closely seek to enquire about or make a request. Imagine a scenario where an individual living in social care is at the point where they will be provided with the approved substance to bring about their own death: In a care home, this is likely to be in their own room, which will be in close proximity to many other older people who live within that setting. It will be commonplace and understandable that the magnitude of the event will mean that the individual will wish to have company and comfort up to and immediately before/during the period in which the substance is taken.”
“The relationships are familial in the sense of contact for hours each day and the extension of support to ordinary, everyday issues outside the scope of normal healthcare professionals. Our employees deliver loving care and build relationships in a way that residents come to depend upon and take comfort from. Such relationships are key to excellent care provision, and these important relationships enhance and prolong lives by providing a sense of purpose and place to older people.” I have been around these care homes. They are fantastic places, with such love and such care for the most vulnerable in society. My Hayes then continues: “In such a setting, it renders the ability for an individual to refuse to partake…as useless.”
“I wish to be mindful of other people, so I will proceed and make this one simple point on behalf of care homes. Mr Hayes continues: “During the pandemic, we saw the appalling attempts at a widespread use of ‘Do Not Attempt Resuscitation’ arrangements for older people. This is a clear demonstration that an existing broken system places a lower value upon the lives of older people than of others.” This is the important point: “Relationships within residential care for older people are both professional and intimate. Carers, Care Leaders, and Service Managers are all competent health and social care professionals, but they are also friends and confidantes of those that live within social care services.”
“The Minister is making a very important point, and this is what I dealt with in my few short remarks. If, according to the Minister, care homes run by religious orders will have to provide this service, those orders will have to get out of care homes altogether.”
“and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe that this is a debate not about solar farms or green energy but the sheer concentration of solar farms in some parts of England.”
“I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan); let us all play our fair share—and I will support him on Romney Marsh if he supports me on Gainsborough. That is a fair deal. The distribution of solar farms across the country is, as has been made clear, highly uneven. Of the 650 parliamentary constituencies, 310 have more than 0.1% of land taken up by solar development, while 151 have more than 0.6% and 96 have more than 1%. The five most affected constituencies are Newark, with 8.85% of land taken up by solar farms, Sleaford and North Hykeham with 6.95%, Newport East with 5.12%, my own beloved Gainsborough with 5.08%, and Selby with 4.22%. I say to the hon.”
“I will make some progress and give way in a moment—I must be fair to other people. There are solar schemes totalling 13,000 acres within a 6-mile radius of the small town of Gainsborough. Madam Deputy Speaker, can I please use a visual aid here? This map shows loads of solar farms— [ Laughter. ] I think I got away with it! The Secretary of State approves these projects immediately; they go through his desk within a week. The cumulative effect of these solar installations is colossal in one small area, with numerous sites having been proposed and accepted in Lincolnshire. I want to say something to the Minister. Can he concentrate on what I am saying for a moment, because this is terribly important?”
“and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe said, there would be no argument, but the fact is that they are concentrating them so much in one small area of England. That is the argument.”
“We are not arguing against solar farms. All we are begging the Minister to do is take them together. We cannot have all these separate public inquiries. We have to look at the 13,000 acres all over Gainsborough. Is that not a fair point? Otherwise, it is totally unfair on one particular area. That is the only point we are making. This is all done on a cheat—a so-called nationally significant infrastructure project, which was a device brought in by Tony Blair for nuclear power stations and that sort of installation. The Government are bypassing local democracy. That is what is so unfair, and it is why people feel disenfranchised in certain parts of England. I agree that if the Government distributed solar farms fairly all over the country, as the hon.”
“Local opposition is widespread and strong, and the harms outweigh the benefits. Seeking permission for these sites via the use of nationally significant infrastructure projects is an abuse of NSIPs and subverts local democracy. It is part of this net zero craze that provides poor global value for money. It costs the UK taxpayer billions, and the net effect is cancelled out by minuscule increases in Chinese emissions. These applications should be taken in the round and, if necessary, refused.”
“There will be an impact on Great British Energy’s involvement if it can be proved that the solar panels are made with slave labour, but private companies will be able to go directly ahead. I want to reply to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). Solar installations will take over good agricultural land, which is vital for Lincolnshire’s role as the breadbasket of England. Some 15% of regional farmland could be lost, undermining local agriculture, which is crucial for food security and sustainable farming. In conclusion, covering our countryside with solar energy installations is environmentally harmful, economically unsustainable, a threat to food security, and damaging to local agriculture and tourism.”
“There are economic and community concerns—for instance, a negative effect on local tourism of the visual impact, and the lack of community benefits from large-scale solar projects compared with traditional local decision making—and I again make the national infrastructure point. There are social and ethical concerns about possible connections between project stakeholders and forced labour in China, and we would like reassurances from the Minister in that regard. I asked him about that yesterday in the Chamber. I know we have achieved something with Great British Energy, but in this case we are talking about private companies, on which the concession that the Minister made yesterday will have no impact.”
“That leads me to the point of whether solar power is really an efficient way of achieving green energy. It is land-intensive, with 200 times more land needed compared with gas, and it is inefficient during winter or cloudy periods. There are doubts about the carbon footprint. There is no clear evidence that energy generation over a 15-year panel lifespan justifies the embodied energy used in panel production—and we are never given reassurances on that point. There are also environmental and safety issues. Placing battery energy storage systems in each field raises safety risks due to potential thermal runaway incidents. There is inadequate planning to provide water for firefighting in these fields.”
“I have been a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel for over 40 years, longer than anybody here. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organisation that hides its own fighters under hospitals, but it is frankly unacceptable to recklessly bomb a hospital. It is unacceptable to starve a whole people. Is the Minister aware that many Friends of Israel worldwide, notwithstanding narrow legal definitions, are asking this moral question: when is genocide not genocide?”
“I am sure we can rely on the Minister to ensure that no solar panels are installed on British farms that are made by the Chinese Government, using slave labour. I am sure that he can assure us on that point.”
“Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and hope we have a very good and worthwhile debate.”
“One might wonder why I am now getting on to that subject, but again there is a sense among people in agricultural constituencies that the Government do not understand their point of view. We are all in favour of green energy in Lincolnshire. We are leading on green energy with wind farms in the North sea; there is no opposition to them, but we are angry that entrepreneurs are importing solar panels from China made by slave labour and covering 10,000 acres in my constituency with no proper local planning. We are not against solar farms and we are not against the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero; we just want a sense of fairness that local communities have a say in this and there is some sense of proportion. I think I have said my bit. I congratulate the hon.”
“I was talking to a constituent only today and she is clearly a lady in some distress. She cannot move but has just had her personal independence payment cancelled. She has been told she has to work from home, but she cannot work from home because she does not have those sorts of skills. Ever more people are feeling angry that they have done their bit and worked hard, but when they fall ill or need benefits they are not being helped. We have to all work together to try to again get that sense of the wartime spirit—that is a bit of a cliché, but it is about a time when everybody mucked in, everybody had a job, everybody did their bit and there were, frankly, very few freeloaders. I represent an agricultural constituency.”
“We all know the reasons to do with the pandemic and all the other excuses, and about how we had to keep the NHS and our care homes going, but the fact that the Conservative Government allowed 1 million people in legally last year is infuriating people, and it is depressing wages. It might be good for overall GDP, but it is certainly bad for individual wealth. Again, we can do very little about it in the Conservative party, but the Government need to act. I know they are trying to take steps. This is relevant to the debate about St George because it is about trying to recreate a sense that we are one nation, and that everybody works hard, everybody pays their taxes, and we get benefits such as free education and free health so that when we fall ill we are helped by the state.”
“We cannot do much about it in the Conservative party; Labour is now in power. My advice to the Government is that if they want to resist this sense of disillusion in society, with people turning away from both the Labour party and the Conservative party, they have to do something about it. They have to do something about legal migration, too. There is a great sense among people who are working hard here that people are pouring in or have poured in. I blame my Government as much as any other; I do not make a party political point here. The Labour party has taken over a difficult issue.”
“We have seen from a study in The Daily Telegraph this week how easy it is to pay a people smuggler, come over here, be put in a hotel and act as a courier. That is really infuriating people. Our fate in the Conservative party, because we are no longer in power, is that we are dependent on the Labour Government solving this problem—and they will have to solve it, because we cannot go on as we are. It is fuelling a great sense of anger in the nation. The Government have to get a derogation from the Strasbourg Court, as I have argued many times, in order to arrest, detain and deport people, and then this horrible trade will stop immediately. Of course, there is a humanitarian point to be made here: these people smugglers are putting lives at risk, and people are dying. They are feeding on human misery.”
“Because for hundreds of years, his family could fish off the coast of Somalia, and then we in the west sent in huge trawlers to take all the fish away and took away his livelihood, so he resorted to piracy. Quite rightly, we then sent in warships to deal with that, so once again, they were starving, and he is now on the way here. I do not think we should approach the issue of migration in a nationalistic way. What I liked about the speech made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was that it was patriotic, not nationalistic, and it tried to heal divisions. The fact is that illegal migration is an open wound in our society. It is not just the cost of it, with £4 million a day spent on hotels; there is also a sense for many in our country that people who could apply for asylum in the proper, normal way are bypassing that route.”
“Let me make one or two points that may be more controversial. There are some factors that are breaking our sense of community, and, frankly, we all saw from the results last week that they are fuelling a feeling of disillusion. One, of course, is illegal migration. We have got to understand that this infuriates everybody. It does not just infuriate right-wing people who do not like the idea of migrants. It also infuriates many people who are working hard and feel that some are taking advantage. I do not want to make any criticism of migrants, and I do not want to attack them personally. Take a Somali migrant—why is he trying to come here?”
“The theme I want to talk about, so that I do not indulge entirely in clichés, is the essence of a nation being a sense of community—a community in which everybody is in a project together, all doing their bit. Sadly, there has been a decline in that sense of community in our nation. For instance, my parents, although English, were brought up in France. They came here as refugees in 1940 when the Germans invaded France because they had British passports, and they met in Bletchley Park. They had a very mixed upbringing, but they had a complete dedication to this country. When my mother was very old, she would still insist, despite being very infirm, on tottering off to the polling booth. The wartime generation, who we are celebrating today, had an absolute sense of duty and community, and we want to recreate that.”
“There is a well-worn joke about St Andrew being on the way to the bar, St Patrick on the way to the exit, St David on the way to this Chamber, where we all like to talk, and St George on the way to the Lords. Saints unite; politicians divide. I have many times expressed in this Chamber—it is rather an unfashionable point of view, but I will mention it briefly—the importance of religion in binding people together. Religion, on an ecumenical basis—being proud of one’s religion and its social ethos—should be a unifying factor. All the great religions have much the same moral creed, and I think the decline of religion in England has been rather sad.”
“I believe that she restored greatness to this country when she was Prime Minister—I need not even mention her name because she is so famous. St George is a saint. He was not English, of course. When the far right try to capture the flag of St George, they should perhaps try to remember that he was an Anatolian Greek. I think it is quite good that our national saint is not actually English, and that we know virtually nothing about him. What we do know is based purely on legend and is almost certainly wrong. I think that says much about the easy-going nature of the English people. We are surrounded by saints here. In the Undercroft, we have St Etheldreda, St Edward the Confessor, St Margaret of Scotland, St Edmund and many more. In Central Lobby, we have the four great patron saints of our countries.”
“It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), who is fast establishing a reputation as an effective parliamentarian and a thoroughly nice chap. His speech was appropriate and excellent in every single way, and I agreed with everything he said. It is not often that Labour MPs quote former Tory Prime Ministers—that was certainly a first, and we all much enjoyed it. Of course, as we all do, the hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned the famous people from his constituency. Well, I can match that for Lincolnshire. I can talk of Sir Isaac Newton, John Smith of the pilgrim fathers, the great poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Joan Plowright. I can also mention one other person who came from Lincolnshire. I do not want to break the cosy consensus of this debate, but it is a lady whom I greatly admire.”
“In the Trumpian philosophy that is “The Art of the Deal”, you bully your opponents and then, two months later, withdraw some of the threats, and they kneel down in adoration while they are reduced to where they were before. That is where we are. We are celebrating the end of the second world war. Before the second world war, people could walk from Lincoln to Grimsby across derelict farms. I want a real assurance from the Minister that he will protect our beef farmers, because this is the start of an attack by America on our beef farmers.”
“I will call Luke Charters to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may only make a speech with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“This is only an hour-long debate, and lots of people want to speak, so we will have to have a time limit of three minutes on speeches. If we have interventions, not everybody will get in.”
“I apologise; I am going to have to reduce the time limit to two minutes to try to get you all in. I would like to listen to the next speaker for hours, but he has only two minutes. I call Peter Prinsley.”
“Do we know whether these men entered the country illegally or legally? Obviously, people who enter the country legally are subject to extraordinarily sophisticated surveillance at our airports and ports, but for people who enter illegally there is no surveillance at all. It is madness that thousands are entering our country with no checks at all. Is this not a good opportunity to seek a derogation from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and say that, because of our national security, we should have the right to detain these people, arrest them and rapidly deport them?”
“In his statement, the Minister said that the UK Government “reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to recognising a Palestinian state”. Up to now, the excuse has been that we have to wait until negotiations are complete. There are no negotiations—all we have is extremist settlers trying to force out Palestinian people from their villages in the west bank, which I have seen with my own eyes. In the name of God, why can we not give the Palestinian people some hope? Why can we not give them the same right to self-determination and recognise a Palestinian state now?”
“The hon. Gentleman must be congratulated on bringing forward this most important debate. The charity Parkinson’s UK organises voluntary support groups across the country—the nearest ones to Gainsborough are in Doncaster, Brigg and Scunthorpe. Does he think that the Government and local authorities can do more to encourage people to volunteer? Voluntary action across the country is quite uneven, so that might be one step forward.”
“What worries me is that President Putin has said he will not accept NATO troops on the ground. In the absence of NATO troops on the ground, could we not be back to a 1939 Sudetenland situation where the aggressor takes a slug of territory and then moves in several months later? Will the Secretary of State confirm that he is absolutely convinced—perhaps he can also convince President Trump—that in the absence of NATO troops on the ground, this is a worthless peace?”
“Let me ask a question on behalf of my constituents who have sweated blood to keep the blast furnaces going. Unfortunately, as we know, electric arc technology cannot make virgin steel—only blast furnaces can do that. Are the Government 100% committed to maintaining our permanent ability to make virgin steel?”
“Was it not obvious for weeks and, indeed, for months? This is a so-called private company, but there is no such thing as a private company in China. They are all under the cosh of the Government, under an autocratic regime. What do they care about the steelworkers in Scunthorpe? What do they care about our national interest? Never again, colleagues, must we allow such a strategic industry to fall into the hands of the Chinese, the Russians or anybody else.”