Brian Leishman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for raising that topic. That is something that I will mention at more length later on in my contribution, but yes, he can rest assured that I do. I am in firm agreement with my hon. Friend. The ICJ advisory opinion is significant because it adds to the growing international consensus that Israel is committing the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians. That language is extremely important, because the international community has witnessed, and continues to witness, annexation, occupation, segregation and apartheid. The world is the witness of crimes against humanity, and while the UK Government are in denial about what constitutes a genocide, millions of our own citizens, Amnesty International—as mentioned before—and many nations from the international community are not.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend; I wholeheartedly agree. Again, that is something that I will turn to later in my contribution, when we look at a variety of actions that the UK Government could undertake. I also ask the Minister to defend the words, and lack of action, from our Government, which have enabled the Israeli blockades to continue—blockades that stopped lifesaving aid, food, water and medicine from reaching besieged Palestinians who were starving and in the most dire need. Historical context is vital because the persecution Palestinians suffer is not recent. That treatment did not start in October 2023. For Palestinians, the Nakba began many decades ago. From the mass dispossession of the Palestinian people in 1947 and 1948 to the present day, ethnic cleansing has been a constant. The seizure of land and homes, the forced displacement, the destruction of civic, educational, cultural and religious infrastructure, which are all protected by international conventions and treaties, to which this country is a committed signatory, are all examples of settler colonialism and Israeli Government-authorised apartheid, that sees removal of the local population through ethnic cleansing. For decades, the international community has looked away and ignored the suffering of the Palestinian people. I put it to the Government, through the Minister, that the time for the UK to show international and moral leadership is long overdue, especially regarding Palestine. Our nation’s role as the former colonial power in Palestine, issuing and implementing the Balfour declaration of 1917, presiding over the dispossession and disfranchisement of the Palestinian people, has imposed an historical debt, which continues to grow the longer we refuse to stand up for the inalienable rights of Palestinians. Will the Minister commit the UK Government to undertaking a thorough review of their diplomatic, political, trade, economic and military relations with Israel, to identify any aspects that assist and empower Israel’s illegal occupation, and to stop those aspects? Will the UK Government suspend trade privileges, agreements and negotiations with Israel, pending the outcome of that thorough review?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution as well. I think it is fair to say that, when we look at President Trump’s recent comments, it takes us into a new and rather diabolical position, with his efforts to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people from their homeland. His comments about making Gaza a riviera of the middle east are frankly appalling, and an explicit denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. The hard truth is that the UK needs introspection—to look at what we have done, and what we continue to do, to allow these dreadful acts of death and destruction to happen with impunity. I ask the Minister to please explain why the UK has sold, and continue to sell, arms to Israel—arms that have been used in committing atrocities against the Palestinian people.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is an honour to serve under chairship today, Dame Siobhain. It is also an honour to bring this debate to Westminster Hall, and I am delighted to see so many parliamentary colleagues in attendance. With that being the case, I am not planning to take up my full allotted 10 minutes, as there is obvious enthusiasm among Members to participate in the coming hour. There are many colleagues here who have been passionate campaigners for justice for many years, and I would like to hear as many speeches as possible this afternoon. On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice delivered its advisory opinion in respect of the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem. The ICJ was clear that Israel’s occupation, annexation and continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is unlawful, and that Israel is under an obligation to end its unlawful presence in the OPT as rapidly as possible, with the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements. The Court built on the determination that Israel has committed systemic violations of international humanitarian law by recognising that Israel has permanently acquired territory by force and suppressed the right of Palestinians to self-determination. When the Minister rises to speak later in this debate, can he confirm that the Government agree that the occupation is illegal, and that they will call on Israel to comply with the ICJ and demand an end to the occupation? While the UK has called for an end to settlement expansion, do the Government agree that Israel must comply with the ICJ and not only stop settlement expansion but evacuate settlers from Palestinian land?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. My answer is quite simply yes, I agree. That was an appalling statement. I would like to think that our country is frankly better than putting a pound and pence figure on the cost of a humanitarian disaster and genocide. I put this to the Minister. Will the UK Government ban the importation of goods from illegal Israeli settlements, which facilitate and give credibility to their existence? Banning the importation of goods from Israel’s illegal settlements brings into line our commitment to international law and human rights. The ICJ is clear that all states have an obligation not to recognise, aid or assist in maintaining the illegal situation of occupation, and to stop providing assistance that sustains occupation and to ensure compliance with international law, through diplomatic and economic measures. In conclusion, the UK Government have a very simple choice to make. Do we side with an apartheid state that has seized territory; displaced and contained people into an open-air prison; eradicated communities and centuries of culture; ethnically cleansed a people and committed genocide? Or do we join the call that many in the international community have already made for full compliance with international law, recognition of the state of Palestine and justice for its indomitable people?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I am in complete agreement with my hon. Friend, and I pay testament to the work he has done to bring this issue to Parliament in the primary Chamber. I would also appreciate it if the Minister could explain why—to quote the UK ambassador to the UN—we supported “the central findings of the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion”, but then abstained at the UN general assembly on 18 September 2024, where an overwhelming majority of nations supported the ICJ’s advisory opinion? They demanded that Israel brings to an end, without delay, its unlawful occupation within no more than 12 months’ time, by 18 September 2025. Israel has developed and maintained its settlements through the forced removal and displacement of Palestinians. The Court’s opinion is that Israel has the obligation to make “reparation for the damage caused…to all natural or legal persons concerned” in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his response. I also thank the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller), and all other right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. It is my opinion that the Minister did not answer all the questions that I set out, so I will submit them in writing. While there is currently a ceasefire, the humanitarian emergency facing Palestinians is very much ongoing and peace in the middle east looks a very fragile thing indeed. I will include in my letter to the Minister a suggestion that he looks into Mark Smith’s comments in greater detail, as Mr Smith details that senior officials and Government Ministers protected arms deals—

• 11 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Fourteen years of austerity have created a new stratum of society: the in-work poor. Recent talk of ruthless cuts to social security is beyond alarming. Does the Secretary of State agree that having a welfare system that covers the cost of essentials, as proposed by the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, would alleviate hunger and hardship, and therefore relieve considerable strain on the NHS?

• 11 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Coalfield Communities · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) for securing this debate and my many hon. Friends for their outstanding contributions this afternoon. Clackmannanshire has a proud mining heritage and, like so many other places around the UK, the pit was at the very heart of many local communities. It was somewhere that was more than a workplace; it was a generational employer where comradeship and trust were the things that brave workers, who went underground and put themselves in danger to keep the country warm and moving, relied on. I am proud that the Government announced that the entirety of the mineworkers’ pension scheme would be handed over to ex-coalminers and their families—hundreds of my constituents will benefit—and the positive noises coming from Ministers about the BCSSS are welcome. Clackmannanshire is like other heartlands that have been deindustrialised; the economic and social consequences of industry closing 40-odd years ago are still being felt today. Our young people face the challenge of finding local employment of the kind that will pay a wage that will allow them to contribute to the economy, to participate in society, and one day, perhaps, to buy a house and raise a family in comfort. Naturally, that being the case, there has been an exodus of young people, meaning that talent and potential leave local communities. My inbox tells the tale of the social devastation that is commonplace in deindustrialised areas. Addiction issues, health problems, inadequate transport links, high suicide rates and people relying on emergency food parcels just to survive all point to Government failure to tackle deindustrialisation and the inequalities that it produces. If the 1980s and 1990s were the decades in which industry and manufacturing left communities like mine, the 2010s were the period when austerity ruled. Austerity was an assault on the poorest, the most disadvantaged and the most vulnerable in our society. Now we see reductions in opportunity, negative social mobility, low-wage employment, the gig economy, communities across the country ravaged as leisure centres close, and an unrelenting attack on the public services that are the very fabric of our communities. Then, of course, we had a pandemic whose true death toll can never be accurately calculated. Inequality has become even worse because of covid, and inequality is a very real killer. Yesterday my constituency was yet again the victim of industry leaving, when the workers at the Grangemouth refinery were served their redundancy notices. On site, more than 400 highly skilled workers will lose their jobs, and when we factor in the wider supply chain, there will be nearly 3,000 job losses. Like the coal industry, a vital energy creator will be lost forever. A different decade, a different Government; nevertheless, strikingly similar social consequences will be the result. Let me finish on a more positive note. With a capital investment of £50 million over five years, the Government have the chance to give the Coalfields Regeneration Trust an opportunity to help to partly reindustrialise coalfields communities that would create thousands of jobs. Our communities need to be invested in, not forgotten and consigned to history as somewhere that used to have industry. Our communities deserve an awful lot more than that.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  How do the Government address Amnesty International’s concerns that economic activities with illegal Israeli settlements contribute to both their sustainability and their growth, thus undermining Palestinians’ rights, and that business enterprises involved with Israel’s illegal settlements may be involved and complicit in international crimes?

• 5 Feb 2025 · Women’s State Pension Age · Hansard source

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  4. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to implement the findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report on women’s state pension age.

• 5 Feb 2025 · Women’s State Pension Age · Hansard source

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  It is fair to say that people are disillusioned with politics and politicians because they feel that things do not change—not for the better, anyway. The Tories would not compensate the WASPI women, and it looks like neither will we. The Tories here and the Scottish National party Government in Holyrood abandoned the workers of the Grangemouth refinery, and I have to say that, so far, our Government have not fared any better. My question is a pointed one: do the Secretary of State and the wider Government not realise that if we do not provide the positive change that we promised and improve living standards, the next Government could be a hard-line, far-right effort that looks to impoverish society further?

• 3 Feb 2025 · Child Poverty Strategy · Hansard source

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  Alarmingly, there has been talk of ruthless cuts to welfare. That would be utterly devastating as any cuts would push more families into poverty. We will not see a reduction to child poverty by economic growth alone; it will require targeted policy action—something that the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation agree with in their essentials guarantee. Do Ministers have plans to change the basic rate of universal credit so that it reflects the cost of life’s essentials—food and household bills?

• 30 Jan 2025 · Support for High Street Businesses · Hansard source

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  Small local businesses in Grangemouth such as pubs, restaurants, cafes, hairdressers and garages all rely on the custom that they receive from the workers of the Grangemouth refinery, but the Government have been very passive in allowing the refinery to close, thus impoverishing the local community. What message do the Government have, first for the refinery workers who face redundancy, and secondly for the small local businesses that rely on their custom?

• 29 Jan 2025 · Outsourcing: Government Departments · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship today, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for highlighting this issue and securing this debate. The faith that the private sector will always deliver value for money and the standard of service that we require and desire is rooted in a political ideology that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Like many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I was delighted by our party’s pre-election pledge to oversee the biggest wave of insourcing for a generation, so that we can see a change in culture from the continuous erosion of service provision, the reliance on the private sector and the race to the bottom. I pay credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) for highlighting the need for prison maintenance insourcing and her call for the Government to bring all prison maintenance back in house at the earliest opportunity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East said, it is well documented that our prison estate is crumbling after years of neglect, with prison maintenance privatisation being an example of escalating costs while service provision deteriorates. For our prisons to be the rehabilitation facilities that society needs them to be, they cannot be the decrepit and fetid facilities that so many are currently. Likewise, no worker—especially not hard-working prison officers, who have a physically, mentally and emotionally demanding job—should be expected to go to their place of work, and carry out their duties to the standard they want, and is expected of them, in an environment that makes their role so much harder and unpleasant. Like so many problems the Government face, these are not issues that are of our making. However, they are our problems to sort now, and a problem like prison maintenance does have a solution. The Government should take the leap, and stop the overwhelming reliance on the private sector to provide services. It is time the Government trusted themselves to provide a solution. We can then invest in people and provide a quality of service that looks after workers, communities and the infrastructure of our country.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Green Energy Sector · Hansard source

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  If the Grangemouth refinery closes in 2025 and the recommendations of Project Willow will not be ready for years to come, thousands of jobs will be lost—the very definition of an unjust transition. How can the Government possibly claim to have a credible industrial strategy for Scotland if they allow that to happen?

• 21 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. The previous Conservative Government decided to back an INEOS project in Antwerp, with a £600 million loan guarantee. I have spoken with the current the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks) about that, and I have been told that the Government have no plans to stop that money, even though INEOS plans to close the Grangemouth refinery, with the loss of thousands of jobs. Why is there £600 million for Antwerp and not Grangemouth, and why would the Government allow that to happen and not use the £600 million as leverage with INEOS, to avoid Scottish job losses?

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Are the Government considering compensation schemes for homeowners who have suffered financial losses due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in their properties? If so, I am especially interested in the Barnett impact for the Scottish Government of any such scheme, as I have constituents from Tillicoultry whose lives have been seriously impacted.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. In the general election campaign, Labour leadership promised that if we won, we would step in and save the Grangemouth refinery, retain those jobs and invest in the refinery’s future. Six months later, that has not happened yet. If the refinery closes, thousands of jobs will be lost and Scotland’s national security will become massively weaker. Now that we are in power, I know that the Government should use that power to intervene and save the refinery jobs, protect Scotland and deliver on the promise to build Grangemouth for the future. Will the Prime Minister do that?

• 14 Jan 2025 · UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chancellor for her statement. In regard to raising money for public services, an annual wealth tax on the multimillionaire and billionaire class would certainly achieve that. However, that is a conversation for another day—on to China. My right hon. Friend and I have had discussions regarding the closure of the Grangemouth refinery, in which PetroChina—part of the Chinese state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation—is heavily involved. If the refinery closes, thousands of jobs will be lost. This is not just a constituency issue for me. It will impact all of Scotland, as our fuel and national security will be severely weakened. Did the Chancellor speak about the issue with her Chinese counterparts, and if not, will she do so?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We have millions shoehorned into a confined prison, hundreds of communities destroyed, thousands of people indiscriminately killed and lifesaving humanitarian aid being blocked. Will the Foreign Secretary show consistency, judge Israel on its actions and at last define what Netanyahu’s apartheid regime is doing to Palestinians as a genocide?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Hospice and Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  The Scottish Government need to do much better with the resources they have been given. On the topic of funding, hospices also rely on financial donations, and people the length and breadth of the UK raise so much for hospices. Naturally, many loyal supporters of the hospice sector have not been immune to the bankrupt political ideology of austerity, and the ensuing cost of living crisis has seen ordinary people become poorer, with out-of-control food bills, escalating food costs and sky-high mortgages and rents. Overall, the general erosion of living standards means that donations are an expense that many people can simply no longer afford. The rebuilding of wider society cannot happen without the rebuilding of and investment in the vital public services that people rely on. That includes a properly funded and resourced health and social care system that has the same principles and ethos as when Labour created it.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Hospice and Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) for securing the debate. I will challenge any politician, regardless of their rosette, when they say that the NHS is broken. It is not broken; it is just underfunded. It is starved of the resources that it needs to function at its very best. We on the Labour Benches are enormously proud of the NHS and its founding principles: the universal right to comprehensive healthcare that is free at the point of use. Money should never be the passport to the best treatment. People should get the best that modern science can offer. The NHS is our greatest creation, and it is socialism in action. As the NHS endures another hard winter, so must Labour’s founding principles. The private sector should not always be the solution. The private sector receiving an extra £2.5 billion a year in Government funding to cut waiting lists is not one of the principles—of either the NHS or the Labour party. There was an earlier back and forth between hon. Members on how to find money. That does not necessarily have to mean cuts; I suggest an annual wealth tax. In Scotland, our hospices remain under enormous strain. Annually, approximately 21,000 adults and children receive expert palliative care, end of life care and bereavement support. The heads of all 14 hospice charities in Scotland have said that their sector is in the grip of an insurmountable funding gap, and staff have spoken openly of the dire possibility of budget shortfalls reaching the point where there will be no other option but to introduce service reductions. Of course, staff will do everything in their power to avoid that, but it is the stark reality of palliative and end of life care in Scotland. The hospice sector needs the Scottish Government to provide further financial support to address the shortfall in statutory funding, which is not keeping up with increased costs. That, coupled with the Scottish Government’s delivery on their promise of a new national funding framework for hospice care, is desperately needed, so that hospices can prepare for the long term.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Firefighters: Occupational Diseases · Hansard source

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  3. What discussions her Department has had with the Fire Brigades Union on improving protections for firefighters against occupational diseases.