Brian Leishman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Fracking Ban · Hansard source

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  It is 100 days until Christmas, Madam Deputy Speaker, and in the last 15 to 20 minutes we have just had a little glimpse into pantomime season. Let me move on to business. Decades of Governments taking wrong political decisions have made climate change not just an environmental emergency, but a crisis rooted in social and economic inequality. Major oil and gas corporations made nearly $93 billion in profits in the second quarter of 2026. Saudi Aramco made $33 billion in net income. ExxonMobil made $14.5 billion in profit. Shell’s net income was just under $10 billion, and BP made quarterly profits of nearly $6 billion. This is an international oligarchy benefiting from war and conflict, holding Government and citizens hostage just so that record profits can be made. That rampant capitalism has created dire economic inequality and growing poverty, and it is ultimately leading to climate destruction. Companies that want to frack care only about making profit and pursuing shareholder dividends; they certainly do not care about workers or communities. The need for a change in political direction could not be greater. Climate protection, environmental sustainability and the provision of a genuinely just transition for workers and communities all demand the restructuring of our economy. We absolutely do not need fracking; we need a green industrial revolution, and Grangemouth in my constituency is the ideal location to house it. I am in complete agreement with the new Prime Minister’s diagnosis of the societal consequences of mass deindustrialisation and deregulation. We have seen working-class communities and ex-industrial heartlands decimated. I have been heartened in these last couple of weeks that the Prime Minister has made enthusiastic contributions at the Dispatch Box about a future for sustainable aviation fuel in Grangemouth.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Like my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), I believe that historical context is essential when it comes to this debate, because Britain has been an important participant in creating the situation that Palestine and Israel are in. Our country’s role as the former colonial power in Palestine—issuing and implementing the Balfour declaration of 1917 and presiding over the dispossession and disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people—is an awful stain that has got deeper with the failure to stand up for the inalienable rights of Palestinians in the decades after the Balfour declaration. Britain was an architect in establishing Israel, but over time the relationship has changed. Britain and Israel have become a partnership largely defined by imperialism, colonialism and capitalism, and the oppression, apartheid and poverty that those traits have created. Co-operation between the British and Israeli Governments goes beyond the “normal” relations that most nations have. It was a year ago that the then Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, welcomed the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, to No. 10 Downing Street. The House should remember that President Herzog is the man who said that an entire nation was responsible for the October attacks perpetrated by Hamas, and that the collective punishment of Palestinians was right. President Herzog came to protest against British positions, including the potential—at the time—recognition of a Palestinian state and Britain supporting humanitarian efforts. The result of the meeting was not a resounding condemnation of Herzog’s abhorrent views, but instead the Government stressing that Israel is a long-standing ally and the importance of our ongoing partnership with Israel. The appeasement of the president of a state that carries out a genocide is a much more recent stain on our nation. The time for the UK to show international and moral leadership, as we did last week, was long overdue. Like many others in this place, I welcomed the change in outlook from our new Prime Minister and our Government with the Foreign Secretary’s statement. It was a real change and a massive step towards Israel being held to account for its blatant, flagrant and repeated violations of international law, but it must be just the start. Our Government must act much more quickly, because Palestinians cannot wait six to nine months. They are still subject to human rights abuses because of Israeli state-sanctioned settler violence. The UK should not be financially facilitating that a day longer. I say to the Minister that the UK Government must target the infrastructure that funds, sustains and supports Israel’s unlawful occupation and impose measures on key entities, including Israeli Government Ministries that are implicated in establishing, maintaining and providing material support to illegal settlements and settlement infrastructure. The UK Government must end any political, diplomatic, financial and military support that contributes to Israel’s serious and systematic violations of international law. The Government should suspend the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement and impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Katz, Orit Strook and all Israeli officials directly implicated in ethnic cleansing and the forcible transfer of Palestinians in the west bank. There is no doubt in my mind that we have witnessed a genocide take place, so the UK must now act swiftly in response by ending all political, diplomatic, financial and military support that contributes to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The UK must sanction the Israeli officials most implicated in the commission of genocide and commit to executing ICC arrest warrants. Finally, the UK must support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the ICJ, just as the UK has done in support of The Gambia v . Myanmar case. To finish, I wish to reiterate that our Government have done the right thing in shifting our position, but we must go further and quicker if we are to repay the historical debt that we owe the Palestinian people.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Sovereign Grant Bill · Hansard source

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  My sense of patriotism does not come from a flag, an anthem or the royal family. Instead, my patriotism comes from things like our national health service; movements such as that of the Levellers, who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality and religious tolerance; and how Britain stood up to and defeated the evil of fascism, both abroad during the second world war and at home in places like Cable Street, where Jewish residents, Irish dockers, trade unionists, socialists and others united to stop the British Union of Fascists movement from marching through Jewish neighbourhoods. That is the sort of patriotism I love. I have the utmost respect for any citizen who believes that the royal family is a fundamental part of British life. I have no issues with that opinion; people are entitled to it, but it is simply not one that I share. There were many reasons why I joined the Labour party. One was to change—

• 8 Sept 2026 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Naushabah Khan) for securing the debate. Sudan now faces the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, largest hunger crisis and biggest internal displacement crisis. History has taught us that war always drains resources into armed conflict, instead of directing them towards manufacturing, development and raising people’s living standards. The war is a counter-revolutionary conflict between two military factions that has left Sudan’s infrastructure largely destroyed. Sudan’s agriculture, industry and domestic and foreign trade have all been severely disrupted, with approximately 13 million people displaced, 19.5 million people facing acute food insecurity and hundreds of thousands of people living in famine conditions. As well as the war, there have been years of failed politics, a lack of development, a weakening of production and widespread corruption. This has all led to the collapse of state institutions, mass unemployment and intense poverty. According to the latest estimates from Sudan’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 82.8% of the population now live below the poverty line. The war has created an economy in which military interests, commercial networks and smuggling converge, for which both sides bear responsibility. Both sides are using gold, once a national resource, for financing. The revenues are used to purchase weapons, ammunition, drones and other military supplies. Sudan’s gold production reached 70.15 tonnes in 2025, while officially recorded exports amounted only to approximately 14 tonnes, so 56 tonnes of gold did not enter official channels through the Bank of Sudan. The war is being used to pass highly questionable agreements on projects with international capital, and with countries that have appalling human rights records. That has far-reaching economic investment and strategic consequences. For example, the Sudanese-Saudi co-ordination council operates away from the gaze of public scrutiny and grants long-term economic investment and strategic concessions involving land, agriculture, ports and other natural resources. Only last year, the Sudanese Foreign Minister confirmed that a final understanding had been reached that would see a Russian naval base on the Red sea, with up to 300 Russian personnel and four warships. Collectively, the international community must try to bring this war to an end, guarantee humanitarian access, press all parties for safe, unhindered aid delivery to every part of Sudan through all available channels, and back efforts to prevent famine. The arms pipeline should be cut off, with the UK actively monitoring and using every available measure to end foreign military support to the warring factions, including the UAE’s support to the RSF, and UN Security Council resolution 1556 should be enforced. There must be accountability, not impunity. The UK should support independent monitoring, documentation and prosecution in respect of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law by all perpetrators. There should be a democratic, Sudanese-led civilian transition, with the UK backing a genuinely inclusive process that excludes the warring parties and the former regime, with no return to power sharing with the military, and the introduction of a single national army under civilian oversight. The decisive factor here is internal. The resistance committees, the trade unions and the displaced people’s committees should help to shape Sudan’s future, with the UK and wider international community supporting democratic forces on the ground and backing bottom-up participation and leadership that leads to sovereignty and the reconstruction of a peaceful, democratic and prosperous Sudan.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Does the Foreign Secretary share my concern that the British company, Dana Petroleum, is involved in a consortium that has been granted licences for oil exploration in Palestinian waters off the coast of the occupied Gaza strip? Does he agree that it is illegal and amounts to the war crime of pillage? What does he intend to do to challenge this illegal action by a British-based company?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation · Hansard source

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  Our society is grossly unequal. Local councils have been hollowed out by years of austerity, people need food banks to survive, kids go to school hungry and people are trapped in low-wage, precarious employment, all while corporations make record profits and the super-rich become even wealthier. Inequality destroys society and ultimately reduces people, places and systems to nothing more than commodities and assets to be used and exploited by the wealthy. That is obvious in our legal system. With SLAPPs, the law can be used as a weapon by the powerful and wealthy, making a mockery of things we like to believe are the foundations of our justice system: fairness, equality, transparency, and the notion that money should have no bearing on someone’s receiving justice. Every debate that we have in this place comes down to the fundamental issue in British politics and society, the same issue we have had for hundreds of years: class. SLAPPs are the embodiment of capitalism and the inequality it creates, because SLAPPs are used to intimidate people, restrict activists and campaigners, and exhaust their time, energy, emotions and, crucially, as we have heard from so many hon. Members, finances—all to suffocate freedom of speech. I wish now to speak about Lucy and Verity Nevitt, who in 2018 reported allegations of sexual assault and rape to the police. Following an investigation, at the end of January 2019 the police decided that they would take no further action due to insufficient evidence. After Lucy and Verity’s cases were dropped, the ladies decided to speak out online to warn others about him. Specialist Metropolitan police officers encouraged them to speak out online, but told them not to name him, to say “alleged” and to call it serious sexual assault instead of rape. However, the sisters decided to say who he was and what he had done. Their attacker responded by bringing a legal action against the sisters, based on accusations of misuse of private information, harassment and defamation. As legal action continued, the sisters became aware of cease and desist letters being sent to CrowdJustice, where they were raising money for the defence, and to supportive MPs. In May 2020, the High Court decided on a number of applications made by Lucy and Verity and by the claimant. The sisters were allowed to lift their anonymity order to allow themselves to be publicly identified, while the court allowed the claimant to remain anonymous. However, the court rejected his application for reporting restrictions. In its intervention to oppose this application, PA Media, then called the Press Association, argued that “the main thrust of the claimant’s application for anonymity is to protect his reputation rather than his privacy”. In her rejection, Justice Steyn stated that “a reporting restriction order is a peremptory order affecting the right to freedom of expression of the press and the public. It is a form of censorship.” After numerous hearings and, obviously, hugely increasing legal costs, all parties agreed on a settlement, allowing Lucy and Verity to speak about what happened to them, as long as they did not name their abuser. Lucy said, “It was a really difficult decision…If we had the money we would have gone the whole way…This wasn’t just about us, there are so many other victims out there.” After founding the Gemini Project in 2018 and fighting back against their attacker’s attempt to shut down the organisation during the legal battle, the sisters’ campaign in support of survivors against SLAPPs and other abusive tactics continues today. As legislators, we in this Chamber are not exempt from blame. We, the state, allow this practice to happen. Our inaction makes us complicit in this inequality. I say to the Minister tonight that we must stop wealth, both corporate and personal, from buying silence and evading accountability and justice. We must do everything in our power to equalise the legal system and wider British society. An end to SLAPPs would be a big step forward towards achieving that.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  Trump is absolutely throwing his weight, his heft and his influence politically and militarily across various parts of the globe. His behaviour is in contravention of international law. It is heinous in the extreme, and he is a danger to—to use a broad phrase—world peace. There is no doubt about that. However, Ukraine and other parts of the world, such as Kashmir, are very much on the brink. We have seen mass displacement and ethnic cleansing of millions. We have seen—I may be wrong, and pardon me if I am—the biggest humanitarian disaster in Sudan. When we amalgamate all those crises in various bits of the world, we see that the world is on the brink—it is on a precipice. I have often quoted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in this place, and it says: “It is now 85 seconds to midnight.” That is the closest the world has ever been to annihilation. A lot of that is down to environmental aspects, but it is also down to politics, politicians and the political decisions that are made in various parts of the globe. I would like to think that there would be the international leadership to say, “No.” The right hon. Gentleman is well aware of my position on military spending: I think we have higher priorities than that because our nation has crumbling infrastructure, some 3.5 million people and rising using food banks, and 14% of children living in food insecurity. Those are the issues in my inbox and those are the things that I want to tackle.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  Life for ordinary Iranian people is getting ever more difficult. Right now, they are caught between a rock and a hard place. There is the brutally repressive and theocratic regime’s systemic economic mismanagement and rampant corruption, and an inhumane and suffocating package of US sanctions that hurt the Iranian people long before any regime official feels the pain caused. The two devastating waves of US-Israeli military strikes in just over a year have pushed the country to the brink, making virtually every aspect of daily survival an enormous struggle for most ordinary Iranians. The latest developments in relation to the rapidly re-escalating conflict between Iran and the United States are incredibly alarming. This could easily become an all-out full-scale war with devastating consequences, not just for the people of Iran but for the wider middle east region and, of course, for hundreds of millions more, with the economic and environmental impacts reaching across the globe. By actively seeking to assert unilateral US hegemony, the Trump Administration are dragging the middle east and the wider world into a perilous situation that is worsening by the day. It is abundantly clear that diplomacy and international law are in tatters. We can see this by three recent developments. The first is the illegal and indiscriminate US-Israeli 40-day military bombardment of Iran. That was following the equally illegal and unwarranted 12-day barrage of the country in June 2025. Both were launched when the Iranian Government were sat around the negotiating table. Secondly, there is the rapid unravelling of the subsequent ceasefire under Trump’s maximalist attitude, with his having stopped the military campaign which his Administration had started in the first place without agreement or approval internationally. Thirdly, there is US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declaring the launch of a campaign systematically to dismantle the International Criminal Court under the pretext that that global tribunal is interfering with US military and law enforcement operations, and thereby threatening US sovereignty. There is no doubt that we are entering a phase in which the US feels emboldened. It is giving short shrift to the basic tenets laid down in the UN charter and in international law. Iran is the arena in which it can wage war at any time, all while demanding that independent and sovereign countries such as the UK fall into step and provide direct support without question. If there is no consideration of entering a protocol of diplomacy, that is the abandonment of international law and basic humanitarian principles. Despite the rhetoric of those on both sides of the conflict claiming some sort of major victory, the reality remains that Iran, and primarily the beleaguered Iranian people, have suffered immense loss and devastation, while the Trump Administration have clearly failed to achieve any of his constantly shifting objectives. We now witness a new cycle of rapidly worsening tit-for-tat military action, with the Islamic Republic Government targeting commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz and US assets in neighbouring countries, and the US launching blunt-force bombardments, primarily of cities and areas along Iran’s southern coast, but also elsewhere in the country. Innocent Iranian civilians are the casualties of war. The Trump Administration on the one hand cite the illegality of Iran’s attempt to exact a toll on the strait of Hormuz—“It’s an international waterway”—but on the other talk about exacting their own 20% tariff on traffic through the strait. That blatantly demonstrates the US imperialist aims regarding control of the strait and the wider Persian gulf. It is completely in line with the various recent stances the US has taken with regard to Venezuela, Greenland, the Panama canal and even neighbouring Canada. This should serve as a stark warning to all countries, particularly those attempting to appease Trump by accelerating their own militarisation in compliance with his diktats, as was recently demonstrated at the NATO gathering in Turkey.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend touches on something that I want to expand on further: spending for defence is not limited to weapons, drones and so on. I regret that my Labour Government have cut overseas development aid, which is an echo of what Donald Trump did with the US Agency for International Development package. Even the most marginal, minute bit of analysis appreciates that overseas development aid is an investment in more dangerous, volatile parts of the world to combat another hot political topic in this country at the moment: immigration. There is more than one way to spend to secure our borders. The UK must join the moral and principled calls for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, to be followed by a swift resumption of negotiations. We must also openly denounce and separate ourselves from the Trump Administration’s dangerous and hypocritical tactics, specifically Trump’s willingness to initiate and pursue illegal wars while claiming to negotiate. Above all, we must keep it in our minds that the vast majority of Iranian people desire peace and wish to rebuild their shattered country. This devastating war has set back the vital efforts of and the painstaking progress made by civil society and trade union activists, who have been valiantly struggling to achieve genuine freedom and social justice and to steer Iran towards a democratic, popular, fair and progressive transition. The future of Iran remains the sole preserve and remit of the long-suffering and long-struggling people of Iran themselves—and absolutely only them.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Rearmament and Warfighting Readiness · Hansard source

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  I took the underground to Westminster this morning, and at the bottom of the steps at the entrance into Parliament there was a homeless man sleeping against the wall, lying on the cold, dirty floor of the tube station. He was the last thing I saw before coming into this grand palace where we sit as legislators, taking decisions and making political choices that impact that man and everyone else in the country. Last week, £15 billion was found for weapons that will get us ready for a conflict that many politicians, much of the media, and various think-tanks and lobbyists say is imminent. That hawkish rhetoric is ramping up—of the 22 questions asked at Defence questions on Monday, three contained mention of Russia, and two were about defending the High North. A consistent theme ran throughout, pushing the narrative that we must spend on defence above all else. Of course, I appreciate that the first duty of Government is to keep our citizens safe and to defend the realm, but what about that man at the bottom of the tube station steps? Who is keeping him safe? What about the children who are going to school with no food in their bellies—do they feel safe? Over 3 million people need a food bank to survive—people who, when the winter comes, will have to decide whether to eat a meal or put their heating on. How safe do they feel because of political choices that have seen other departmental budgets cut? I do not think it needs to be this way. Tony Benn used to say regularly in this place that if we can find money to kill people, we can find money to help people. When I watch the news on television or scroll through my phone and I see conflict, ethnic cleansing, the displacement of millions, the destruction of Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal war on Iran—remember, a girls’ school got bombed—I do not think, “You know what the world needs? We need more weapons. We need more death.” I think that what we need is obvious. We need diplomacy, we need the de-escalation of tensions abroad, and we need a domestic agenda not of war, but of prosperity and peace. I want us to invest in health, education and public services—all the good stuff that keeps communities together. I want better wages, the reindustrialisation of forgotten heartlands across the country, and the redistribution of wealth and power to create equal opportunities for people. I want a social security system that is a genuine safety net, one that stops people from descending into poverty. We are at war right now with poverty and inequality, and our people are dying because of it, so I urge Members not to look the other way the next time they are in Westminster tube station.