Brian Leishman MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Fracking Ban · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is 100% correct. That is exactly the sort of action we all need at Grangemouth and in the wider Forth valley area, which he so ably represents. Let me focus just on my community, which has been the victim of corporations amassing phenomenal wealth on the back of the talent and skill of workers. Those corporations then decide to move on, which means mass redundancies, and leave behind an asset-stripped community. I say to the Minister that our Labour Government have the chance to change that. Let us move away from fossil fuels and fracking and instead accelerate building the renewables industry in Grangemouth. Let us use state funds, such as the £200 million dedicated from the National Wealth Fund and set aside to finance the green industrial revolution. Quite frankly, that money has sat untouched for far too long. We could do something amazing in Grangemouth. We could combine the pressing need of the environmental agenda that is upon us with providing genuine social justice. Now it is time for a little more socialism: the Government could take some form of ownership of these new industries, which is a popular policy among the general public. We could create new, green, well-paid, secure jobs, and apprenticeships that would transform the life chances of local young people. With public ownership, we could reinvest profits back into the local Grangemouth community, regenerating and re-energising life in the town and lifting living standards for generations to come. That is the sort of corporate social responsibility that has been so missing in recent times from Grangemouth industry. I have said many times—and you have heard me say this many times, Madam Deputy Speaker—that Grangemouth is a blank canvas for us to build something truly special. The crucial question is: what kind of country do we want to live in? Is it one that continues to allow oligarchs and international capital to exploit people, place and planet, or do we use politics—our opportunity in government—to be bold and transformative? I say to the Minister: let us build Grangemouth for the future in the image of a Labour Government who want the best for workers and communities, let us make Grangemouth the example—the shining example—of what can be done and let us do it quickly.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Criminal Justice System: Royal Commission · Hansard source

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  Just a fortnight ago, the Justice Secretary said that “we have to build a new criminal justice system.” —[ Official Report , 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 86.] After the damage done by a decade and a half of austerity, I wholeheartedly agree. Nobody knows how far our justice system has fallen better than the hard-working frontline workers who are desperately trying to hold it all together, and who have watched and warned about this dangerous situation coming down the track for years. Will the Department listen to the leaders of the six national justice trade unions, who are calling for a royal commission on prisons and the wider criminal justice system?

• 15 Sept 2026 · Criminal Justice System: Royal Commission · Hansard source

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  2. What recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of establishing a royal commission on the criminal justice system.

• 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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  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.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  It is right first to acknowledge the condition of our prison estate, the issues with capacity and the impact it all has overall on our criminal justice system. I associate myself with the Justice Minister’s comments on all of that from earlier. I want to say early on in my contribution that I will not get involved in a political tit-for-tat on who did what or who did not do something when they were in power. This is far too serious an issue for people, and to sink to political point scoring leaves a bad taste in my mouth and does no one any good whatsoever. People convicted of sexual abuse against an adult or child, of rape, of grooming or of the attempt, conspiracy or incitement of offences should not be allowed early release from prison. That is not a left-wing or right-wing political debate; it is what is just and right for survivors. Looking closer to home in my constituency, the statistics in Clackmannanshire show that it is the most dangerous place in Scotland for women and young girls to grow up in. I have been fortunate enough to visit support groups and mental health organisations and to meet volunteers in my constituency. I have heard from women and also from men who have survived rape, sexual abuse and other indescribable things. They may be at home watching this debate, and they and the people in the Gallery will be looking at the discourse in this debate. What should be at the front of all our contributions is the welfare of survivors, because I have heard from survivors, and many tell me that they feel like an afterthought when it comes to receiving justice. It is not right that they should live in fear and terror that the person who committed the offence could be released early. Survivors must matter above all else. Convicted sex offenders should serve the entirety of their sentence, and I urge the Government to adopt that and reflect on what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) said in her earlier intervention.