Edward Leigh MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 3 Jul 2025 · NHS 10-Year Plan · Hansard source

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  As always, the Secretary of State makes a good fist of an impossible job, but I think we all know in our heart of hearts that this model, which takes 38% of public funding, is unsustainable in the long term. He mentions the Australian outback; I have been a voice in the wilderness, urging him to replicate the excellent Australian system, which is a mix of public and private. I will not do that again now, but may I ask him to at least look at Australia’s pharmaceutical benefits scheme, which ensures national procurement of medicines, so that people who have a medical card there get their medicines cheaper than people here?

• 3 Jul 2025 · Christians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories · Hansard source

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  The Christian town of Taybeh is the same town as Ephraim in John’s gospel where Jesus went before his passion. This town is entering a new passion: there was a violent attack by extremist Israeli settlers on the town on 26 June. There is a continuing pattern of crops being destroyed and outposts being set up, and it is happening all over the west bank. This is outrageous racial cleansing, deliberately designed to prevent a two-state solution and to drive out the people who have tended their crops there for 2,000 years. Will the Church of England call out this outrage every day of the week in an attempt to put some sort of pressure on the Israeli Government?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Defence · Hansard source

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  I am not sure there is much point in us just blaming each other on this matter. There are historical parallels. In 1935 we were spending only 2.5% of our national wealth on defence. There was massive rearmament following that and consensus on both sides of the House, and by 1945 we were spending the best part of 50% of national wealth on it. It would be much better if the two parties try to work together on this matter and realise that we are facing an existential crisis in the world, and that things are very different now from 2010 or 2015, or whenever, and that we should work together to massively increase defence spending.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend quite rightly mentions covid. I am sure there is one thing that we can agree on. Unfortunately, people were assessed much more often in person before covid, and during covid that was understandably stopped. Surely we can all agree that we have to get those in-person assessments going and get them going quickly.

• 20 Jun 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have served for many years with the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and, dare I say it, we have not agreed on everything over the years, but we have published a few articles on this topic. Those articles have always started with the fundamental principle of the NHS. Some of us—maybe myself included—have been rather critical of the NHS over the years, but at least when we go into the NHS, we know that everybody is really trying their best to preserve life. That is the fundamental principle. The reason why the right hon. Lady and I both oppose the Bill is that, as has been said several times, we are not talking about just a principle here; we are talking about an actual Bill. I know some people will criticise me and say, “Oh, you would oppose this, because of your religious views and all the rest of it.” Actually, I take quite a sensible and, I hope, pragmatic approach to this. I have listened to all these debates, and we have heard so many harrowing stories of people’s last hours. I think we should treat people on both sides of this argument with respect, understand their points of view, and respect the dignity of dying people. I have always taken the view that we should open up this debate. Actually, I have brought forward a ten-minute rule Bill—which of course will be objected to at half-past 2 this afternoon—saying that we should have a full study, led by the Department of Health and Social Care, by health professionals, to work out how we can help people in their final hours. I have been to many hospices and care homes, and talked to many palliative care specialists who assure me that they have the resources and skills nowadays to make those final hours pain-free and bearable, but we have heard testimony from others saying that that is not possible. If they could convince me that there were some extreme cases where people were dying in agony, totally lacking in dignity in their final hours, then I would listen to those arguments, but I do not think that is the Bill that we have before us today. I therefore urge Members to remember that we will be voting on a Bill, and I think that the Bill is so riddled through with difficulties and inconsistencies. I think it will be subject to human rights legislation. It is very difficult to argue that we can ask somebody to assist in a person’s death when they are within six months of dying of cancer—although there is no universal testimony or acceptance about how we work out those six months—but not if they are suffering from some appalling degenerative disease or are a quadriplegic or have no quality of life. So I think there is actually an argument that, if we pass this Bill today, we will move in the direction of Canada and we will have death on demand. I will end on this point. Before voting for this Bill, just pause for a moment and think, “Wouldn’t it be better?” We have heard about the many hours on the abortion Bill, and the universality of clinical acceptance of it. Before we vote for this Bill, do we not think that we should ask the Health Department to have a profound and knowledgeable study, working with the royal colleges, on whether it is possible to have decent palliative care, not just in our wonderful hospices, but in all our hospitals? There is no doubt that in recent years, particularly since Shipman, there has been a fear among many NHS health professionals about providing that degree of palliative care—that degree of morphine, fentanyl or these hugely effective modern drugs. So, just pause and think. We are not voting on a principle; we can come back to this, and, at a later date, we can get consensus and we can have a really good Bill that will allow everybody to die in dignity.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q7. The Government quite rightly give full and unequivocal support to Israel in its bid to end the scourge of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme forever. Will they also work with our allies to try and convince the Israeli Government that it is not in the long-term security interests of Israel to carry on with this policy of illegal settlements in the west bank, which is simply leading to radicalisation and desperation throughout the region? Have not the overwhelming majority of Palestinian people the right to yearn for peace and security in their own homeland, as the Jews yearned for their homeland for 2,000 years?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  My concerns about these amendments were such that I and others commissioned a leading King’s Counsel to draft a legal opinion regarding their effects. Let me inform Members of his conclusions. I begin with new clause 1. The KC confirms that, under new clause 1, in practice, “it would no longer be illegal for a woman to carry out her own abortion at home, for any reason, at any gestation, up to birth.” I note that the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) acknowledges in her explanatory statement to new clause 1 that her amendment applies “at any gestation”—that is, up to full term. Let us be clear what this means. Under new clause 1, women would be able to perform their own abortions—for example, with abortion pills, which can now be obtained without an in-person gestational age check—up to birth, with no legal deterrent.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  I agree. Let me move to new clause 20. I am dealing with very narrow legal points, and it might be of interest to the House that the KC concludes that the new clause “would render the 24-week time limit obsolete in respect of the prosecution of women who undertake termination of pregnancy in typical circumstances.” He explains that “the NC20 amendment would repeal the abortion law offences”, including those relating to a “late abortion”. In other words, new clause 20 would fully repeal all existing laws that prohibit abortion in any circumstances, at any gestation, both in relation to a woman undergoing an abortion, and abortion providers or clinicians performing abortions. In the second iteration of her new clause, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) has added a measure that seeks to amend the Abortion Act 1967, to create the impression that a time limit would remain. However, the Abortion Act only provides exemptions against prosecution under the laws that new clause 20 would repeal, so those offences would no longer remain under new clause 20. Since the Abortion Act itself contains no penalties or offences, and neither would the proposed new clause introduce any, adding a mere mention of an ongoing time limit in the Act would be toothless and utterly meaningless under the law. New clause 20 would de facto have the effect of fully decriminalising abortion up to full term for both women and abortion providers. Hon. Members do not need to take my word for it. It is not often that they will hear me agree with the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the UK’s leading abortion provider, but its assessment of new clause 20 concludes that it would “largely render the Abortion Act 1967 obsolete” and “create a regulatory lacuna around abortion provision and access.” There is one additional angle that Members need to be aware of. On new clause 20, the legal opinion finds that “the effect of the amendment is that a woman who terminated her pregnancy solely on the basis that she believed the child to be female would face no criminal sanction in connection with that reason, or at all.” Similarly, on new clause 1 the opinion confirms that “it would not be illegal for a woman to carry out her own abortion at home, solely on the basis that the foetus is female.” These amendments are not pro-woman; they would introduce sex-selective abortion. Sex-selective abortion is already happening in this country. Back in 2012, a Telegraph investigation found that doctors at UK clinics were agreeing to terminate foetuses because they were either male or female. A BBC investigation in 2018 found that non-invasive prenatal tests were being widely used to determine a baby’s sex early in pregnancy, leading to pressure imposed on some women to have sex-selective abortions. That evidence led the Labour party to urge a ban on such tests being used to determine the sex of babies in the womb. A report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics similarly found that several websites were privately offering tests to determine the sex of a baby, and the council warned that the increasing prevalence of private testing may be encouraging sex-selective abortions. Passing new clause 1 or new clause 20 would likely make the situation worse. In conclusion, what we are faced with is an extreme set of amendments going way beyond what public dominion demands, and way beyond what is happening in any other country in the world.

• 16 Jun 2025 · Iran-Israel Conflict · Hansard source

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  Thank you.

• 16 Jun 2025 · Iran-Israel Conflict · Hansard source

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  The Foreign Secretary knows that many of us have been prepared to speak up again and again on behalf of suffering Palestinians and be a critical friend of Israel, but will he agree that on this occasion we must stand shoulder to shoulder with our Israeli ally? The fact is, Iran is a death cult, and death cults like the Nazis or Iran cannot be appeased simply through diplomacy. Iran is cocking a snook at us—it is inches away from a nuclear bomb. I am sure he is going to make this absolutely clear, but will the Foreign Secretary therefore stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel and our American ally in proclaiming the right of Israel to exist at all?

• 13 Jun 2025 · Business without Debate · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It might be useful if a Member of Parliament who has not often taken part in demos in central London intervenes at this point to show that opinion in this House of Commons is absolutely united. In various Parliaments—indeed, in most Parliaments in Europe—MPs have immunity from prosecution. We have never had that system here, and we have always proclaimed what is very much the British way: that Members of Parliament are no different from any other member of the public. If they do wrong, they will be held to account, but they should not be subject to some greater test of culpability just because they are Members of Parliament. As somebody who is not in the same party as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and often has rather different views from his, I wanted to rise to show that what he has just said has universal support in this House.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Spending Review: Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  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. 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.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Intelligence and Security Committee · Hansard source

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  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.

• 5 Jun 2025 · Intelligence and Security Committee · Hansard source

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  8. What recent engagement his Department has had with the Intelligence and Security Committee.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Inheritance Tax: Family-owned Businesses · Hansard source

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  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?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  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?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Decriminalising Abortion · Hansard source

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  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?

• 2 Jun 2025 · Illegal Working · Hansard source

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  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.

• 22 May 2025 · Occupied Palestinian Territories: Christians · Hansard source

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  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.

• 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  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. 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. 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. 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.”

• 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  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.

• 16 May 2025 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  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 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. 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. 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.

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  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. 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. 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. 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.

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  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. 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.

• 15 May 2025 · Solar Farms · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right.