Edward Leigh MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 19 Dec 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  When Russia cruelly invaded Finland in 1940, she not only took territory with force majeure, but imposed neutrality on that country for 50 years. There was a phrase for it: Finlandisation. I know our influence is not overwhelming, but when it comes to the Trump presidency, will the Minister assure me that the Government will stiffen the sinews of the Trump presidency and ensure that there is absolutely no question of any war aim of Russia’s being achieved, namely taking territory and neutralising Ukraine? We therefore must fast-track NATO membership.

• 18 Dec 2024 · Gatwick Airspace Modernisation Review · Hansard source

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  I will call John Milne to move the motion, and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in 30-minute debates. It is not normal for other Members to make a speech unless they have the permission of the Member in charge and the Minister, but they can intervene. I call John Milne.

• 18 Dec 2024 · British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  Can the Minister enlighten us as to the attitude on the deal of the incoming Trump Administration? Does he know, or shall I ask the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Employment Rights: Terminal Illness · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind Members that if they wish to speak, they must bob.

• 17 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  We had this great debate on assisted dying where every single person who spoke said it was essential that we improve palliative care. I wonder whether we could form a consensus in this Committee. One compromise that the Government could make is to take hospices out of this tax. That would be so popular, achieve so much and ensure that our elderly and frail people were properly looked after. I give that one compromise to the Government.

• 17 Dec 2024 · National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is a fellow Lincolnshire MP. In Lincoln we have St Barnabas hospice, a greatly loved local institution where most people would want to spend their final days. We also have the Lincolnshire air ambulance, and we have GPs all over our huge county who are struggling. Can he explain how it is in the public interest to attack these people?

• 16 Dec 2024 · English Devolution · Hansard source

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  The Government say that they want to end the top-down approach. How does that square with a district council such as West Lindsey in Lincolnshire being denied any say in massive solar farms or wind turbines? Will the Minister do me a favour and confirm that his aim is to pass more power back to district councils? Indeed, will he promise that he will not unilaterally abolish them just because we have a new mayor for Lincolnshire?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Royal Mail Takeover · Hansard source

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  Thirty-one years ago, when I had the Minister’s job, I was trying to privatise the Post Office, but I was stopped by rebellious Tory Back Benchers—nothing new there. I was sacked a week later. So I warn him that this is quite a difficult issue. What people were worried about was the universal service obligation—it costs so much more to deliver in rural Lincolnshire than in central London—so I think that what we are all worried about is that, as the Royal Mail moves ever further away from public ownership, this new private company will try to chip away at the universal service obligation, particularly in rural areas. Can the Minister reassure us that he is really on the case?

• 10 Dec 2024 · Early Release Scheme · Hansard source

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  What concerns me is not the past but the future and how to protect the public. Will the Secretary of State assure me that the screening process is sufficiently robust to ensure that violent and dangerous criminals are not released into the community?

• 10 Dec 2024 · Early Release Scheme · Hansard source

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  14. What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the early release scheme.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Fireworks: Sale and Use · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind all Members that they should bob if they wish to speak in the debate. Twenty-four Members have put in to speak, so I will have to impose a time limit of six minutes, because I am anxious that everyone should get in. I remind you all that the more interventions there are, the more likely it is that someone may not get to speak at all.

• 9 Dec 2024 · Planning Committees: Reform · Hansard source

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  There is nothing more controversial than Governments seeking to bypass local democracy. I saw that with the desire of the last Government to bypass local democracy by imposing a special development order on RAF Scampton, and I see it now with the many applications to build solar farms that are ostensibly national infrastructure projects. The present planning system was largely created by the Labour Government, and has stood the test of time. Can the Minister assure me that whatever he decides finally, we will not degrade local democracy? It is essential that people join a council, and join a planning committee, knowing that they have real powers and are not under the cosh of Government, or plans imposed by Government.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Migration and Border Security · Hansard source

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  I agree with the Home Secretary that the failure of the last Government to control immigration was unconscionable, and our new leader has rightly apologised for our failure. Some of us on the Back Benches warned the Government at the time, but there we are—that is the past. Looking to the future, I agree that we all want to return illegal migrants to where they came from, but will the Home Secretary list the countries that human rights lawyers say are so unsafe that people cannot be returned to them? What is the deterrent for people from those countries if we do not have an offshoring policy?

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), and I want to follow her in talking about palliative care. Let me start by reading an email that was sent to me only yesterday by a personal friend and constituent: “I apologise for adding to the thousands of emails you will be receiving. I just wanted to tell you why I oppose the right to die Bill. I know you are aware of the experience I had when my husband was dying. In hospital we had a dreadful experience because they had no end-of-life care and he suffered. Once in the Hospice it was a different story and he received the loving care he rightly deserved. My argument is that, instead of assisted dying, we should be spending much more money on end-of-life care and funding the wonderful Hospice movement. Thank you for reading this.” I will read another letter, from a doctor, which I think encapsulates some of the problems that we encounter in this issue: “Only recently, I was giving my condolences to a grieving woman who had lost her husband in the early hours. He had been given a few small doses of pain relief and mild sedatives over the last few nights for symptom control and had passed away peacefully at her side. She asked me in all seriousness, ‘Doctor, did the nurses give him something to make him die quicker last night?’ This was an awful lingering doubt that she had. I was able to firmly reassure her that, no, the medication would not have sped up his passing. For her, and the vast majority of other patients, doctors are there to prolong life and palliate symptoms. Were this to change, then we would not be doctors in the eyes of many, but bringers of death, agents of a state which counts its weakest members as expendable and worthy of nothing but an early grave. I do not want to be a member of a profession which has that reputation or role”. Those are two witnesses who have written to me. I have taken an increasing interest in this whole issue of palliative care, and the law frankly—

• 29 Nov 2024 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me if I do not? I know that many people want to speak. I just want to develop this argument, then I will finish. The law is so unclear. I have talked to a number of palliative care specialists, and they say that we can give as much morphine as we want to a patient and we will not kill them, but there is real doubt in the minds of the public. A lot of the impetus around this debate, and the reason why people in opinion polls are apparently supportive of this measure, is that they are terrified of dying in pain. There is no need for this. When I talk to consultants and practitioners in palliative care, they say that they can manage pain. I was struck by a very touching email that was sent to me by a constituent, who actually supports the Bill on the grounds that when his wife was dying, and he was begging the doctor in a national health hospital to give her more morphine, the doctor said, “If I did that, I would be breaking the law.” I can see the Health Secretary is sitting here, and I really think that if we are going to have a serious debate about this issue, we need to have something equivalent to a royal commission to determine what doctors can and cannot do. It is essential that we really reassure the public. There is tremendous interest in and huge doubt about this issue. Many people are conflicted, and we have heard many moving stories about people’s fear of dying in agony, but until we clear this up, I do not think that we can make the progress that this issue deserves. Yes, we have to fund our hospice movement seriously. It is very worrying that we are going to fund the NHS to fund death, but that we are not adequately funding our hospice movement. Before we take this momentous decision, we have to be realistic about it: if the Bill were to pass at 2.30 pm, that would be it. I do not believe that a private Member’s Bill, which has only five hours of debate and on which many Members of Parliament will not be given time to speak, is the right mechanism. In the last Parliament, we discussed a certain subject that we all know about—it was a very different issue. We had hundreds of hours of debate, questions and scores of civil servants crawling over the issue. Surely this issue is even more important. Surely we should have had more than just two or three weeks to consider this Bill. We should be looking at the detail, because the devil is in the detail in respect of possible coercion, the facilities available to the hospice movement and the issues I have talked about, including the lack of clarity in the law as to how we can or cannot relieve pain. Can we not pause a moment? Those are the practical points that I want to make. This is so important: the futures of so many vulnerable people are at stake. I was struck by the comment made earlier by the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) that we cannot consider this issue just in terms of individual hard cases. We must consider it in terms of society as a whole. What sort of society are we? Are we a society that loves our NHS, that loves life, that loves caring and that loves the hospice movement? Or are we a society that believes that there is despair? I will vote for hope at 2.30 and I will vote against the Bill.

• 25 Nov 2024 · Speaker’s Statement · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I served in this place with John Prescott for many years, and I admired him from afar as being a true Labour man and a man of true grit. I am not sure that my admiration of him was reciprocated, but I held him in great affection. My first memory of him was in 1983, when I arrived in this place as a new Member of Parliament. I gave a speech, during which I could see John grunting and looking furious. He probably thought I was an absurd, young, opinionated Thatcherite brat—and he was probably right. Talking of Mrs Thatcher, my next memory of him was when I saw him having a quiet supper in the little Members’ canteen we used to have downstairs. The moment my boss, Mrs Thatcher, came in, I could see John waving his hands in fury at her for all that she had done. Neil Kinnock leaned over and said, “Calm down, John, calm down.” I thought, “Here is a man of real strong opinion.” We have so many anaemic politicians today—I am not looking at anybody in particular—so it was wonderful to have a man like John Prescott on the Opposition Benches. John much mellowed and it was a great joy to serve with him on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I remember him saying that his children wanted him to go on “Strictly Come Dancing”, but he decided not to. That would have been something for the history books—John Prescott on “Strictly Come Dancing”! As a local Member of Parliament, I pay tribute to John Prescott. I used to take my children to The Deep, and he did a great many things for Hull. I wish hon. Members could have watched Look North, our local television news programme, and seen the tributes paid by local people, who said how loved he was in Hull and how hard he worked for the people. He was a great man and he will be sorely missed.

• 20 Nov 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q6. Today is Red Wednesday, when we remember all those worldwide who are persecuted for their belief. A recent report by Aid to the Church in Need shows that in the countries surveyed the persecution of minorities increased by 60%. In the light of that, will the Government commit to reappointing the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion and belief, a post that has remained vacant since July, as soon as possible and hopefully by Christmas, so that we in the United Kingdom can play our part in defending religious and belief minorities worldwide?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Terminal Illness (Relief of Pain) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to issue guidance about the application of the criminal law in respect of the administration of pain relief by healthcare professionals to people who are terminally ill; and for connected purposes. As we know, a ten-minute rule Bill is a delicate flower; it is almost certainly doomed to oblivion because there is no time for a Second Reading debate, but it can serve a purpose in allowing us to demonstrate a truth or a problem, or even just ask a question. I am deliberately proposing this Bill 10 days before the debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill—the “assisted suicide” Bill—because I want to highlight a real problem. There is simply not enough time to consider the immense complexities of this issue before we will be required to make our decision. That point will be the subject of a joint letter from me and the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), to be published in The Guardian tomorrow. A private Member’s Bill may be an appropriate vehicle for an issue that is narrow in scope, or involves a decision that is relatively clearcut, but that is not the case for the assisted suicide Bill. Were it a Government Bill—which it should be—there would be an impact assessment, but there is none. The Bill is much longer than almost any other private Member’s Bill, but it was published only very recently. What will be the impact on the NHS? Do we not need to know? At least one retired judge has questioned the role of judges. Should we not know more? My Bill seeks to gain, and give the public, extra knowledge on one key aspect of this debate. What is the state of palliative care in this country? What are the options available to assist people in their dying? I use that phrase advisedly. All hospices currently assist people in dying as peacefully and painlessly as possible, but they do not do that by administering lethal drugs. So much of the impetus in favour of assisted suicide comes from an understandable fear of dying in pain. Talking to palliative care nurses and doctors, I am told that in nearly every case experienced practitioners can make our passing bearable, but I would like to know more, and I think that the public would. We would like to know more about the passing of people with degenerative diseases. Demand for palliative care is increasing, and will continue to do so. It is estimated that by 2050, one in every four people in England and Wales will be over 65. The charity Marie Curie estimates that by 2048, over 646,000 more people will need palliative care—and, of course, just as individuals and families are feeling the cost of living crisis, our hospices are facing higher expenses. Hospice UK estimates that hospices faced £100 million more in costs in 2023 than in the year before. Research from King’s College London suggests that more than 100,000 people in the UK die each year without receiving the palliative care that they need and deserve. My Bill asks the Secretaries of State for Justice, and for Health and Social Care, to publish a detailed analysis and advice on the law and procedures. For instance, palliative care nurses tell me that if your only motive is to relieve pain, you can give as much morphine as you like to a patient, and you will not kill him or her. However, I also hear that sometimes the pain doubles but the nurse—probably not in a hospice, but in a hospital—is unwilling to double the dose for fear of legal consequences. I hope that if I am dying of terminal cancer, a nurse will not hesitate to give me as much as necessary. I was at the deathbed of a dear friend and former colleague in the House; we were together in a hospice. I could hear the morphine pass, gurgling, into his wrists. He was knocked out, and his death was peaceful. It was clearly good practice. We, the public, need to be told what the situation is, in respect of ensuring a peaceful death in all conditions. My Bill would be a small step forward in taking up the debate and informing it. The debate in 10 days’ time could be seen as a useful airing of the issues, and then, in a year or two, we could make a measured and well-informed decision. This is an immeasurably complex issue. First, there are deeply held moral and religious concerns about the ethics of assisted suicide; but even if those are of no concern to some people, there are practical issues as well. The hospice movement is one of our most loving and admired services, but we all know that sometimes there is not sufficient experience in some NHS hospitals to match the care given in hospices, so we need to know more. Should we not start by building up our hospice movement before we are given a binary choice in 10 days’ time? All this is before we even start to consider other issues, such as extending the law to other countries, or pressure being put on old people who feel themselves to be a burden. There is something else that we that must consider. We know that we must provide more funding for the hospice and care home sector, but how can we afford it from general taxation? We need a national debate on a new social contract for a ballooning frail and elderly population with multiple health needs, and I have long argued that we can only do so with social insurance. We have to pay more for our care in old age. What we do not want, however, is pressure for assisted suicide for old people because there are not the resources to pay for them. Again, we need much more information about this whole area. I hope that my intervention today, in which I am seeking more knowledge, not just loudly stating my own position, is helpful, and that my Bill is useful. Today I received the following letter from a doctor: “Only recently, I was giving my condolences to a grieving woman who had lost her husband in the early hours. He had been given a few small doses of pain relief and mild sedatives over the last few nights for symptom control and had passed away peacefully at her side. She asked me in all seriousness, ‘Doctor, did the nurses give him something to make him die quicker last night?’ This was an awful lingering doubt that she had. I was able to firmly reassure her that, no, the medication would not have sped up his passing. For her, and the vast majority of other patients, doctors are there to prolong life and palliate symptoms. Were this to change, then we should not be doctors in the eyes of many but bringers of death, agents of a state which counts the weakest members as expendable and worthy of nothing but an early grave.” In conclusion, I hope that my Bill and this very short debate will inform discussion on this unbelievably moving and delicate matter. I have a dream, as we all have, that in years to come, when our time comes, we will be given the care that we need, but there is so much doubt and uncertainty about that. Many people, quite understandably, take a position from a point of principle. They may believe fundamentally, from a religious point of view, in the right to life; or they may have a libertarian point of view that states that everybody has a right to control their destiny. But when making this decision, probably one of the most important in this Parliament, it is surely important that we do so from a state of knowledge, and that we have a hospice movement and an NHS that are fully funded to care for our old people, so that we can assure all people that in this country—this civilised nation—we will ensure that everyone’s passing is as painless and peaceful as possible. In that spirit, I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Sir Edward Leigh, Rachael Maskell, Sir John Hayes, Danny Kruger, Sir Christopher Chope, Sir Julian Lewis, Lincoln Jopp, Martin Vickers, Dame Meg Hillier, Saqib Bhatti, Helen Grant and Sir Roger Gale present the Bill. Sir Edward Leigh accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 6 December , and to be printed (Bill 13 6 ).

• 18 Nov 2024 · Indefinite Leave to Remain: Healthcare Workers · Hansard source

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  Order. I should say that it is against the rules to work on a laptop while attending these debates.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Indefinite Leave to Remain: Healthcare Workers · Hansard source

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  If Members wish to speak, they have to rise in their place.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As the Government have announced this month that they are putting RAF Scampton back on the market and the luckless Home Office is now—thank God—out of the picture, the excellent MOD and this brilliant cast of Ministers are now very much in the picture. May I have an assurance today that they will work closely with West Lindsey to further our exciting plans to promote defence industries on this historic site and keep the runway open?

• 14 Nov 2024 · National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare · Hansard source

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  We all know that a lot of the debate on assisted dying revolves around the lack of hospice places to help people pass in the best way possible. Similarly, much of the debate on the NHS is about the lack of care home spaces. Leaving aside the cross-party name-calling, may I beg the Minister to consider exempting hospices and care homes from this national insurance increase?

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  That is a very good point. I remember that rebellion very well—it was the start of my many rebellions. I suggest to Labour Members that they should not rebel if they want get on in this place. We had a rebellion and finally won on that issue, and my right hon. Friend makes a very good point about how we won the argument. That underlines how important it is to have a second Chamber that is not composed of elected politicians. I really do not see the point of electing politicians to a second Chamber, because it would just be like this place: full of people who want to become Ministers and who are completely subordinate to the Whips. What is the point of having an elected second Chamber? The whole point of a second Chamber is that it should be independent-minded, and the Lords are independent-minded. They regularly defeat the Government, and they actually have better debates than we do. The House of Lords is full of people who have tremendous experience in the professions, business and charities. I just do not see the point of getting rid of them lock, stock and barrel, but there is a perfectly good consensual argument that the number should be reduced. There are some people in the Lords whom we should remove either because they have not been appointed in an entirely right way or because they do not turn up.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to declare an interest, but why is my right hon. Friend so ageist? Some people are wonderful at the age of 80, and others are useless at the age 50.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I think we can all agree that the other place, for all that it is seemingly undemocratic, works quite well. The Lords actually listen to debates, and they vote according to their conscience. They regularly defeat the Government, and they improve Bills again and again. If it works, why change it? Will the Paymaster General please think about the idea that I have suggested? We could get some sort of compromise by which all parties in the House of Lords are reduced by the same amount. We could reduce the Lords to around 600 Members, give more power to the House of Lords Appointments Commission and, in future, keep the number at about 600.