Freedom of Religion or Belief in China

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) on her speech. Although I will talk primarily about the persecution of Christians in China, and particularly the intolerable position of the Catholic Church, I fully support what she and the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) said about the persecution of Muslims. What is happening to the Uyghurs is absolutely intolerable.

In China, the institutionally entrenched ideological intolerance of Christianity and other religions stems back to 1949, and has continuously been perpetrated by the communist regime, often with extreme violence. An estimated 96.7 million Christians live in China; they are one of the largest Christian populations in the world. Religious groups are made to register with state-operated “patriotic associations”, and unregistered religious activity is illegal. Many Christians worship in unregistered house churches, which leaves them vulnerable to raids, fines and detention.

China currently ranks 17th on the 2026 world watch list, with a persecution score of 79 out of 100. In many regions of China, children under the age of 18 are widely prohibited from participating in religious activities. The restrictions reported include the suspension of Sunday school programmes, schools discouraging religious belief among students, and students being pressured to report religious activity within their families, which is probably the worst of all—something out of George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.

In September 2025, China introduced new regulations on the online behaviour of religious clergy. The rules require religious leaders to support the leadership of the CCP, promote socialist values and preach only on Government-approved online platforms.

Let me say a bit about the position of the Catholic Church. Catholics were hopeful that the 2018 agreement between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China would heal wounds caused by the Communist party’s attempt to suppress Catholicism. The promise of reconciliation has, alas, not been realised. In some dioceses, the divisions between the actual Catholic Church in China and the state-backed so-called patriotic Church has actually deepened. Bishops who stood aside in the interests of unity have been marginalised and placed under surveillance for refusing to take part in state structures. State-controlled religious apparatus remains coercive. The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association exercises extensive control over Catholic life in the People’s Republic.

[Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)]

Between 2017 and 2020, my daughter worked as a teacher in Shanghai. We visited her at Easter 2018, and I recall walking past the Catholic cathedral while the service was taking place on Easter morning, and it was overflowing. Later in the day, I attended a service at the church that my daughter went to, and there were 200 or 300 people there. There did not appear to be any repression of the services. Is my right hon. Friend suggesting that it has got much worse over the last three or four years?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The devil is in the detail. When it comes to China, everything is very complicated; there are no simple arguments or solutions. This is not an outright communist regime like North Korea. In theory, if someone is a Catholic, they are allowed to practise their faith, which is why my hon. Friend saw the church overflowing, but they have to practise in a way that is approved by the state.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

The agreement the Catholic Church signed allowed the Government to approve the bishops and the structure. One of the criticisms that many have made, myself included, is that in getting that agreement the Catholic Church in a way turned its back on all the other Christians in China. It got something—not something great—but to do that, it did not then represent them. As the senior Christian Church in the world, it does bear some responsibility to see Christianity prosper, not go the other way. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. As I develop my speech, I will say that the Church and our leadership were perhaps naive in trusting the communist regime. The agreement is, frankly, proving to be worthless. That is often the case with China, as our own Government found in relation to Hong Kong.

Clergy are more or less required to align with the state body—the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association—in order to function properly in their parishes. The patriotic association has many levers of power at its disposal to use against those who refuse to conform to it, like those principled people mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) who for years were in underground churches. It is a case not of administrative oversight but of the direction of religion by the communist state. The Chinese Communist party has spent three quarters of a century attempting to effectively create an independent national church in China that will conform to the will of China’s secular rulers.

The Vatican-China agreement has resulted not in liberalisation but in stricter controls. Its full details have not been released—it is unbelievable—which prevents us from knowing its actual provisions. We do know from Chinese Catholics on the ground that institutional surveillance is continuing and increasing. State officials are now embedded into dioceses to monitor church life and report on it. In some areas, children are even banned from attending mass and other services. Seminarians are subject to political vetting, and clergy who trained abroad are often required to submit to the approval of the authorities and to retrain. Priests and religious personnel are required to surrender their passports. Surveillance, harassment and even imprisonment are normal.

The United Kingdom’s deal with China over Hong Kong gives us all cause for concern. The People’s Republic of China has continually run riot over it and made a mockery of it. Experience is showing that China is now doing the same with the Vatican’s agreement. We look to Pope Leo XIV for leadership and guidance. The agreement is up for periodic renewal. It has not been successful. We must be honest with ourselves and the world, even if that means not renewing the agreement.

Chinese Catholics and fellow Christians, as well as other persecuted minorities in China, should not have to suffer at the hands of the state. The United Kingdom must be vigorous in raising these subjects in diplomatic conversations. I say to the Minister that this must not just be an obligatory embarrassing aside, but a headline item in our interactions with the communist Chinese state.

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I owe you an apology, Ms Jardine, for arriving late to the debate. I am grateful for your chairmanship, and grateful to be allowed in, having been delayed. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for securing the debate, and for being stalwart in all these issues about freedoms and rights of worship. I bow before her greater authority in this matter.

Much of what I wish to say has already been said. Therefore, in the short time available, I will try to cover the issues that are at stake. We have talked consistently about the problems in China. There are of course many other countries in the world where Christians and Muslims are persecuted, but it is in China that the collective persecution becomes an absolute, state-inspired problem.

The nature of what has been discussed already is quite remarkable. Look, for example, at the programme of Sinicisation of religion by law, and by deliberately abusive behaviour. Crosses must be removed from churches and domes, and the minarets of mosques must be demolished to make them look more like Chinese buildings. Pastors and imams are told to focus on religious teachings that reflect socialist values in line with those of China. Newly annotated versions of core religious texts, including the Bible, the Quran and others, have been issued back to places of worship, and what is left of the churches are regularly ordered to replace images of Jesus with pictures of Xi Jinping. Blatantly, boldly and in full view, China does not want to have any kind of worship beyond the worship of the communist, and in particular of Xi Jinping.

In March this year, China approved a new law that codifies ethnic assimilation, in contravention of China’s own constitution and of international law. It mandates that all children must be taught Putonghua before kindergarten and—interestingly—that they will therefore avoid all aspects of other religions as a matter of doctrine.

That brings me to two elements that I want to focus on. First, as has been said well by hon. Members in this debate, the Uyghurs are suffering a genocide. There is no question about it. The Chinese authorities find them a deeply troublesome group. They are not Han Chinese, and that is what most Chinese policy is about. At the core of the dislike of the Uyghurs lies their Muslim belief. What astounds me so often is that we know about this. We have campaigned on it. I was sanctioned because of the campaign on the Uyghurs. It is interesting how easily people have been allowed to forget the issue and not raise it. I would love all the mosques in the United Kingdom to raise the plight of the Uyghurs, because it is the right thing to do. I would love Christian churches to constantly talk of the plight of the Uyghurs. The Uyghurs have, in many respects, become forgotten.

The persecution of the Uyghurs is appalling. Many hon. Members have talked about the nature of the re-education camps. When did we last hear about the concept of re-education camps? In Nazi Germany. It is astonishing. The women are persecuted and raped, and are now no longer having babies. The population of the Uyghurs has now collapsed because they are being forcibly sterilised, and the men are going off to forced labour—it is so obvious; millions have gone.

By the way, to those who like the free market, I should underline the point that forced labour completely undermines the free market. How can anyone compete with a country that uses forced labour on a grand scale to make products and drive out competitors? There is, in every respect, an absence of tolerance to Christianity, Islam and Buddhism—we too often forget about the persecution of Tibetan Buddhists, nearly a quarter of a million of whom are in forced labour camps, rather like the Uyghurs.

What is happening to the Uyghurs is a terrible travesty, but I also want to speak about Christianity and Christian churches. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who I have a huge amount of time for, raised the issue of the role of the Catholic Church. I have to say to him that, since I set up the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, we have tried to extract from the hierarchy in the Catholic Church—I say this, by the way, as a Catholic—the text of what it agreed with the Chinese Government, and we have never been able to. It has never been published. We have never been able to refer to it. All we are asking for is that it be laid out in the open, so that we can see, first of all, whether the Chinese stick to their arrangements and, secondly, whether there was any provision for other Christians in China.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Holy See, and therefore I go regularly to the Vatican to talk to Archbishop Gallagher, the Foreign Minister of the Vatican. He is an extremely clever, subtle and charming man, but it is very difficult to understand, despite having those personal conversations, what has actually been agreed. My view is that the Vatican is full of principled people who live in a moral dimension, and they are up against intellectual thugs, frankly. We have been sold a pup with this agreement, and we should reconsider it.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree with my right hon. Friend completely. Openness sometimes is a far better disinfectant for a problem than keeping it behind closed doors. As we know, the reality, even under the agreement, is pretty appalling. The Chinese get to appoint the bishops they want. People cannot have church house meetings. All the Protestants and other free churches now suffer massive persecution; they can be closed down because the umbrella of the Catholic Church has moved away from them.

What do we know about China? China is petrified about what happened to it, to Poland and eventually to the Soviet Union: the Catholic Church eventually broke down the whole adherence to communism in Poland; that infected pretty much the rest of the Soviet Union, which then collapsed. China is petrified that it will face the same. The only reason it did a deal with the Catholic Church at all was to try to put off the idea that it would be influential, and it has succeeded in that respect. I am very sorry that the previous Pope and the current Pope did not take it upon themselves to pursue this issue and sort it out. I take no pleasure in criticising the Church that I am a member of, but we have to be honest about this. The situation in China for Christians is appalling. We could have done more, and the Catholic Church could have done more, but we forget the Buddhists, we forget the Muslims, and we forget the others whose right to practise free faith has gone as well.

Before anybody says that I am only on the attack against the Labour Government, I want to say that I am not: when my party was in government, I was as much a thorn in their side as I am now in the side of the Labour Government. It is just the reality, and we have to face up to the facts. The recent visit by the Prime Minister to China was a problem. I simply say this to the Government. When the Minister responds to the debate, he must understand what has already been said by one of his colleagues: does economics trump freedom, freedom of religion and freedom of speech? If it does, we have gone down a bad road. If it does not, then why are we doing this right now?

Ukraine

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his visit to Kyiv. The fact that Members across the House have been regularly to Ukraine lifts the morale of the Ukrainian people and reminds them that the UK stands with them as strongly now as four years ago.

The hon. Gentleman is right. The night before I arrived in Kyiv, 90 Shahed drones had hit the city, 21 of which had been targeted directly at residential accommodation. The block that he and I both visited, which had had its side ripped open by one of the drone strikes, had been hit twice, an hour and a half apart, deliberately, so that the emergency workers who had gone in to help those suffering after the first strike were then hit and, in one case, killed by the second. This is an indication of cynical and illegal tactics and the war crimes that Putin is committing in Ukraine. It reminds us that we must redouble our determination to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.

I will move on to the question of air defence later, but the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) is quite right: he and I were both told, when out in Kyiv last month, that it is President Zelenksy’s first priority. As the hon. Gentleman will have seen, when I chaired the Ukraine Defence Contact Group at NATO headquarters two weeks ago, I announced that Britain was committing an extra £500 million package of air defence systems and missiles in order to meet the urgent need that he and I both saw that day.

President Putin postures as a strongman. He wants the world to believe that Russia has unstoppable momentum on the battlefield, that the Ukrainians have no choice but to concede on his terms, and that we, as Ukraine’s western allies, have grown weary. But he is wrong, wrong, wrong. This was a war that Putin thought he would win in a week, but four years on, he has achieved none of his strategic aims. Instead, he has inflicted terrible suffering on his own people, as well as Ukraine’s. He is failing.

Of course, Ukrainian troops are certainly under pressure on the frontline, but Russia has now been fighting in Ukraine for longer than the Soviet Union fought Germany during the second world war, its forces are advancing more slowly than those in the battle of the Somme, and nearly one and a quarter million Russians have been injured or killed. The average casualty rate for Russian troops is now 1,000 each day, every day, and the average life expectancy of a conscript deployed to the Russian frontline is now less than five days.

Putin is desperate to avoid a second Russian mobilisation, and because of that he is turning to more desperate measures to plug the gaps. He is increasingly heavily reliant on foreign fighters. He has already called on 17,000 North Koreans, who are fighting for him on his frontline, and he is now preying on thousands of men from Latin America, central Asia and Africa, sending them to their deaths on his frontline.

But Putin’s war machine continues to be degraded, and his war economy continues to be damaged. In Russia, 40% of Government spending now goes on the military. Manufacturing is falling at its fastest rate, oil revenues are plunging and food prices are soaring. Make no mistake: Putin is under pressure. He targets Ukrainian cities, civilians and energy supplies and, during the coldest winter for a decade, he has killed Ukrainian children in their beds, destroyed hospital wards and plunged entire cities into darkness.

For 2026, the Government’s mission—Britain’s mission—for Ukraine is simple: support the fight today, secure the peace tomorrow, and step up the pressure on Putin.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I do not know whether President Putin follows these debates, but I would like him to know that the Secretary of State speaks for our entire nation. We are completely united on this. Will the Secretary of State make it clear that we are equally robust on not having any ceasefire on the basis that currently unoccupied territory is ceded? That would be an absolute disaster and would simply encouraged Putin to go further. It is very important that our adversaries know that the House is completely united on this.

Diego Garcia and British Indian Ocean Territory

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

As always, this argument depends not on gimmicks but on a detailed examination of the law. On 22 May, the Government made it clear in an answer that they were bound by the international law of the sea. However, in answer to a written question on 12 February, they said that article 298 of UNCLOS—an opt-out—still applies, so the law remains the same as in 2003 and 2020. This specific question was asked by the Opposition spokesperson, and we now want an answer. This is desperately important, because this opt-out is vital for the Falklands and for Gibraltar.

[Mr Falconer]

The Father of the House will appreciate that I am probably not in a position to give him the full detail that he would like on the provision of UNCLOS 298. I am sure that this issue can be dealt with in the passage of the Bill, outside of the context of an urgent question.

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[Mr Falconer]

The hon. Member usually thanks me for my tone; I will reflect on that afterwards. He asked me about sensitive security discussions between the United States and the United Kingdom; I am not really in a position to be drawn. We do discuss questions of middle east security with the United States. The Foreign Secretary set out clearly at the Security Council the malign influence that Iran—I think that is what the hon. Member was referring to—has played in the region and our efforts to ensure that it does not get a nuclear weapon. A diplomatic solution is the most desirable one, and that is what we are working towards.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You or your advisers will be aware of a letter that I and my colleagues have sent to Mr Speaker about this issue, particularly pertaining to the apparent discrepancy between answers given in the House on 22 May and those to a written question on 12 February. The Minister said that he was not able to answer that, although in my long experience of this place Ministers have been bound by collective responsibility and therefore answer for the whole Government. The Minister said that he wants an answer to be given on that point. I give notice that I will give the Government time for consideration and then on Monday morning I will apply for an urgent question specifically on the discrepancies in the information given to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The Father of the House is no doubt hugely respected across the whole House. He knows that we do not discuss urgent questions publicly—let alone on the Floor of the House—so that was a slight error on his part. He also knows that the Chair is not responsible for the content of the responses provided by Ministers—if only we were—but he has most robustly got his point on the record.

Ukraine

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that you want us to keep our comments fairly brief, so to save time, let me say that I associate myself completely with what was said by the Minister, the Opposition spokespeople and the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in support of Ukraine. Ukraine’s fight is our fight. They are a brave and noble people showing enormous courage. None of us here has any sympathy whatever for Putin and what he has done. We should be reasonably confident and not downhearted. We should be proud of what we have done as a nation from the very start.

We should not assume that Putin will necessarily win. He has an economy the size of Spain, or perhaps Italy. We have vastly more resources. These regimes can seem very strong, but they can collapse very quickly. Who knows what will happen? He is only a prototype dictator. In these four years, he has only marched 30 miles; Stalin marched all the way from the Volga to Berlin. Yes, all right, he is refusing all these peace offers, and he is determined to get the rest of the Donbas. I agree that over four years, with thousands more dying and his economy destroyed, he might get another 30 miles, and get the rest of the Donbas, but so what? What will that achieve for his country? It is so cruel, unnecessary and pointless. There is criticism of Mr Trump, but at least he is trying to get some sort of peace deal. Our influence is limited, but we should support his efforts. One thing we cannot support is cravenly getting a peace deal that allows Russia to grab territory that it has failed to get over the past four years, and get the fortresses that Ukraine needs for its survival.

There is hope. I know that some people think that this is almost as bad as Germany invading Poland in 1939. It is almost worse. I have made it my job over the past 40 years, partly because my wife is half Russian, to try to understand the Russian psyche. It is worse, in a sense, because so many nationalist Russians, who are not the Russians I know or associate with, view Ukraine—Ukraine means “border country”—as part of Russia. They view Kyiv, the source of the Russian Rus, as we view Canterbury, so I am afraid these Russian nationalists will not give up. They want to grab the whole country, so we must remain firm.

I would go along with anything the Government wanted to do in support of Ukraine in terms of sanctions: upping sanctions, stopping tankers—anything they like. However, in the few moments that I have, I want to question the Government on the idea of sending a small force of British troops. We are part of the coalition of the willing; I do not want it to be the coalition of the naive willing.

I have sat through so many of these debates: the debate on Iraq—I was one of only 15 Tory MPs to oppose Blair’s invasion—the Afghanistan debates; and the Syria debate, in which I refused to support Mr Cameron. There is so much danger in deploying perhaps just 7,000 under-resourced British troops to a country the size of France, with a population the size of France’s and an 800-mile front—a country where 7,000 people have been dying every month. Now, if America was prepared to come in, or if there was a NATO operation, I think the House would be very willing to accept our involvement, but compare this with what happened in West Germany. Compare the size of our Army now to the size of our Army then. Do you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that we had 120,000 service personnel in Germany? We had 55,000 British troops, excluding the RAF, in West Germany; we had 900,000 NATO troops in West Germany, including the Bundeswehr. America was totally committed.

I noticed what was said by the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary). They did not immediately say that they would support the Government. Instead, they asked some quite serious questions. If we have this debate, we have to go on asking those questions. What are the rules of engagement? What happens if I am right, and Putin accepts some temporary ceasefire and then marches in again? What would happen then to our 7,000 troops?

[Emily Thornberry]

I am listening very carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I take on board his points, but we have yet to give sufficient emphasis to whether Putin actually wants peace. I fully understand that plans need to be made in case there is a peace, but that is rather based on the idea that he wants to stop, and I, for one, am not really sure that he does.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree with that entirely. I am not sure that this will ever happen. I am not sure there will ever be a ceasefire. I think Putin is determined to carry on for another four years and another 30 miles. However, as the national Parliament, and given the size of our Army and the resources that we have, I think that we have a right to question the Prime Minister on this. Now, I quite understand that for the Prime Minister, this is hell. He has to deal with the NHS, the farmers, the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats—much better to grandstand on the world stage and say, “Yes, we are prepared to put our troops on the ground,” but it is grandstanding, and it is extremely dangerous.

I will end on this point. Just imagine—I know it is probably not going to happen—that there is a ceasefire, and we put troops in, and Putin marches again. Does anybody here really, in their heart of hearts, want to be involved in a shooting war with Russia? I have grown-up children. Does anybody here want their son to be called out there, and to be killed by a Russian drone, as thousands of brave Ukrainians have been? This is serious stuff. I am pleased that the two Opposition parties are asking the questions—that is what we all need to do.

Venezuela

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

At the end of the Foreign Secretary’s statement, I am no wiser on whether the Government approve this action, or on whether they believe that it breaks international law. The Prime Minister is such a devotee of international law that he is not prepared to defend our borders from the small boats, and to take the necessary action there. Why is there one law for the American President, when he is doing what is right for his country and defending it, but a different law for us? My simple question is this: do the Government believe that this breaks international law, and do they approve this action?

[Yvette Cooper]

As I said in my statement, and as the Prime Minister said on Saturday, there can be no tears shed for the Maduro regime, given the damage that it has done over many years. It is for the US to set out the legal position following its actions. We were not involved in those actions. We continue to be guided by international law in our approach, and we continue to work on the most important issue: getting a transition to peaceful democracy in Venezuela.

Chagossians: Trust Fund and Resettlement

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Chagossians have been treated appallingly by successive Governments—we all accept that. To me, it is unconscionable that, for the first time since the first world war, a colonial people is being transferred from one colonial power to another 1,000 miles away with no control. I think there should be a referendum, but we are where we are. Does the Minister recognise that it would lighten the whole atmosphere if there was an absolute right of return for all Chagossians, with them not having to take Mauritian citizenship and being fully in control of their own trust fund? In other words, they have a right to self-determination like any other people on earth.

[Mr Falconer]

I thank my constituency neighbour for that question. The UK negotiations with the Mauritian Government have had the wishes of the Chagossian people very much at their heart. Some of the elements that I laid out in my response to the shadow Foreign Secretary are responses very much to the Chagossians themselves, including both the majority control of the board that will determine the nature of the trust fund, and the element about civil status documents and origin of birth. We will continue to talk to the Chagossian community about their wishes.

Budget Resolutions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The benefit bill is now unsustainable in this country. Really, the main reason I will say what I want to say today is that I hope we can create some consensus in the House to try to deal with this problem, which is imposing a massive level of debt on families.

I am absolutely sure that the Government accept that this burden is unsustainable, and I am absolutely certain that if they came to the House with sensible proposals to try to get people off benefit, Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition would support them in that endeavour. The Government ducked the challenge earlier in the year to cut benefits and thereby encourage more people into work. We said at the time that we were prepared to support the Government to try to deliver those cuts, and I am sure that those on the Conservative Front Bench would repeat that promise.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

May I confirm that the right hon. Gentleman is then perfectly happy for children to continue to live in poverty while we try to reform the welfare benefit system?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I was not actually making that point. What we were discussing earlier in the year was people seeking work, and trying to encourage people to get back into work. I can understand the political imperative of what the Chancellor has done today—to sustain her position with her Back Benchers—but the problem is that the Government will create a perverse incentive for people on benefit with larger families to stay out of work. I am not sure that is good for their morale or the economy. It is not good for anybody. It seems a very easy hit for the Chancellor today, but I think it will have perverse results.

As a Member representing a rural constituency, I want to say a word about the family farm tax. The Budget’s extension of inheritance tax for business assets over £1 million has, as we know, imposed a major new burden on long-established family farms in my constituency and elsewhere. Although I could understand the Government targeting larger estates and people who were acquiring estates to avoid inheritance tax, the new family farm tax affects not just large landed estates but ordinary farms worked by generations of the same families. I recently visited a tenant farmer in my constituency. He is affected because his tenancy—he does not own the and—is a capital asset, and he will be taxed perhaps as much as £300,000 on it, which affects the family’s ability to stay in farming.

As we know, many family farmers lack liquid assets, which forces them to hold cash back, restructure, borrow or consider selling part of their business. Because the dividends used to pay inheritance tax are themselves taxed, these family farms face an effective tax rate of about 33%. The measure affects a significant share of medium-sized, long-standing firms even though it raises less than £500 million annually. It achieves maximum social and economic destruction for minimal financial reward. The policy also discourages business growth, because expanding a family firm increases future tax liabilities on heirs.

Some advisers are recommending that owners sell businesses outright to avoid future tax complications. A climate of unpredictable tax changes creates fear among owners and undermines long-term planning. The uncertainty over succession planning is freezing investment and expansion across affected businesses. The arguments can be repeated, but I appeal to the Government to listen to the National Farmers Union, which has come up with sensible compromises that would keep family farms in business and achieve the Government’s objective.

Let me say a bit about the benefits bill. Four million universal credit claimants are now excused from even looking for a job. This is a disaster in terms of self-reliance, the economy and much else. We know that the numbers have grown sharply since the pandemic. A surge in reported illnesses—particularly mental health conditions—is the main driver. Two thirds of recent work capability assessments cite mental or behavioural disorders. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has blamed the collapse in the assessment process for the rise in successful claims, with remote and paper-based assessments introduced during covid having weakened checks on eligibility. That, again, is something on which we could co-operate across the House. It is a question not just of cutting benefits but of summoning people in, helping them and giving them confidence to try to get back into the workplace. Unless we do that and tackle the perverse incentives in the whole benefits system that discourage people from working, we will fail as a nation.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I like drilling into the data and getting to the facts. You can see a correlation between the rise in people claiming social security and the rise in waiting lists in the NHS—they map identically through all Parliaments, whether Tory or Labour. Will the right hon. Member look at the data before making assumptions? Getting waiting lists down has got to be our objective.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The hon. Member used the term “you”. Perhaps focusing, and looking at the Chair, will stop colleagues from doing so.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am careful, actually, to look at the data and constantly refer to facts that are accepted by the OBR and the Government. These facts are not challenged. We have 300,000 people currently waiting to undergo a work capability assessment. We need emergency measures to clear the backlog. I am surprised that anybody could disagree with what I am saying.

The lack of in-person assessments has created a feedback loop where dependency grows and work expectations diminish. The longer that is allowed to continue, the harder it becomes for people to reintegrate into society. This is a system that writes people off rather than helping them back into employment. I would have thought we could all agree on that. We must not abandon these people; this is about human dignity.

Getting people off long-term benefits and into employment brings significant mental health benefits. It also helps our straitened finances. The cost of sickness and disability benefits is projected to reach £100 billion annually by the end of the decade. Some households receive more than £30,000 a year in universal credit alone, with disability benefit payments pushing support well above that. The current system financially incentivises individuals to demonstrate incapacity rather than engage with work. I agree that the Government have redeployed work coaches to re-engage long-term inactive claimants, but systematic incentives remain unchanged. Failure to tackle long-term benefit dependency impoverishes the nation by increasing fiscal burdens and reducing labour force participation.

The Office for Budget Responsibility reported that the working-age incapacity benefit caseload reached 7% in 2023-24 and is forecast to hit 7.9% by 2028-29. We must stop paying full benefits to young people who are neither working nor studying. Those young people should be working or studying.

[Lizzi Collinge]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I will make some progress, if I may. The Centre for Social Justice estimates that by 2026 there will be a gap of over £2,500 between earnings and combined benefit income for under-25s. I could go on making those arguments, but I will proceed to the next part of my speech, on immigration.

I accept that the greatest failure of our last Government was immigration. I admit, and I apologise on behalf of my Government, that the 2021 to 2024 Boriswave allowed—[Interruption.] Why should I not apologise? Why should I not be honest? It allowed over 4 million non-UK migrants into the country. Many of them will soon qualify for indefinite leave to remain. ILR’s granting of access to benefits and public services on the same basis as citizens is destroying financial incentives. The scale of it is financially significant.

I agree that the Home Secretary has announced some sensible moves. I supported her when, for example, she came to the House to extend the standard qualifying period for ILR from five years to 10. As Karl Williams of the Centre for Policy Studies has noted, policymakers cannot say with confidence how many migrants currently hold ILR or what their economic circumstances are. Experimental DWP data shows that about 211,000 ILR holders receive universal credit—that is completely unsustainable. If Migration Observatory estimates are correct, between 27% and 37% of ILR holders receive universal credit. This is a worrying problem that needs resolution.

I turn next to increasing tax. I have long argued for a much simpler tax system where we close loopholes but keep taxes low, especially for married families. Corporate tax complexity creates an inherent bias towards huge multinationals who can hire departments of accountants to reduce their liabilities. A free market relies on everyone paying their fair share. We need creative ways of ensuring that companies like Amazon and Starbucks can operate freely—we all use them—while paying a fair contribution. Then we can help lighten the burden on family farms, working people and small firms. Increasing taxes on working people risks undermining growth by reducing take home-pay and incentives.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that direct taxes reduced income inequality by only 4.4 percentage points: limited redistribution for a heavy burden. Higher taxes on the wealthy simply encourage them to leave. Data from the Henley & Partners 2025 migration report suggests that the UK may lose 16,500 millionaires this year. What is the point of it? Why are we driving these wealth creators out of the country? [Interruption.] There is so much to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I know that I will weary the House if I go on too long.

May I end on one point? It is quite controversial and difficult to say. I know I am going to get into trouble for saying it, but I have got to say the truth as I believe it. We all know that the triple lock is unsustainable. We cannot have a situation where people of my generation are consuming an ever greater proportion of national wealth through the state pension. Frankly, our Government never dared tackle it, having brought it in, because they knew that the Labour party would crucify them at the ballot box. Now, the Labour party is caught in the same bind. The fact is that it is completely unfair on younger people if the burden of older people, through the triple lock, increases year by year.

We laugh at the French because of their failure to achieve sensible pension reform, but we ourselves have got to have the courage, frankly, to end the triple lock—and I think this will only be done with consensus between the two parties. I am absolutely sure that the Government could come to the Leader of the Opposition and say, “This is unsustainable. Will you share this burden with us?” That may seem very unpopular, but actually many older people—people of my generation—all have children and we all have grandchildren, and we all see our children struggling to get into the housing market. If the Government and the Opposition were prepared to have the courage to deal with the triple lock, I am not sure that it would be as unpopular with older people as is sometimes maintained. After all, we could always relieve the burden on those on pension credit and find ways of helping people who really could not afford to live. But the triple lock must go. That is not a popular policy, but in our hearts, I think we know that it is the right one.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Just shy of 60 Members wish to contribute, so there is a speaking limit of 10 minutes to begin with.

Conflict in Sudan

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Obviously, what is happening in Sudan is absolutely appalling for the people there, but we cannot insulate ourselves from these sorts of conflicts. Mali is about to be taken over by terrorists. All over Africa, energetic young men are fleeing. They are walking across to Libya, being tortured and ending up in Calais. It seems to me that we must think outside of the box on this issue, and we should not wash our hands of it. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell): why are we cutting overseas aid at the precise moment when the whole of Africa is in absolute turmoil? We are not an island. These young men are coming here; it would be much better if we arrested and deported them, and sent them back—with some help; we should not just lock them up—so that they can assist with rebuilding Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia. After all, we are one planet, are we not?

[Mr Falconer]

I thank the Father of the House and my constituency neighbour for his question. His questions in this Chamber often surprise me. I am very much alive to the issues he has raised. I was in Algiers two weeks ago, I think, and met young men of exactly the profile he described—men who had sought to leave Mali and had got stuck somewhere on their way to the UK. The conditions they find themselves in are much more brutal than those that the cruel human traffickers tell them they can expect when they leave their home country, and many of them wish to return. I will have to check, but I think we have supported 6,000 men and women in Algeria who have returned to their country, rather than attempted an onward journey to Europe, and possibly eventually the UK. This is vital work. In our efforts to smash the gangs and stop the boats, we must, as the Father of the House says, look right back to the places of origin, which include some of the places we are talking about today.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), who has spoken with great authority about the military threat. I also commend the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton). I agree with everything he said; he spoke with great good sense and moderation.

I wish to speak to my new clause 14—I am grateful to my friends who have signed it—which states:

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, lay before both Houses of Parliament proposals for an advisory referendum of Chagossians residing in the UK, seeking their opinions on the Treaty signed with the Government of Mauritius and the provisions of this Act.

(2) Within a month of publishing the proposals specified in subsection (1), the Secretary of State must make time available in both Houses of Parliament for a debate on a substantive motion relating to the proposals.”

An advisory referendum would be a moderate and sensible proposal, and I am not sure why anybody would disagree with it. Surely we in this House have a moral duty to the Chagossian people, not to bureaucratic convenience or diplomatic horse trading. My new clause simply calls for the Chagossians to be consulted on their own future. That is not unreasonable. It is a modest and entirely proper request. After decades of exile and neglect, it is indefensible to negotiate their homeland’s fate without even asking them. Have we ever handed over a people to a foreign power without even consulting them?

Proponents of paying Mauritius to take the island cite international law, but the entire point of decolonisation was to assert the self-determination of peoples. The United Nations was founded upon the principle that nations and peoples should be free to determine their own destiny in a peaceful way. Chagossians, as we now all agree, were wronged by both the British and the Mauritian authorities. By the way, I am probably the only person sitting in this Chamber who has actually been to the islands—[Interruption.] I am sorry; I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). I went there with the Defence Committee 40 years ago.

We kicked those people out of their homes, albeit for perfectly the legitimate reason of promoting the stability and security of the free world, and Mauritius accepted money to help look after displaced Chagossians. No one can dispute the fact that Chagossians are treated as having second-class status in Mauritius. Chagossians who have been living there are fleeing in increasing numbers to the United Kingdom. Many of them happily assert that they want the sovereignty of the United Kingdom to continue over the British Indian Ocean Territory, but they also want a right to return.

Righting the wrongs we have committed means listening to the Chagossians directly, and that is all I am asking for. The amendment would give Parliament the chance to ensure that justice is finally done for those who suffered most. Britain should not repeat the sin of dispossession under the guise of decolonisation. I repeat, Britain should not repeat the sin of dispossession under the guise of decolonisation. To hand the territory to Mauritius would not “end empire”, but merely pass the islands from one remote capital to another; from one imperial power to another. The United Kingdom must not compound historic injustice by ignoring the only people with a legitimate moral claim to these islands.

The Chagos islands are of course a linchpin of regional security for Britain, the United States and our allies in an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific. Undermining that strategic position would embolden hostile powers and weaken our ability to uphold freedom of navigation. Those who call this a colonial relic misunderstand it. It is a forward defence post, not a backward-looking possession. As has been said time and again, the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion carries no legal binding force and should not dictate British policy. Allowing unelected judges in The Hague to override Parliament’s responsibilities is an abdication of national sovereignty. The Government should resist any creeping judicial globalism that seeks to erode British self-government under the cloak of “international law.”

I will end on this point, and I believe it is a very powerful point: consultation with the Chagossians through a UK referendum is an act of basic democratic respect, not a legal technicality. My new clause would strengthen rather than weaken Britain’s moral standing by showing that we act with fairness and consent. We should not wash our hands of responsibility for British subjects in favour of imagined diplomatic convenience. The right course is to combine justice for the Chagossians with the preservation of Britain’s strategic obligations, not to sacrifice one for the other. Parliament should back these new clauses and amendments as an affirmation that Britain remains a nation that keeps faith with its peoples and its allies alike.

[Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)]

Before I speak to amendment 10, which stands in my name on the amendment paper, I have a quick reminder: the International Court of Justice made an “advisory” judgment—it has no force in law. Quite why the previous Government sought to enter 11 rounds of negotiation off the back of it is beyond me, but it is even more extraordinary for a Government that is full to the rafters with human rights lawyers. They believe in human rights so much that somehow they are seeking to follow a court that is part of the United Nations in total contrast, as the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) pointed out, to one of the most basic principles of the United Nations: namely, national self-determination. We thought it mattered so much 40 years ago that we sent a taskforce 8,000 miles away to defend the rights of the people of the Falkland Islands.

I feel great sympathy for the Chagossians. They got a rotten deal 50 years ago, and in many ways they are perhaps getting an even worse deal now. They should be consulted. The fact they are not being consulted is shameful for a Government who go on endlessly about human rights and the international rule of law. That is the human cost of this.

As to the economic cost, well, lots of sums have been bandied about, from £3.4 billion from the Prime Minister to £35 billion, but it all depends on the rate of inflation. If the average rate of inflation over the next 100 years is 3%, it will be over £50 billion, but that may be as nothing to the opportunity loss here. This marine park should have been turned decades ago into the greatest marine tourism site in the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

I completely and wholeheartedly associate myself with those comments from my hon. Friend. I know he has been a passionate advocate for Chagossians in the UK, and particularly in his constituency, over many years. We have spoken about this matter many times, and I know he and other Members speak passionately on the matter.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the Minister reply to the point made by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), myself and others that not in the last 100 years since the exchange of colonies after the first world war has a people been transferred from the sovereignty of one empire to another without being properly consulted?

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Member knows that we regret what happened historically in relation to the Chagos Islands. He will also know that the islands are not permanently inhabited. That was necessarily a negotiation between the United Kingdom and Mauritius.

Let me respond to the many points about the environment, on which many amendments were tabled. We are absolutely clear that the United Kingdom and Mauritius are committed to protecting one of the world’s most important marine environments. Indeed, the Mauritian Prime Minister met the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), in the margins of the third United Nations ocean conference in Nice on 9 June, where he reaffirmed his commitment to the creation of that marine protected area around the Chagos archipelago. That will be supported by an enhanced partnership with us. The treaty has been welcomed by leading conservation NGOs, including the Zoological Society of London. We continue to work with Mauritius on the implementation of that measure. We are considering seriously the many genuine concerns that right hon. and hon. Members, including the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee and members of the Environmental Audit Committee, have raised. They are serious and important questions, and I assure the Committee that we are taking them seriously, and I will try to update the House on them in due course.

Ukraine

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Fifty years ago, I was working down the corridor here for Margaret Thatcher. I make that point to give an opportunity to the Foreign Secretary to pay tribute, on the centenary of her birth, to the lady who won the cold war with Ronald Reagan. The other point I want to make is: why did we win the cold war? We did not fire a single bullet; it was all about economic pressure on the Soviet Union—Russia’s precursor, of course. Following the point made by the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), I think the whole House is determined and united on the issue of Russian assets. I also serve on the Council of Europe, and everybody there is passing motions trying to propel this forward. Is the Foreign Secretary confident that we can make progress on this, because the way to bring down this regime and end the war is, as we did with the Soviet Union, to break them economically?

[Yvette Cooper]

I think all of us, no matter our party, would recognise the challenging nature of the job for all Prime Ministers. The Father of the House will understand that in a coalmining constituency like mine, there were obviously very strong views against the former Prime Minister to whom he refers, but I pay tribute to his long service in this place, which he also mentioned.

There is strong agreement across this House: we have to get those assets mobilised, and get that investment and support into Ukraine. It is right that Russia should pay the price for reconstructing, rebuilding and also defending Ukraine.