Nord Stream 2

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate. I can only lament that more Members are not present to take part in it, because it is without doubt important, and the timing should be on all our minds. We sit here on the fourth anniversary of the shooting down of MH17. Four years ago to the day, 298 people were killed, and only last week G7 Ministers said that Russia needs to account for its actions in that murderous affair. In May of this year a Dutch-led investigation concluded that the Government of Russia were, without doubt, responsible for the incident.

In his opening remarks, the hon. Gentleman said that it might seem peculiar that we are having a debate about a pipeline that is many hundreds of miles away, but in the rest of his speech he outlined why it is not peculiar at all. Indeed, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) followed up on that. The debate is an important one for all of Europe and, indeed, for anyone who believes in western democracy and democratic institutions—to which I shall return later.

Earlier this year, just a couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Ukraine with colleagues from the Scottish National party. We spent time in the capital and in eastern Ukraine, going as far as Avdiivka, much to the horror of the British ambassador in Kiev—I can see the Minister looking at me disapprovingly, but I made it back. Nord Stream 2 came up all the time—in fact, literally from the first meeting we had—with the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, the Foreign Relations Committee, the British-Ukrainian friendship group, several other Members of Parliament and civil society activists. All of them wanted to talk about Nord Stream 2, very much in the same terms used by the two previous speakers.

The big question is: where will the money go? What will it be used for? What will this instrument of hybrid war be used to do? Yes, of course it will be used to deteriorate further the situation in Ukraine—there is no doubt that it will be used economically and politically against Ukraine—but I believe, as does the Speaker of the Parliament of Ukraine, that the money will be used to further undermine western democracy and democratic institutions across the western world.

It is popular in some quarters to be anti-western, but I think that western democracy is something worth fighting for—[Interruption.] I rather suspect that I am about to be cut off, but I shall keep going until you tell me otherwise, Sir Edward. The Government must have made an assessment of the situation. It cannot simply be the case that they believe that Nord Stream 2 is not really a matter for them. It must be, given the clear and obvious danger that the Government of Russia present.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. I understand that there will be two Divisions, so we will resume as soon as all the participants in this debate get back to this Chamber after the second Division.

Council of Europe

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Vernon Coaker]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend has been one of the Members of this House at the forefront of championing the rights of children. That is one example of what the Council of Europe seeks to do. Helped by the hon. Member for North Thanet, I have put down my own resolution on trafficking and slavery, which we hope will help us to make progress.

Is it not also great that we have a body in Europe that has many of the former countries of the Soviet Union as members? We talk to and discuss with them and they are part of a democratic process. There are still issues in some of those countries—I know Members will have been to some, observed elections and seen some of the problems—but we are trying to help and support them and build their democracy. It is just not possible to expect a country that has no democratic traditions or history of inclusion and tolerance, and that still has ethnic clashes, suddenly to pass a constitution and the next day become a beacon of democracy for the world. That is not the real world. The important point is that those countries need help, support and challenge and the Council of Europe can provide that.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Talking of countries of the former Soviet Union that have problems with democracy, one must not forget Russia. Does the hon. Gentleman share my view that jaw-jaw is better than war-war, and that one of the advantages of bringing Russia back into the Council of Europe, however much we disagree with its present Government, is that we could at least engage them in some way and perhaps encourage them into better behaviour?

[Vernon Coaker]

I think that it is really important that the Council of Europe has standards and says that it will not compromise on its principles. I also believe that it is extremely important to continue to talk and discuss with people. I agree absolutely with that, but not with saying, “We will not worry about that, on the basis that we want to keep talking to you.” We have to be tough and say, “This is what we believe,” but that does not mean it is impossible for us to continue to have dialogue with people even if we do not agree with them. That is what I think about Russia.

It is astonishing that even in Europe—this continent that holds itself up as an example to the rest of the world—there are still examples where we have to defend the principle of freedom of expression. It is astonishing that in some countries in Europe journalists have been imprisoned simply for criticising the Government of the day. It is hard to believe. When the Council of Europe was set up in 1949, would those who went to its first meeting believe that we would be here in 2018 and that there would still be people locked up for what they say or write? I do not believe that they would have. The Council of Europe says to the Governments of its member states that they cannot lock people up simply because they criticise a Government, however much they disagree with what has been written or said. It is a fundamental principle that people can organise, write and demonstrate peacefully for something they believe in. Here again, the Council of Europe is standing up and demanding that.

I do not want to speak for too long, because I know that others want to contribute, but I have a couple of further remarks to make. The challenges that the Council of Europe has faced and is facing should not hide its achievements. Sometimes it is criticised for being a talking shop. There is a lot to be said for talking shops. Where else would we bring that collection of countries together and force them to listen to opinions that they might not agree with?

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[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am proud to be a member of the Council of Europe, especially as I have been reincarnated. I wear it as a badge of honour that I was sacked by David Cameron for voting for a fair referendum and purdah. Let me say to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) that I want to nail the lie that the Council of Europe is used by the leadership of various parties to dump people who disagree with them. That is an outrageous slur.

The Council of Europe is a noble concept. As we know, it was founded by Winston Churchill, who was clear that although he wanted continental countries to join some sort of justiciable entity, he did not think that appropriate for Great Britain. We are proud of the work that we have done right through the ’50s, and particularly in the 1990s with bringing eastern Europe back into democracy. However, I think that the Council of Europe and the Court of Human Rights have lost their way, and the Court in particular has become too intrusive. It was founded to counter fascism and extremism, but as we have seen, particularly with the row over prisoners’ voting rights, it is becoming too intrusive in the internal workings of democracies. In a sense, the Council of Europe has also lost its way, and we have heard about the corruption scandals and money problems.

Where do we go now? I am not in favour of just letting Russia in after all its depredations in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria. Of course the Council of Europe is not for sale, but it is not just a question of money. Other countries in eastern Europe, and particularly Turkey, have also been playing games with money. It is not just Russia; a lot of people should be criticised for this issue. The trouble with expelling a country such as Russia is that eventually it has to be let back in. The Council of Europe is not like the European Union; it is primarily a parliamentary assembly that enables countries that come from different directions, with different forms of democracy and different problems, to talk to each other. Many countries in the Council of Europe, especially Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan are not shining lights of democracy. Indeed, Azerbaijan and Armenia in particular have really been engaging almost in a state of war.

Where do we go from here? I do not have any obvious solutions, but the Minister is present, and the Council of Europe and the Committee of Ministers is attended—the Russians do turn up. It is not quite true that we have expelled the Russians from the Council of Europe. They do turn up, and I know from speaking to our ambassador that he engages with them. It is a conduit of discussion. I do not know what the solution is, but I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) that the Russians are sending a representative to the Parliamentary Assembly next week. There are wheels within wheels, and ways—without forgetting our principles—to try to bring them back into some kind of democratic assembly. I shall leave it there, because that is what the Council of Europe is surely about: whatever our disagreements, it is better to talk than to make war.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Government Policy on Russia

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I think all Members would concede that, in the case of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, we need to await the outcome of the investigation. Let us wish them every possible good fortune in their recovery. The Government are obviously going to look very carefully at whatever we can do to stop such a thing happening again. If things are as suspected by Members on both sides of the Chamber, we may have to come forward with much tougher measures, but we obviously cannot prejudge the investigation. The most important point is that the UK is in the lead around the world in standing up against Russia. It may well be that that explains the particular hostility we are currently having to endure. All I will say to the House is that it is worth it for this country to carry on with what it is doing to stand up to Russia, even if it exposes us to this kind of threat and challenge.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Over the years, I have tried to understand the Russian position, and particularly the Russian attitude to the right of self-determination of the Russian majority in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, but the way to preserve peace with Russia is by having peace through strength. There is no point in giving commitments to the Baltic states without hardware and men on the ground. Will the Foreign Secretary echo the words of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is sitting next to him and who said in the estimates debate last week that spending 2% on defence was not enough?

[Boris Johnson]

I am not going to join my hon. Friend in calling for an increase in another Department’s budget right now, although it is absolutely right that we should be spending at least 2%. I should say, though, that out of that 2% we are able to fund—[Interruption.] The shadow Foreign Secretary says that we should spend it properly; we are, for instance, spending it on the 800 UK serving men and women in Tapa in Estonia, on the frontline with Russia, who are giving reassurance to a vital NATO ally. That is what the UK is doing. Believe me, the Russians know that we are doing that and that we are in the lead in calling for France and other EU countries to step up to the plate and deploy in the Baltics. The Russians know that we are in the lead in standing up for our friends in that part of the world. Yes, it may be that we in this country are paying a price for that, but we are not going to resile from that commitment.

Freedom of Religion or Belief

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We should congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on how he introduced the debate and his work over many years to highlight these issues. I have joined him in many debates over the years. As usual, he spoke up in a powerful and noble way. I am grateful to all those who spoke before me, and I adopt all their points. I do not disagree with anything anyone said.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) rightly described the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims. I was astonished by the reaction of the Iranian parliamentary delegation to this country that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned. I agree that there are examples of politically correct magistrates and police officers being over-zealous in dealing with Bible preachers, and everything she said was right, but to equate that with a criminal regime in Iran that hangs and persecutes people and treats minorities with complete contempt is ridiculous. When we speak out, we should attack the really evil regimes around the world. There are forces for good that are trying to resolve difficult cases.

I say to the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) that the papal nuncio has visited Parliament. We have been talking to him and to our ambassador to the Holy See in the past week, and the all-party group on the Holy See is going to the Vatican. The situation with the underground Church in China is unbelievably complex, but there is no question of the Catholic Church deserting those brave people. We hope some sort of compromise or consensus can be achieved with the Chinese Government.

The honest truth is that the people who are persecuted in the world are overwhelmingly either Christians or members of minority Muslim communities who are persecuted by majority Muslim communities. There are of course very bad examples of discrimination by Christians, but I hope that the Minister will not use the usual rather easy Foreign Office line that there is persecution everywhere in the world. I agree that there is persecution in too many parts of the world, and all persecution is terrible, but the people whose lives are made a complete and utter misery and who are overtly oppressed are overwhelmingly either Christians or members of minority Muslim groups.

We are going to stand up one by one and attack various Governments for persecuting people, so let me start with a good news story from Israel. Recently, the Israeli Parliament considered a private Member’s Bill that would have granted expansive powers to confiscate church property in Jerusalem. Astonishingly, it would have allowed the municipality to confiscate even properties that had previously been sold by church bodies. Such ex post facto laws are almost unheard of in Israeli jurisprudence. Indeed, traditionally, Christian communities have been protected in Israel.

The Christian community in the holy city united in protest and even closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the first time in decades. Luckily, the Knesset suspended its consideration of the Bill, but the Israeli Prime Minister’s role in having it stopped is noteworthy. He stepped in, as The Jerusalem Post reported:

“Netanyahu became involved after it became clear that the closure of the church had the potential to cause Israel considerable diplomatic damage”.

Our Government should take heed. Diplomacy can work, and Her Majesty’s Government should not be afraid to protest or condemn, even when our close friends are involved.

Let me deal with one aspect of the persecution of Christians. There is a Christian Solidarity Worldwide briefing many pages long from which one could take numerous examples, but I want to deal with the persecution of Christians in the Nineveh plains of northern Iraq, mainly because I know the region and have visited it. All but one of the Christian villages I visited in the Assyrian plain near Mosul were overrun. The Iraqi Christian population numbered more than 1.4 million in the 1980s, before our disastrous invasion of Iraq. By mid-2015 it had declined to 275,000, and it had further declined to 200,000 by last year.

The Syriac Orthodox patriarch, Ignatius Aphrem II, told the recent Budapest international conference on persecuted Christians:

“I am afraid the day will come when our visitors come to see us as dummies in a museum, placed in old churches or monasteries. I fear that, in failure of the necessary steps, we may only become memories of the past in a very short time.”

If one goes to ancient Christian communities in the middle east, one hears the mass said in Aramaic, which is the language of Jesus Christ—the original language. However, we should listen to what the Syriac Orthodox patriarch said about Christians being driven out of the foundation place of Christianity.

The situation is not entirely hopeless. Many refugees who were only internally displaced have tried to move home and rebuild their communities.

I recently received a memorandum on the current status of Christians in northern Iraq from a member of the senior leadership of the Christian Church community in northern Iraq. I have met this gentleman and talked to him at length, but for security reasons I cannot give his name, because he is resident in the region. The fact I cannot do that, as he is scared for his safety if I read out his testimony, says something about the problems we face. Anyway, our friend in Iraq writes:

“The displaced Christians from the historically Christian towns of the Nineveh plain are in the midst of a gradual, often halting, return to their homelands. Of the…100,000 Christians originally displaced from the region, approximately 30,000 to 40,000 have begun efforts to move back. Of these, many have also still retained some form of residence in the greater Irbil region, where they took refuge during their displaced status. As such, there is continual movement back and forth between greater Irbil and the slowly rebuilding towns of Nineveh. ”

However, he goes on to point out that there has been almost no return of Christians to Mosul, because of justified fears for their safety in the city. I went to Mosul and saw the Christian communities there before ISIL—because of the appalling events there, nobody in their right mind would have gone anywhere near that city in recent times. Because of the security concerns there, Mosul’s Christians remain displaced. They cannot return home and rebuild their lives, and they cannot help Iraq return to some sense of normality and stability. Our correspondent notes that they

“are dependent largely upon the resources of the Christian churches and aid groups.”

Again, not all is hopeless; there are signs of progress. I am relieved to hear that the United Nations Development Programme has changed its previous policy and is now starting to work more closely with Church leadership in Nineveh, which provides almost the only real local government in the area. Hungary has been strong in its work in this field: in addition to appointing an ambassador-at-large for persecuted Christians, it has donated €2 million to help reconstruction in the villages of the Nineveh plain.

What can we do? How can the United Kingdom help? I turn to the Minister. Our friend on the ground in northern Iraq has given me concrete suggestions, which I put to the Minister and to which I hope he might respond. First, the UK Government need to put pressure on the leaders of the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central Government in Baghdad to resolve their disputes peacefully and swiftly. That is an easy ask, Minister, but it may be more difficult to achieve. The travel blockade that prohibits international air travel to Irbil is particularly debilitating and has had a disastrous effect on humanitarian relief and reconstruction efforts.

Secondly, we need to encourage the Iraqi Government to remove all paramilitary forces from the Nineveh plain and replace them with regular Iraqi army and security forces. The Hashd al-Shaabi units there are mostly Shi’a from southern Iraq, with Iranian backing, and their continued presence adds to uncertainty and insecurity about the future. Thirdly and finally, our Department for International Development needs to examine closely as a potential model the new co-operative relationship building between the United States Agency for International Development and the UNDP.

Our friend on the ground notes:

“In particular, we need to examine the structural forms of co-operation and co-ordination which are ensuring that practical and efficient working relationships are being established in which the Christian minorities are properly involved in the rehabilitation process. DFID should not be allowed to simply provide boilerplate representations regarding the effectiveness of the prior UNDP programs which the UN itself has admitted need to show greater responsiveness to the reality on the ground, a reality in which the Christian churches continue to provide the de facto local government leadership in their region. ”

My correspondent cites the example of the $55 million donated by USAID being deployed around the Nineveh plain in a co-ordinated approach, with close contact between the office of the UNDP director for Arab States and the Christian leadership in northern Iraq. He notes:

“This new approach has shown great early promise at improving efficient use of aid funding, and has significantly improved the confidence of the Christian minorities in the UNDP efforts.”

Yes, 3,557 houses have been burnt down, 13,088 houses have been severely damaged, 8,297 have been partly damaged, and reconstruction is very slow. We can be guilty of exacerbating these appalling problems because of our previous foreign policy. I do not want to go on about that—oceans of ink have been spilt on whether it was right to invade Iraq and to destabilise Saddam, Assad or Gaddafi—but all I will say, as I have said before, is that, in our perfectly justifiable attempts to improve democracy and undermine authoritarian regimes in these countries, we have unleashed totalitarian forces, and the victims of those forces have been the minority Christian communities. I hope the Minister will forgive me if I dwelt at some length on northern Iraq, but it is one of the most horrible, most pitiable and most terrible parts of the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Lady is right to detect the disruptive hand and the destabilising agency of Iran in the region and certainly in the supply of missiles to Hezbollah and weapons to the Houthis. What Iran is up to is well chronicled and, together with our friends and partners, we are working at the United Nations and elsewhere to bring maximum pressure on the Iranians to cease and desist from their activities.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May we erect a new doctrine—perhaps we could call it the Johnson doctrine—that we have learned the lessons of our military interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria and never again will we attempt to use military force to remove unpleasant authoritarian regimes and replace them with disastrous totalitarian movements?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes—I am afraid—an excellent point. Of course we must push back on Iranian disruptive behaviour—it is entirely the right thing to do and this Government will continue to do it—but we must also be intellectually honest and recognise that collectively over the past 20 years or so western foreign policy has helped to create the conditions, alas, in which Iranian influence has been capable of expanding.

Budget Resolutions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

As the hon. Gentleman knows full well, we are one of the few countries in Europe, or indeed in the world, committed to spending 2% of our GDP on defence. We are increasing our defence spending year on year, as the Chancellor confirmed in this Budget.

We are demonstrating our commitment by deeds as well as words. At this moment, Britain is providing almost a quarter of the troops in NATO’s “enhanced forward presence” in the Baltic states and Poland. I visited them in September, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman does likewise. He will see a battlegroup of 800 personnel in Estonia, and it will make him proud. It was extraordinary to see the gratitude of the Government and the people of Estonia, because they see what Conservative Members understand: the people of Tallinn, Riga, Warsaw and Vilnius enjoy just as much protection from NATO as the residents of Berlin, Paris or London. It is right that they do, and they have an equal right to live in peace and freedom.

I say again that not only is a global Britain in our national interest, but we have an obligation to promote the general good. It is an astonishing fact that, when we include our overseas territories, this country is responsible —in addition to all the other aspects of global Britain that I have described—for 2.6 million square miles of ocean. That area is more than twice the size of India and 30 times bigger than the UK. Britain is responsible for a greater expanse of the world’s oceans than are Brazil, Canada or even China. It is possible that some hon. Members are unaware that one third of the world’s emperor penguins are British.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

As we are responsible for so much of the world’s oceans, is it really a good idea for the Royal Navy to have only 19 major warships?

[Boris Johnson]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave a moment or two ago in respect of the colossal investments that the Government and the country are making in our defence and armed services, of all kinds. We are spending 2.2% of GDP on defence, and very few other countries can match that record. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has noticed, but this country has only recently commissioned two of the biggest warships—each of them is longer than the Palace of Westminster—that this country has ever produced, which is a demonstration of our commitment to the Royal Navy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

My hon. Friend makes a very serious and important point. It is a shame that such an important and serious contribution is met by laughter on the Government Benches.

Let me turn to defence. It is not often that I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Members for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), but I absolutely agree with them that the Government’s proposals to reduce the size of our Army to below the 70,000 mark, a cut of 12,000 from current plans, is nothing short of a scandal. Nor would it be acceptable to cut still further our naval capabilities by taking the amphibious ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, out of service.

We all heard the International Trade Secretary say yesterday that the Government would attempt to reach “some sort of compromise” on these cuts. Well, I have to say to the Government that there is no basis for compromise here. We should not even be having this discussion. Our armed forces are stretched to the limit as it is and they cannot take another round of cuts, so when we hear from the City Minister later on this, who himself served with such distinction as a young man in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, I hope he will make it clear, on behalf of the Treasury, that there will be no cuts in the size of the Army and no cuts in the Navy’s amphibious assault ships.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have already made my point about the armed forces, and in that sense I agree with the right hon. Lady, but does she not realise that the cost of the national debt in interest alone is the equivalent every year of 10 Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers? I am sure she would agree with me that the way to solve the problems with the MOD budget is not to increase the national debt.

[Emily Thornberry]

The national debt, as I understand it, has more than doubled under this Government, so we take no lessons from them. Surely it is important to borrow to invest in order to grow our economy. It is, essentially, a different attitude to economics.

Let us hope the Minister goes further and corrects one major omission from the Budget on the issue of spending. On the Labour Benches, we welcomed last week’s guarantee that the increase in nurses’ pay would be funded through additional money from the Treasury with no cuts elsewhere to the NHS budget. We will hold the Government to that guarantee. Can we have the same assurances over the much needed and long-overdue increases in paying for our armed forces? It would be entirely wrong and self-defeating if those increases were to be paid for by further cuts in personnel, equipment or living conditions, so I hope the City Minister will be able to give us an assurance on that.

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[Sir Edward Leigh]

Britain is producing excellent white wine, but there is a real problem with increased alcoholism and liver disease. Does my hon. Friend think that the solution would be to introduce unit pricing, to try to freeze young people out of the market for very high-alcohol drinks?

[Tim Loughton]

No, I think the answer is to encourage people to drink wisely and in a balanced and responsible way, and to drink higher value and higher quality English and British products.

I also welcome the extension of the rail discount card to those aged between 26 and 30. However, there is a flaw in that arrangement because the cards cannot be used at peak times, when many people need to travel to work. A bigger problem is the fact that many 16-year-olds who have to get to school or college or to their jobs often qualify for adult rate fares on buses and trains. I urge the Chancellor to have a look at that as well. I also urge him to look again at the case of the WASPI women, who continue to suffer the biggest injustice as a result of the change in pension ages. Perhaps at the very least he could extend the free bus pass to those women who would have qualified for their pensions at an earlier age.

Finally, one area that does not get much of a mention in the Budget relates to families and early intervention. I know that the Chancellor sympathises with this issue. Family breakdown in this country costs £49 billion a year and it is also one of the sources of the housing shortage, with families living in fragmented circumstances. We need to invest much more to deal with the problems of broken and troubled families, as well as with perinatal mental health and with child neglect, which alone costs this country £15 billion a year. Just as the Chancellor invests in roads, infrastructure and business in order to boost the economy, so we should invest more in our young children, as they represent the most valuable future of our nation and our economy.

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[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I wish to follow on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms) said. This has been a good week for the Government because we are focusing on the most important thing—the Budget and the economy—rather than on ourselves.

When people start to think about what is going on in the economy, they start to wonder whether the Labour party yet has the answers. If I was a Labour MP, I would be worried that the opinion polls show us level-pegging. Why? Because the No. 1 problem that faces our economy—it is infinitely greater than so many other problems, particularly Brexit—is the size of the national debt. The question the Labour party has to answer is whether adding to that debt would solve our problems.

I sat through the speech by the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), so I heard him say that he wants to invest for the future. That sounds plausible, but the trouble is that it does not matter what the money is spent on—schools, hospitals, capital or revenue—because if that increases the national debt, our interest repayments increase. The problem we face as a nation is that our interest repayments on the national debt are already more than what we spend on defence, about which we have been talking, and the police every year.

The national debt is far too large. The shadow Chancellor tells me, “You’ve added to the national debt.” That is entirely true—the national debt is still rising by £186 million a day. I am allowed to speak for four minutes, during which the national debt will rise by £200,000. But would we solve our problems by adopting the Labour party’s strategy, which would add to that national debt? We are already facing so many problems in repaying it. I said that the national debt will increase by £200,000 in the four minutes of this speech, but it was increasing by £300,000 a minute when the coalition Government took power in 2010.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

A minute?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, it was increasing by £300,000 a minute.

The central point for the Opposition is that they have to be credible, as new Labour found out in the years before it took power in 1997. The central credibility argument is whether, when the national debt is so crippling—as I said earlier, our repayments are equivalent to paying for 10 Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers every year—we can solve our problems by adding to it. My contention is that that is absolutely not the case.

Well into this Parliament, the reason why the Conservative party is still level-pegging with the Opposition, who should be way ahead, is that the Labour party has no credible economic plan to try to lift us out of our national debt, except for borrowing more, spending more and raising taxes. Who would suffer in that scenario? Would it be us? No, it would be our children and grandchildren, because we would be loading that debt on to them. Of course, as the national debt increased under Labour’s plans, interest rates would rise even more and mortgages would become more expensive. Who would suffer? The young who want to get mortgages. Labour Members’ policies simply do not add up. Until they come face to face with reality, they will never become the Government of this country.

Counter-Daesh Update

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

That is an extremely important and very good question. It is all very well trying to divert people away from the path of radicalisation, and we do what we can there, but one of the most difficult things is to reverse radicalisation once it has taken place, as I think the hon. Gentleman understands very well. However, we have a communications cell, as he knows, and we are working on it. We have all sorts of means to try to do these things, but the most important thing is to prevent people from being radicalised in the first place.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

We have the Foreign Secretary in front of us today, and he has chosen his words very carefully, so I think we should reserve our ire for the evil of this regime. However, may I ask him about what this statement is really about, which is why Islamic State grew in the first place? Has the Foreign Office learned the lesson—here, I follow my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis)—of our catastrophic invasions of Iraq and Libya? Our deliberate destabilisation of Syria has unleashed untold misery. Has the Foreign Office really cottoned on to the fact that, if we undermine deeply unpleasant authoritarian leaders, we simply unleash totalitarian movements such as Daesh? And who suffers? The minorities in the middle east.

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If we look back at 2003, we see that, in the words of the Chilcot report, no one could say that our strategic objectives were entirely attained—I think that is putting it mildly. But there are signs of hope, and there are people across the region who are willing to take up the baton of leadership. There are national institutions being born. We must support them, we must encourage them and we must not disengage. It would be absolutely fatal for this country to turn its back on the region and to think that we can thereby somehow insulate ourselves from the problems that are germinating there. We must engage, we must support the political process and we must be prepared to defend freedom and democracy where we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

If I may say so, perhaps the hon. Gentleman’s question demonstrates that he has a lack of understanding of what has taken place, because, as he will readily appreciate, the United States has not abrogated, or “junked”, the joint comprehensive plan of action. The JCPOA remains alive; it remains intact. It is our intention in this Government, working with our French and German friends, and with China and Russia, as well as with the rest of the European Union, to keep that deal alive, because that is in the interests of the whole world.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. Even if the Americans have 100% reliable intelligence to find every single nuclear site and rocket launcher in North Korea, the regime has thousands of guns mounted in caves near the border ready to bomb Seoul. In these circumstances, will the Foreign Secretary encourage the Trump Administration to pursue diplomacy in Korea, as in Iran? To coin a nostrum, “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is completely right. The best way forward is to continue with what I think is the common policy on both sides of the House, which is to encourage the Chinese to intensify the economic pressure on Pyongyang with a view to getting it round the table, and that is what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to help support and deliver an effective departure for the UK from the EU.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to help support and deliver an effective departure for the UK from the EU.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

My Department continues to support EU exit negotiations, and the Government work to strengthen our relations with partners worldwide. As a champion of free trade, we will continue to seize the opportunities afforded by Brexit and guarantee our long-term global prosperity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Today is the feast day of St Benedict, the patron saint of Europe, who famously warned about “murmuring in the community” against the abbess. Will my right hon. Friend please proclaim that we do not want any murmuring from anyone against our vision of an open, free trade Europe—the best possible free trade deal, leading the world towards free trade and untold prosperity?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent point. Members on both sides of the House know very well that 80% or 85% of us were elected on a very clear manifesto pledge to come out of the European Union, to come out of the single market and—as the leader of the Labour party has said—to come out of the customs union as well. Nothing could be clearer than that. I think that what the people of this country want us to do is get on and deliver a great Brexit, and I have no doubt that, with the support of Opposition Members, we can achieve it.

Syria and North Korea

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point and he is right to draw attention to the cardinal role of Turkey in this whole crisis. As he knows, Turkey has borne the brunt of the huge tide of refugees, and I agree very much with what he is saying about no-fly zones, which are strongly supported by Rex Tillerson and the US. However, they cannot be delivered without a ceasefire, which is why I return to this challenge we are making to the Russians: it is up to them not just to stop the barrel bombs that the hon. Gentleman mentions, but to deliver a real ceasefire.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary rightly dealt at length with the chemical attack, but I was surprised he did not take the opportunity to condemn also the appalling attack on Shi’a civilians in which 126 were killed, including 68 children, when fleeing from Foah and Kefraya. This highlights the problem faced by Alawites, Shi’a and Christians in Syria: however much they detest Assad, as we all do, they rely on him to protect them. For too long in this House, we have tried to engage in regime change—in removing Saddam, Gaddafi and now Assad. We should concentrate on humanitarian work and on protecting minorities in the middle east.

[Boris Johnson]

I fully appreciate the point my hon. Friend makes and he is perfectly right when he says that our thoughts should equally be with the 126 victims of that appalling attack, many of whom were children, as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury said. There are many, many victims in this conflict, but the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 who have died in the past five or six years—I believe this war is now in its seventh year—have been victims of the Assad regime and its supporters. For that reason, I must say to my hon. Friend that I understand his hesitations, which are of course shared by many people, who think instinctively that perhaps it would be better to stay with the devil we know, but this is a very, very odious devil indeed, and as I look ahead I just cannot see how Bashar al-Assad can remain in power in Syria in the long term. We have to go back a long way in history to find somebody who has murdered quite so many of his population and retained office.