Syria

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to refer to the proven and repeated use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. As I said earlier in response to a number of other questions, nobody should be in any doubt about our resolve to ensure that we alleviate human suffering by dealing with the use of chemical weapons and to ensure that their use is not normalised.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister was indeed heard in respectful silence because her moderate, determined and sensible attitude deserves respect from this House. May I ask her a question on behalf of the persecuted Christians of the middle east who will face further persecution if it is believed that their sponsors in the west are taking sides in the civil war? Will she assure us that, not just in terms of this airstrike, but generally, we are no longer in favour of regime change, that we do not take sides and that we are only on the side of peace? While we Back Benchers can of course not have access to intelligence, she does, and having had that access, can she look me in the eye and say that she is absolutely clear in her own mind that, beyond reasonable doubt, the regime was responsible for this attack?

[The Prime Minister]

On the first point, I recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns about persecuted Christians in the region. Indeed, we are discussing with the Foreign Office how we can look at this issue of Christians and other religious groups who find themselves persecuted in wherever they might be, including in this region. I can give him the absolute assurance that, from the intelligence that I have seen, from the analysis that I have seen and from the assessments that I have heard, I am in absolutely no doubt that the Syrian regime was responsible for this attack in Douma.

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

May I start by congratulating the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing this debate and on the way in which he opened our deliberations? May I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)? He suggested that when he first started raising these issues in Parliament some people perceived him to be something of a crank, but I think he is one of the finest politicians of our generation, and I am proud to sit on these Benches alongside him.

So many things need to be said in this debate that it is hard to know where to start. The three contributions we have heard so far all referred to the recent revelations about the close relationship between Vote Leave and BeLeave, and what that might mean for the ongoing debate about Brexit and the referendum. I agree with all that has been said: there are serious questions that need to be fully investigated by the Electoral Commission, and no stone should be left unturned in understanding who knew what and when.

Having said that, I want to make some different observations about what recent events suggest about our politics and our democracy. At heart, I fear there have been appalling and repeated abuses of power. What seems to have gone on within the various different elements of the leave campaigns just does not sound right. We are talking about people with years of experience dealing with campaign volunteers, some barely out of university, and advising them on setting up a separate legal entity, through which serious funds end up being channelled, at a time when some of the individuals in question are having a campaign fling, only for that relationship to be outed 18 months or so later in a statement from No. 10—the whole thing stinks.

I do not know whether criminal offences have been committed or whether electoral law has been broken, but I am pretty sure that people have abused their power. I may be naive, but I am a firm believer in decency in public life: doing the right thing, even if it may not be to your own immediate personal interest or to your party’s or your campaign’s electoral advantage. Some people would say that I am not cut out to be a politician, and perhaps I am not, but this insidious, cynical, arrogant, perpetual game playing has to stop. It has real consequences for real people’s lives. It will also kill our democracy, and I am sick of it. Perhaps it was my upbringing, but I have some pretty basic values. You do not lie. If you do something wrong, you admit it. You treat people the way you would want to be treated. You respect the law—the letter of it as well as the spirit of it. You play fair; you do not play dirty. In having power, your primary duty is to exercise it responsibly.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Heidi Alexander]

I am afraid I will not. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make a speech and contribute to the debate—contributions from the Conservative Benches have been so sadly lacking—he will have time to do so.

I have read the reports over the past few days and looked at some of the emails that were exchanged between some of the key players, and I am worried that what I see is a corrosive abuse of power. If we want the British people to have faith in us, we need to find a way to conduct our politics with decency. I fear that the opposite is currently the case. It has to stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies]

Yes, as a point of information—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Geraint Davies]

One moment. I am still dealing with the previous intervention.

For the record, the Government Benches are virtually empty. They may be 1% full—I do not know—but, frankly, it is pathetic. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to point out that the Government do not seem to care about the integrity of democracy and the law.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

When it comes to the question of fairness, does the hon. Gentleman think that it was entirely fair that, while the remain camps and the Vote Leave camps were allowed to spend £7 million each, the Government spent £9 million of taxpayers’ money to convince people to vote remain. Whether or not he thinks that that is fair, it obviously made no, or very little, difference and, therefore, all these arguments are grossly exaggerated. The British people have the good sense to make up their own minds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Davey]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the efforts and expertise that the Chair of the Select Committee is bringing to that inquiry, which is important to the whole debate. I also agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the need for us to try to cross party divisions, and the divisions that we saw both during and after the referendum campaign.

I have been contacted by leave voters who are disturbed by these allegations. Many leave voters are very patriotic people who believe that one of the key traditions and values of this country is that we respect the rule of law and do not allow cheats to prosper. This issue can bring Parliament and both sides of the debate together. Whoever cheated during the referendum—if anyone cheated—needs to be held to account.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

With respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not answered the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare). Of course he is entitled to give his speech, and Parliament is entitled to debate this, but the question we want him to answer is: who should decide whether to take action? Is it the Government, who were parti pris and took one side of the debate in the referendum, or should it be an independent body, namely the Electoral Commission? Who should make the final decision?

[Sir Edward Davey]

A number of bodies could ultimately look at the different accusations. We have a live investigation by the Electoral Commission, and we await the result of that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington spoke very much about the Electoral Commission in his speech. We also have the investigations by the Information Commissioner’s Office into the related allegations with respect to Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ. Many of us feel that the evidence so far suggests that the police should be investigating these organisations, because there could be a criminal act. Let me absolutely clear: I certainly am not suggesting that Ministers are responsible for any investigation. That would not meet my requirements for an inquiry.

European Council

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Russia respects strength, and one of the lessons of the 1930s is that it is dangerous to give commitments to eastern Europe unless we back up such commitments with military hardware. Our commitment to the Baltic states is relatively modest; I think we have 800 men in the Baltic states. Will the Prime Minister consider increasing our military commitment and our support for the Baltic states, so that we can build European solidarity on the basis of a coalition of peace through security?

[The Prime Minister]

We do look constantly at the contribution that we are making. My hon. Friend is right that we have several hundred troops in Estonia as part of the enhanced forward presence. We are also contributing in other parts of Europe—to the work that is being done, for example, in Poland. However, we will obviously continue to look at this.

National Security and Russia

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I begin by paying tribute to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. They have met the challenge of Salisbury clearly, firmly and deliberately. The response of the international community today simply underpins the resolution they have shown in dealing with this crisis.

The strength of our response, however, only underlines how our policy towards Russia has not worked. Yes, it was well intentioned, yes it was rational—we wanted to see Russia as a partner and a part of the rules-based international system—but it has not worked like that. Our actions have not deterred Russia from repeated misbehaviour. After Georgia came Crimea. There were sanctions. After those sanctions, thousands of Russian troops were deployed in the Donbass, and we had the shooting down of MH17, including the murder of 10 of our own citizens. Our response to the murder of Litvinenko clearly did not deter the attempted Salisbury murders. So we have to do more.

I note and welcome that the Government have reserved the right to deploy other measures beyond the expulsions—measures that must surely include making it more difficult for those close to the presidential Administration to do business, raise funds or buy property here in London.

Let me offer the House four thoughts, none of them particularly original. First, we must rise to the challenge of fake news: the ability of sophisticated enemies like Russia to obfuscate what should be clear, to foster conspiracy where none exists, and to tell blatant lies when they are pushed into a corner. It is the speed with which Russia is able to do that, using propaganda, social media, the “bots” and all the rest of it, that requires our response to be so much quicker. We need to deploy faster truth. I appreciate the difficulties of revealing or sharing intelligence, but when we have photographs of a mobile launcher that brought down an aircraft, and when we know that an agent as powerful as Novichok could only be developed in the highest-grade, most technically advanced state laboratory, we need to get those facts out far, far more quickly.

Secondly, this was an armed attack on a member of NATO. Under article 3 of the North Atlantic treaty, which is not quoted in the Chamber as often as article 5, NATO members agree

“to maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”.

NATO must now renew its focus on the Russian threat. It must use the July summit to modernise its decision making, to make possible much more rapid deployment of troops and planes across NATO’s internal border, and, above all, to beef up its strategic communications, which are so often much less than the sum of their parts. We need a faster and more coherent response from NATO.

Thirdly, whether we in the House are remainers or Brexiteers, we need to come together now to support the security partnership that the Prime Minister described so well in her Munich speech. One obvious way in which to reinforce the security of what continues to be our continent is to help to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, which means—even as we leave the European Union—supporting the fledgling European energy market. I was delighted to note a reference to that in the Prime Minister’s earlier Mansion House speech. It means helping to increase diversity of supply across our continent, encouraging dual flows and shared coding, promoting more interconnection, and using our technology and our regulatory experience to continue to play a leading part in making the European energy market much more resilient.

Finally, we need to strengthen our defences. Yes, the Prime Minister was right to remind the House that we have had a rising defence budget since April 2016, and yes, we do meet the 2% target, but Russia is not spending 2% of its GDP on defence; it is spending more than 5% of its GDP on defence.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Does the former Secretary of State for Defence consider that spending 2% of our GDP on defence is not enough?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

That is precisely the point that I am about to address. Russia is spending 5% of its GDP on conventional weapons, nuclear weapons, cyber and hybrids, and, as we now know, on a completely illegal chemical weapons programme. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the NATO 2% is a minimum and not a ceiling. I think the House should consider this—and I do not make the point in a party political way. In the last year of the last century, the Blair Government were spending 2.7% of GDP on defence. That was before 9/11, before Daesh terrorism, before Kim had his nuclear weapons, before cyber-attacks on our own Parliament, and before Russia became more malignant again. I was in the House in 1999, and I do not recall anyone suggesting that our armed forces were overfunded then.

If we want to continue to lead in NATO, on the ground in the Baltics, in the air over the Black sea, and in the North sea and the north Atlantic in anti-submarine warfare, if we want to go on playing our part in the counter-Daesh coalition, if we want to prop up fragile democracies in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Nigeria, if we want to go on contributing to United Nations peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa, and if we want to maintain a presence in the Gulf and recommit ourselves to protecting international trade routes in Asia-Pacific, we must will the means to do so. That means that, along with the modernisation programme that I know my right hon. Friends are now considering, we must now set our minds—and this is the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—to a higher defence target. I have said publicly that I think we should commit ourselves, under the next spending review, to meeting a target of at least 2.5% of GDP by the end of the current Parliament.

If there is one thing that Salisbury has taught us and we have learnt all over again, it is that what Russia really understands is weakness—countries that will not stand up for themselves, will not protect their people, and will not protect their values and the freedoms that they enjoy. We have never been such a country, and Salisbury should remind us all that we never should be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Near the end of the second world war, the joint intelligence sub-committee of the British Chiefs of Staff, as it was then, produced a report entitled “Relations with the Russians”. From years of experience of working with Russia against the Nazis, the JIC concluded that Russia would respect only strength as the basis for any future relationship. That mirrored Lord Palmerston’s view of almost a century earlier:

“The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it met with decided resistance and then to wait for the next favourable opportunity.”

Not much has changed. Alexander Litvinenko died in London on 23 November 2006. Four days later, the BBC News website published an article headed “Russia law on killing ‘extremists’ abroad”. It is worth quoting it for the record:

“A new Russian law, adopted earlier in the year, formally permits the extrajudicial killings abroad of those Moscow accuses of ‘extremism’...In July, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament—the Federation Council—approved a law which permits the Russian president to use the country’s armed forces and special services outside Russia’s borders to combat terrorism and extremism.

At the same time, amendments to several other laws, governing the security services, mass media and communications, were adopted.

The overall result was to dramatically expand those defined as terrorist or extremist.

Along with those seeking to overthrow the Russian government, the term is also applied to ‘those causing mass disturbances, committing hooliganism or acts of vandalism’.

Much more controversially, the law also defines ‘those slandering the individual occupying the post of president of the Russian federation’ as extremists”,

so those who insult the President of Russia can legally be killed overseas according to this law. The BBC report concluded that

“the Russian law is very specific in that it permits the president—alone, and apparently without consultation—to take such a decision”,

so at least one hon. Member will not be on Vladimir Putin’s Christmas card list after his speech today.

If anyone had doubts about Russia’s responsibility for the Salisbury poisonings, its contemptuous failure to respond to the Prime Minister’s 24-hour deadline should swiftly have dispelled them. An innocent regime would have rushed to explain how a nerve agent that only it produced could have been acquired and employed by anyone else. We should also have been spared sarcastic suggestions in the Russian media that the United Kingdom was an unsafe place for “traitors” to settle, as well as the ludicrous claim that we ourselves were behind the attack. That was a charge straight from the playbook of those who blame the Jews for 9/11 and US intelligence for the Kennedy assassination.

Vladimir Putin is a product of the KGB schooled in the suppression of captive countries, steeped in the culture of communist domination and filled with regret that the Soviet empire imploded. According to him, its break-up was the greatest disaster of the 20th century—a revealing and curious choice when compared with the millions killed in two world wars, the Russian civil war, the forced collectivisations, the mass deportations and the hell of the gulag.

Until the Bolshevik revolution, there was some chance of Russia evolving along democratic lines, but then the cancer of Marxism-Leninism gave psychopaths and dictators their ideological excuse to seize total control. Their opponents were denounced as enemies of the people and put, or worked, to death with no semblance of due process. Now the ideology has gone, but the ruthless mindset remains. Russian leaders no longer claim to be building a workers’ paradise, but they still believe that western capitalists will sell them the rope with which to be hanged.

For 40 years from 1949, two factors ensured the containment of Russia and the maintenance of peace: the deterrent power of western nuclear weapons; and the collective security provided by article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty. No longer could an aggressor attack small European states without the Americans immediately entering the war. Yet such preparedness did not come cheaply. In the early 1960s, UK defence spending accounted for 6% of our GDP—the same percentage as welfare. The current welfare budget is six times the size of the defence budget. In the mid-1980s, defence constituted 5% of our GDP—the same percentage as education and health. The current education and health budgets are respectively two and a half and four times the size of the defence budget. In the changed strategic situation, this downgrading of defence cannot be allowed to continue.

Since 2016, the Defence Committee has been making the case for a defence budget target of 3% of GDP, which is what it used to be in the mid-1990s, even after the cuts following the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the cold war. The former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), has called for a 2.5% target by the end of this parliamentary term. His successor is squaring up for a battle with the Treasury, and that fight has to be won for the safety of us all and for the security of our country.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Does my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Defence Committee think that the way to defeat a modern Russia is the same as the way in which we defeated the USSR? Reagan crushed the USSR’s economy through what was in effect an arms race between a strong and vibrant American economy and a weak Russian one. Does my right hon. Friend think that that could be a way forward?

[Dr Lewis]

I would certainly say that it is part of a way forward.

I will use the generous extra minute that I have been given to say that I am a little concerned about the fact that while the Government are right to recognise the existence of new threats, such as cyber threats, digital threats and intensified propaganda threats, including through the abuse of social media, and that we will need to devote resources to meet those new threats, that does not mean that the old threats or the old remedies to them have gone away. I do not like the conflation of national security budgets with defence budgets because that means that if we add more to the national security budget, we have to take more away from the defence budget, unless we listen to the warning from my right hon. Friend the former Defence Secretary, among others, that spending 2% of GDP on defence is not enough.

In my last few seconds, I cannot resist appealing once again to the Foreign Secretary—I am pleased to see him back on the Front Bench to hear my speech—to save the BBC Monitoring service at Caversham, which we are supposed to be going to visit. It costs £25 million a year to keep it going, but it is going to be decimated and absorbed into a wider system that will not be as effective as the dedicated teams at Caversham. If it was true before that we need to save it, it is even more true now, after all that has happened in recent days.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Since marrying my half-Russian wife 34 years ago in the Russian orthodox cathedral in Gunnersbury, I have made it my business to try to understand Russian culture and Russian people. They certainly respect strength and people standing up to them.

It is a bit of a mystery why this murder was carried out in the way that it was. I think that it was carried out as it was to make it obvious that Russia had carried it out. There has been speculation that it was designed around the Russian election; I think that it was designed to make it absolutely clear that traitors will not be tolerated.

Let me talk a bit about the Russian mindset. When we think of people like Philby and Maclean, we look at them with amused contempt. The Russian views traitors with absolute hatred, because they have betrayed the motherland. I pay tribute to the Russian people, Russian culture and Russian literature. In Russia, there is a deep sense of victimhood, which arises from the second world war and its losses in that war. Our losses pale into insignificance compared with the losses suffered by the Russian people. That sense of victimhood is still there.

When I was last a delegate to the Council of Europe, I attended the previous Russian elections. There was no doubt that those elections were deeply flawed—Russian elections are deeply flawed—but also no doubt about the popularity of Mr Putin. Had he allowed a fair election, he almost certainly would have been elected, because the ordinary Russian felt that he was restoring some sort of pride to Russia.

There is a deep sense of despair and victimhood about how we treated Russia during the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I do not for a moment condone, defend or accept the annexation of Crimea, but the ordinary Russian remembers that there was an independence referendum in 1992 in which Ukraine voted more than 90% for independence and that there was an independence referendum in Crimea in which more than 90% voted for independence from Ukraine. In their view, Ukraine has always been part of Russia and is largely Russian, although they overlook the suffering of the Tatar people. All those facts are very strong in the Russian psyche, as is the attempt to detach Ukraine—which means borderland in Russian—from mother Russia.

[Mr Seely]

My hon. Friend makes a series of important points and I am glad that he is making them. There are counter-arguments to them that I shall not go over now, but does he believe that one problem is that the Russians simply cannot imagine an independent Ukrainian identity that is separate from Russia? That is one of the driving factors behind the issue.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No, they cannot imagine that because Kiev is the source of the Rus’ people and the thousand-year-old history of the Russian Orthodox Church, to which Kiev is as much an integral part as Canterbury is to the Anglican communion. They cannot understand Ukraine as an independent entity.

None of this is to condone or in any way defend Russia. What are we going to do about this situation? First, as I said to the Prime Minister, we need to create a coalition of peace through security. Russia would not have been too concerned about the expulsion of 23 diplomats —that is tit for tat—but it would have been very concerned about the fact that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have made alliances throughout Europe, that we have been listened to and that these expulsions have been going on today. Russia will be extremely concerned about that.

Secondly, we should not seek to copy Russia’s methods or attack it in the way that it attacks. We should be careful. I know that some Members want to close down RT. I do not defend RT in any shape or form, but we should leave it to Ofcom. We should leave it to due process, not political interference from this place. We should also be careful about what we do in respect of the City of London. It has a reputation throughout the world for fair dealing. We act on evidence. If there is evidence of criminality and dirty money, we must act on it, but we cannot attack Russians who invest in our country and in the City of London simply because they are Russian. That would be a mistake.

What do we do? We make alliances, which we have done, and we expel the diplomats. The point I have been making again and again, with the Chair of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who went way back and quoted Palmerston, is that Russians historically respect strength. We currently have just 800 men in the Baltic states. We have 150 in Poland. It is simply not enough. Surely, history proves to us that in dealing with Russia, words are not enough. Russians want to see action on the ground.

Why did we defeat the USSR in the cold war? It was not with words, but with solid determination to spend what needed to be spent on defence. We have heard the former Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), and we know the stresses on the defence budget. The Foreign Secretary should echo the words of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who said in the estimates debate not three weeks ago that spending 2% on defence was not enough. We should make a solid and real commitment to the Baltic states. That is what will concern Mr Putin: the determination to put troops on the ground. I know about all the pressures on the Government that are arising from health and many other things, but unless we are prepared to make that commitment—to do what Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan were prepared to do to bring down the Soviet Union—we will never counter the Russian threat.

Russia is not a natural enemy of our country. It is sometimes difficult to say that in this Chamber. We have had speech after speech condemning Russia. We are two powers at either end of Europe. From the days of Queen Elizabeth I, we have traded together. Russia is not and should not be an existential threat to this country. There has been a lot of talk about cyber-warfare. I have no doubt that Russia is attempting and engaging in cyber-warfare, but I do not believe that it could seriously affect our democracy. We should be proud of our democracy and determined that it is resilient. We must not indulge in Russophobia. We must be proportionate and determined, and we must be prepared to spend on defence what we need to spend.

[Mr Grieve]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I was going to conclude, but I shall take my right hon. and learned Friend’s intervention before I sit down.

[Mr Grieve]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend and think I share many of his sentiments, but the evidence of Russia’s behaviour in cyber-space is of the most extreme recklessness. It is totally outside the international rule of law and raises some very difficult challenges about how we deal with it.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course, I would not want for a moment to disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. He knows what is going on and I echo what he says: the Russians are indulging in some attempt to destabilise our values. I make no defence of what they are doing; I just think that we are a sufficiently robust economy and democracy that we can weather it and that they will not change things fundamentally in our country. We should be aware of it, but we should have confidence in our self-reliance.

It is terribly important that we are serious about this subject. There is absolutely no point in our having this debate and attacking President Putin, only for all our attacks to completely wash off the Russian people, who do not want to be an extension of western Europe in their values, economy or anything else. What will have an effect on them? Is it words in this Chamber, or actions on the ground? Are actions on the ground enough? There may be no absolute real and present danger to our country, but there is to the Baltic states, not least because of their very sizable Russian minority.

[Mr Seely]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I must finish now.

There is a very sizable minority of people in those states who are not that well treated. Many Russians believe fervently in their soul that those minorities are not well treated and that President Putin has the right to interfere. We have NATO. The Baltic states are not Ukraine. We must not allow what happened in 1940 to happen to the Baltic states. Therefore, words are not enough. We must will the means. We must spend more on defence and put the troops into the Baltic states.

UK/EU Future Economic Partnership

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah yes. Another very well-behaved young fellow, possibly now at the mid-point of his parliamentary career, but I am sure not beyond it—I call Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Thank you for picking the succulent cherry at last, Mr Speaker. It seems to many of us that the Prime Minister’s calm good sense is moving the country from the gloomy valley of “Project Fear,” peopled by the shades of former Prime Ministers, into the hopeful uplands of “Project Reality”. What could be more unifying and more Conservative than her pragmatic approach of proceeding by sensible, pragmatic and moderate steps to re-establish the sovereignty of Parliament?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend; I think that is absolutely right. Negotiations are taking time. They have been set out, as we know, in article 50 for those two years. What is important is that we approach them with the right, pragmatic, calm approach, but recognising in all this the optimistic future that lies ahead for the United Kingdom.

Strengthening Families

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on a comprehensive and courageous speech, and for trying her best to solve what she described as one of the greatest epidemics facing our country. The strength of the epidemic and the misery that it causes seem to go beyond any solution that one could possibly dream up. In so many areas of Government, from the Ministry of Defence to the Department for Education, when we identify a problem, we have an idea of what we can do to counter it, but this is such an epidemic and it goes so much to the root of society that it is hard to know whether just appointing a Cabinet Minister for families, although a worthy aim, would keep families together.

However, at least my hon. Friend is trying to identify the problem. As she said, if there were other issues costing the nation, not £10 billion, £20 billion or £30 billion, but probably £40 billion or £50 billion, and that caused so many obvious problems, it would be considered a national emergency, but the problem is that society has so changed over the past 50 years and marriage has been so downgraded that Governments—Labour Governments, Conservative Governments, Scottish National party Governments in Scotland, French Governments, Italian Governments—have scratched their heads and wondered what they could do to resist the problem.

It is a pity, because all the evidence—I will not take a lot of time to go through it—is clear. There is an absolute wealth of evidence on the importance of marriage to the welfare of children, and a wealth of evidence that marriage works, in that couples are much more likely to stay together. It is all published, and one could go on and on.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies found that parents who cohabit are approximately three times more likely than those who are married to have separated by the time the child reaches the age of five. A 2009 report by the Department for Children, Schools and Families found that a child not growing up in a two-parent family is more likely to grow up in poorer housing, experience behavioural problems, perform more poorly in school, gain fewer qualifications, need more medical treatment, leave school and home while young, become sexually active or pregnant or become a parent at an early age, and report more depressive symptoms and higher levels of smoking, drinking and other drug use during adolescence and adulthood. None of that is to gainsay the fantastic job done by tens of thousands of single parents, many of them single parents through no fault of their own, but every study shows that marriage works.

I will mention one issue that has not yet been discussed. People are now saying that they want no-fault divorces, and that it is a charade that people must claim a reason for getting divorced. They say that it is a matter of tidying up expensive and messy legal paperwork and that such couples are totally irreconcilable anyway, and ask why we are going through with the sham of our divorce laws. They say that we should have a simple legal system—“I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you”—and that is that. However, I think that making life cheaper and easier for such couples would also send a profound, wrong message and would make it easier for hundreds and thousands of other families to break down. It would proclaim from this House that marriage is just a legal device, like buying a home or selling a company, and that we therefore want to get rid of any kind of explanation for why people want to get divorced. Producing that reform would be saying to the nation that encouraging couples to stay together in marriage is not our first priority.

Again, repeated studies have shown that 90% of couples who manage to stay together until their child is 15 will stay married. We know from all those studies that family breakdown is a key driver for poverty among women in particular, with half of all single parents living in poverty. Those are the factors for which datasets are increasingly allowing us—I hope—to understand the situation. We do understand the situation: we understand that marriage works and that the breakdown of marriage, or indeed marriage not taking place at all, drives many people into a poorer outcome for life.

My hon. Friend is leading the campaign, and we are encouraging her. We all want better educational treatment for our children and a decline in juvenile criminality; we want families to stay together. She is right to say that, despite the appalling complexity and strength of the problems, Government can at least attempt to be a facilitator of families and married people staying together, rather than an enabler of breakdown.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the steps that some authorities are taking, such as family hubs. Benjamin Adlard Primary School is in Gainsborough south-west ward, which is one of the 30 poorest wards in the entire country. The headmaster, Sam Coy, runs the school, and I have visited it. So many of the problems that his children exhibit are due to family breakdown. I am delighted that he is leading the campaign to have a family hub in Gainsborough. Of course, having a family hub that gives help will not solve the problem—local authorities taking an interest will not prevent societal trends that have been so apparent for decades—but it is an attempt to do something. Brave young headteachers such as the headteacher of Benjamin Adlard Primary School should be given our encouragement.

My hon. Friend has mentioned the marriage allowance. A lot of people sneer at the marriage allowance and say, “It’s just ridiculous. Families don’t come together or split apart because of some change in the benefit rules,” but most developed countries and OECD members recognise family responsibility through family and marriage allowances.

Given that the cost of family breakdown is £47 billion, as my hon. Friend has explained, I do not believe that it is too much for the Treasury to recognise marriage in the tax system through a marriage allowance, for which I have campaigned for years. We are not trying to use the tax or benefit system to try to get people together or to stay together. All we are saying is that if one parent in a two-parent, married family wants to stay at home to look after the children full time, that should not be discouraged in the benefit system—that is a profound injustice.

We had to drag the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer kicking and screaming to bring in the allowance. He brought it in at a very low level and it has never been pushed properly. There are still many people inside Government and the civil service who do not like it and would like it to fade away, but all it is trying to do is right an injustice. If one person in a married couple wants to stay at home to look after the children full time, they should not be financially disadvantaged by the tax and benefit system.

Marriage rates among the better-off are still very high, but at the less well-off end of the spectrum they are much worse. Journalist Ed West noted that research for The Spectator showed that, in 2000, someone in the top socioeconomic class was 22% more likely to be married than someone in the lowest socioeconomic class. By 2017, that division had risen to 48%, and the crisis is growing. More needs to be done.

There are lots of sound recommendations in my hon. Friend’s manifesto, and she should be congratulated on putting pressure on the Government. Relate has written to us about a report it produced with Professor Lord Layard. He observed—this is such obvious common sense—that:

“In every study, family relationships are more important than any other single factor affecting our happiness…Of all the factors that affect happiness, your family life or other close relationship comes first.”

We all know from our personal lives what a blessing a long and happy marriage is. It is the most important thing in our life. Although in many ways society is infinitely more prosperous than when I was born in 1950, is not a happier place in many respects. That is nothing to do with the size of someone’s bank balance, the size of their overdraft or where their children go to school; it is to do with a sense of belonging in a marriage that lasts.

I sympathise with the Minister. His civil servants will have done their best, and no doubt he will say some warm words at the end of this debate. However, it is incumbent on us to have some courage when we debate this subject, not just to talk in simple terms about a new Cabinet Minister or something of that sort, although that is a good step, but to say that there is something profoundly wrong in society and that one of the reasons why society is an unhappier place now is the massive breakdown and decline in religion, which did and does allow people to raise their eyes above their present circumstances and gives them some support.

That massive decline is never mentioned by politicians, because we are afraid that we will be seen as putting ourselves on a soapbox and proclaiming that we are better than other people, or that people will say that the decline in religious observance and that sort of thing is a private matter. It is all far too difficult, but occasionally we have to have the courage to say what we believe in.

My hon. Friend is quite right. She gave a comprehensive speech. In the Minister’s response, I hope he will raise his eyes from his civil service text for a few moments, speak from the heart, and give a clue of how we can begin to address and be honest about the greatest problem facing our society today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the case that has been made for the manifesto, of which I am a supporter. I will draw to the attention of the Minister—in so far as it has not been drawn to his attention already, because it most certainly has—the magnitude of the problem we face. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) drew attention to the quite shocking statistic that this country has the most volatile family life of the entire developed world for children under 12, and that comes with huge consequences.

Tomorrow I will hold a surgery, and the 10 or so people who attend will have a range of problems. Some of them will come and tell me about their debt, with the perhaps unrealistic expectation that there is something I can do about it. Equally, there may be a problem with housing—perhaps the completely inadequate nature of someone’s housing, which may be too small, or too damp, or bed and breakfast accommodation, or indeed appalling neighbour problems. It might be to do with schooling—not being able to get their child into the school of choice, the school not being near enough, problems with getting the child to the school, problems with the child’s performance at or behaviour at school. For children in my part of the country, the problem might be lack of access to mental health provision. It might be some other aspect of poverty, such as having to use food banks or whatever. But scratch the surface, and one finds that however that problem may have presented, for nine out of 10 of the cases that came through the door, the cause will have been family breakdown. It is the surest way to poverty and it is for that reason that I support my hon. Friend and this manifesto. Family breakdown is costing us billions and we have to make sure that, across all of Government, we pursue policies that will deal with this epidemic—and it is an epidemic.

Let me draw attention to two particular areas. We had a debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday last week on marriage. In summing up, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), slipped into what I hope the Minister who is here today will not slip into—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) warned him not to. I mean that habit of quoting civil servants, or whatever. The Under-Secretary responded to the debate by saying, “Well, of course, of course, families come in many shapes and sizes.” I intervened and asked him, “How many? How many shapes and sizes?” and I challenged him, saying, “A family is not just any collection of people who happen to share a fridge!”

When it comes to this education consultation that is going on at the moment with respect to relationships, I do not believe that it is satisfactory to say that, whatever the continuing education requirement is, relationships education must include family life. Actually, it is the other way round. The law now is clear—the education must be about marriage. Of course, we want relationship education—the strength of relationship education—to be about marriage and other relationships, not relationships including marriage. The emphasis is the other way round, which brings me neatly to the Bill that passed last Friday promoted by our hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton).

That Bill seeks to make civil partnerships available to mixed-sex couples. Civil partnerships were introduced in 2002 only for single-sex couples—same-sex couples—because marriage was not available to them. His intention is that civil partnerships should be extended; there should be equality and they should be extended to mixed-sex couples. I understand that the Government’s intention is that the Bill will be amended in the Bill Committee so that there is a review of whether there should be such an extension. I have an open mind. I was accused of seeking to undermine marriage by my support for the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013; my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham accused me of that in the Bill Committee. My fear was that introducing some sort of step-down marriage is the danger that will undermine marriage. However, I have an open mind about what a review under the current Bill should look at.

It seems to me that there is a possibility that extending what is a clearly protected, committed, legal relationship to people who would not otherwise have entered into one may actually be a significant advantage. Equally, it may be that, by introducing some form of “marriage-lite”, we actually undermine marriage, by persuading people who do not feel that they could go for the full-fat version that they can enter a civil partnership, on the basis that it is not quite the real deal. In fact, it is: the legal obligations and protection that provide for civil partnerships are identical to marriage in almost absolutely every respect, and I think it would be a mistake to persuade people that somehow they were entering into a relationship that was less committed if they were to enter a civil partnership.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I intervened on our hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) last Friday, saying that there are unintended consequences to consider. I made the point that if he gets his way, everybody, of whatever sex, will be able to marry anybody they like, or have a civil partnership with anybody they like. The only people who would not be able to have a civil partnership are siblings.

I raised this issue in 2004, when the first Act on civil partnerships—the Civil Partnership Act 2004—got through. I had been written to by two sisters who had lived together all their lives, but when one dies the other one will be forced from their home. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), I have an open mind on this subject, but if we are going to reform the law we have got to think of the unintended consequences. It would be fatuous if anybody can have a civil partnership or marriage apart from siblings.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

My hon. Friend draws a very important and powerful corrective to proceeding with that Bill, certainly in its current form.

I am very glad that the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) spoke earlier. I draw attention to what she said about service life. Those of us who have experienced service life and who have a constituency with a large number of service personnel will know that the statistics for marriage breakdown are much higher and much worse for military families. That is largely as a consequence of the pressures of having to deal with prolonged absences and the whole operational cycle. I put that to the Minister in the hope that he will draw it to the attention of Defence Ministers.

There certainly is scope within such institutions as the armed forces to provide training courses that will help with family breakdown. There are all sorts of courses available that help people to strength their relationships, and I have experienced them myself. I suggest that within a military environment there is scope for making such courses available to both partners—not just the serving partner—in a way that would not be available in civilian life. After all, those of us who have served did our MATTs every year. I have long ago forgotten what that stands for, but as well as the ordinary battlefield drills, skill at arms, and nuclear, biological, chemical and battlefield first aid, part of it was about standards and values, and it strikes me that there is scope under standards and values to strengthen relationships.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Given that Middlewich is not too far from where I live and where I represent, with her permission I would like perhaps to come and talk to that headteacher, to see what I can learn from the school in her constituency.

As I say, the situation needs to change, and the Department for Work and Pensions has begun to recognise that. The “Improving lives” report announced plans to put £30 million into a programme to help workless parents to resolve conflict through independent providers. However, that provision does not go far enough, because the need is not just among workless parents. A far-reaching, holistic, family-based approach to tackling children’s health is needed, as the example in Middlewich shows.

The recent Green Paper on children’s mental health is an important step in the right direction, and for the first time recognises the importance of parental relationships on children’s wellbeing and mental health, but we need to do more to support families. By incorporating couples therapy into NHS provision, children and young persons’ mental health teams would not be syphoning funds from where they are most needed, but redirecting them to where they will be most effective. Training would be required to enable professionals and frontline workers to be confident in identifying and treating the needs of the couple, alongside an efficient system of referral. The roll-out of family hubs would facilitate a collaborative and consistent provision of couples’ support in addressing children’s mental health. Alongside providing for those affected by mental health problems, that would also help to prevent the mental health problems from arising by providing relationship support and encouraging the involvement of fathers in the family.

Sometimes there is a reluctance to make such points. My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) talked about the reluctance to refer to faith and religious belief. I entirely support what he said, but also, in our western, perhaps individual-focused society, we do not recognise enough the support that the wider family, indeed the community, can give to families. When I was living with my family in Tanzania, we often came across a proverb that was originally in Igbo, a Nigerian language, but in Swahili is, “Inachukua kijiji kizima kumlea mtoto”, which means: it takes a whole village to raise a child. If we view a village as our community, we should not shy away from recognising that families cannot do everything, as I know from my own experience. They come under great pressure at various times. Parents are otherwise engaged, perhaps going through crises themselves. It takes a community.

In my constituency, and many others, we have an organisation called Home-Start, which works with troubled families. The problem is that Home-Start relies on volunteers who give their time. It takes professional co-ordination, but we find that the funding for that, which is frankly peanuts when one considers what else we spend money on, is often the first to be cut, as I found in my constituency. Local authorities who were very generous have been put under pressure and, because it is not a statutory requirement, will remove the funding. As a result, the whole service is put under pressure, and may even disappear. These are people working on a voluntary basis with families that are under pressure, and saving the state huge amounts of money, because those families might otherwise fall into needing extremely expensive services. In addition to the issue of mental health, which I have spoken about at some length, I ask the Minister to look at the possibility of making relatively small amounts of funding available to schemes such as Home-Start. We are talking about a few thousand pounds, or tens of thousands, in a whole local authority area. The total cost for the country would be pretty minor, and the savings substantial.

Finally, colleagues may disagree, but I have found the value of family time at meal times very important, as well as the value of not having television. I have never had television, either as a child or an adult, but if people do have a television, there is value in saying, “Well, it has its place, but it shouldn’t be the centre of family life, because it takes up so much time and stops people talking to one another.” I think we can extend that to social media. I was very encouraged to read in The Evening Standard last week of a school, I think in London, which has 10 commandments about the use of social media. That school is really improving the lives of the children, not by forbidding access to social media, but by saying, “Let’s put less emphasis on social media, and spend more time interacting with one another personally, face to face, rather than via small screens.”

We ought to spend more time together as families, and play more games together. Despite my distaste for games that take longer than half an hour, I have discovered a great game called Bananagrams, which is brilliant for families that enjoy that kind of thing. It is not something that the Government can get involved in, but schools and other organisations can provide opportunities and suggestions for families.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Would it help Cabinet unity if they played Bananagrams?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

At the moment, I think one half of the Cabinet would be playing Bananagrams, the other Scrabble, but it absolutely would help unity. I would love the Cabinet to play Bananagrams together; it might be more productive than some of the conversations that are had from time to time.

In conclusion, the impact of positive family relationships and of family breakdown on mental health is a vital issue. I urge the Minister to look at the big picture on mental health, and at the relatively small initiatives that are locally based and enable communities to do their best through volunteering to support families that are under pressure.

Brexit Negotiations

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady asked me to confirm that anybody wanting to leave the single market and the customs union effectively wants to stay in the EU; I think she meant that anybody who wants to stay in the single market and the customs union wants that. [Interruption.] She is nodding her affirmation. Yes, that is absolutely right. It is clear that actually leaving the EU means leaving the single market and the customs union.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Despite all the prophecies of doom and gloom, the Prime Minister, with her calm, true grit, has shown that Brexit can and will be done. We congratulate her on that. Of course it is a compromise, but when Brexiteers like me look at the alternative—namely, a Labour Government staying in the single market forever and having no control over immigration—it is amazing how our minds are concentrated in support of the Prime Minister. Will she confirm that, although as a great country we can of course choose to align our regulations with those of other countries, once the implementation period is over, we will have full regulatory autonomy?

[The Prime Minister]

That is the whole point. Once we are outside the European Union, we will be able to determine our regulations and where we wish to diverge from the regulations of the European Union. As I said in my response to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), in any trade agreement there is an agreement about the rules, regulations and standards on which both sides will operate, but also an agreement about what happens when one side wants to diverge from them. The important point is that this Parliament will be the body deciding those rules and regulations.

European Council

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah yes, a Lincolnshire knight. I call Sir Edward Leigh.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May I commend the Prime Minister’s approach based on the Florence speech, which is entirely sensible, pragmatic and moderate? Given that we are being entirely open about our negotiating tactics, which is that no European nation, or indeed any European citizens, should be worse off, may I encourage her to be more transparent and open with Parliament on the figures? I know that the reserve position of Whitehall is that Parliament is a nuisance, but what else was Brexit about except reviving parliamentary democracy? We still have no idea what we have offered or what is being demanded. We could do with some more information because, ultimately, there will be a vote on this in the House and that will be a vote that counts.

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we have said that there will be a vote on the deal in this House and we expect that vote to take place before the European Parliament votes on the deal. I have also said—I said this in my Lancaster House speech in January—that when we are able to make information available, we will do so. As my hon. Friend and others may recall, I also said that we will not give a running commentary on the details of the negotiations. We must not put this country in a position where we set out publicly everything that we are looking for in these negotiations, because that just hands the cards to the other side. This is a negotiation, and both sides will have to move on it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her place in the House. Her presence has enabled me to appoint a very good chief of staff to my office at No. 10. She raises the very serious issue of knife crime. The Government have been taking a tougher stance on knife crime. We do think this is an issue and we have done this in a variety of ways. Now, if people carry a knife in public they are much more likely to go to prison. But we do recognise that there is more to do in this area. That is why yesterday my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced plans to consult on new offences to toughen up knife crime laws, including restricting the online sale of knives—we have done some of that already, but we think there is more for us to do—and banning possession of dangerous or offensive weapons on private property. The hon. Lady has raised an important issue and the Government have been addressing it. We recognise that we need to do more, and that is what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is doing.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Before the election, the Government committed to removing the faith-based cap for free schools and even included that promise in our election manifesto. Catholic dioceses up and down the country are anxious to open free schools and some have even purchased sites. Will the Prime Minister commit her Government to honouring that solemn pledge in our manifesto?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend will recognise that the reason we put that in our manifesto, and the reason it was in the schools Green Paper that we published before the election, is that we do believe it is important to enable more faith schools to be set up and more faith schools to expand. This is an issue that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is considering and she will publish further details on our overall view in terms of improving school diversity and encouraging the creation of more good school places in the near future.

G20

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I referred to in answer to the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), membership of Euratom is inextricably linked with membership of the European Union. As we leave the European Union, we will be leaving Euratom, but we will be looking to put in place a similar relationship with Euratom, just as other countries around the world that are not members of the EU have access to the movement of scientists and materials and to Euratom’s standards. We recognise the importance of this matter, which is why a Bill on this subject was in the Queen’s Speech.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend is now open to ideas from a man who tried to remove her from office, I wonder whether she will be prepared to take an idea from a friend who stood on a platform of keeping her in office and who wants her to stay in office—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) should calm himself. I want to hear what the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has to say.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

How about this idea: we have warm words about helping Italy on migration, but as long as it is forced to take all the refugees, more and more will obviously come. Will my right hon. Friend work with our allies to try to establish safe havens in Libya, so that people can be returned safely? That is a Conservative idea, not a useless socialist one.

[The Prime Minister]

Not only is the concept of being able to return people to Libya a good one, but it is one that we are already working on. It is one of the issues that we will be discussing with the Italians and others in relation to the extra humanitarian aid that we are making available. We have also offered the Italians support and help with returns to Nigeria, because a significant number of those who reach Italy come from Nigeria, where the United Kingdom is already running arrangements to provide the sort of area in which people are able to stay.