Sentencing Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman has to read the Bill, because it does not reduce sentences. He really has to get to grips with the detail of the Bill—I hope these things can be discussed in Committee—because it does not reduce sentences.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

On that point, will the Justice Secretary give way?

[Mr Lammy]

I am going to make some progress.

The Bill introduces a new progression model for standard determinate sentences, incentivising offenders to behave in prison. It draws heavily on reforms that were pioneered in Texas, which ended their capacity crisis. I was very pleased last week to meet Derek Cohen, a leading Republican thinker.

I refer the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) to clauses 20 and 21, which amend the release point. For regular standard determinate sentences, a minimum of one third will be served in prison. For more serious crimes on a standard determinate sentence, at least half must be served inside. Bad behaviour—violence, possession of a mobile phone and so on—could add more time in custody.

To ensure that the worst behaved offenders stay inside longer, we will double the maximum additional days for a single incident from 42 to 84. This has got to be punishment that works, with sentences that are tougher when offenders show contempt for the rules of prison. What we want, and what I think the public want, are people coming out of prison reformed. That is what we are attempting to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have a lot of sympathy with the Bill and with the argument that there is no point calling for longer and longer sentences unless we build prisons. I accept that, but I am worried about the presumption that if someone is sentenced to fewer than 12 months, they should not receive a custodial sentence. As a former practising barrister, I understand the arguments for why short sentences often do not work, but people committing offences such as shoplifting are complete pests, and they are causing enormous damage to the economy. It may sound hard, but sometimes we have to issue short sentences for that sort of offence. We should trust the courts and not try as parliamentarians to impose our judgment on them.

[Mr Lammy]

I understand the seriousness of the point the Father of the House makes. Let me say this. First, we are not abolishing short sentences. The presumption to suspend short sentences does apply, but not where there is significant risk of harm to an individual.

In 2019, the last Government commissioned work on this, which David Gauke relied on in his review, and it was deep research. The problem was that the recidivism rate for those who were committing short offences was desperate. They are prolific precisely because prison does not work for that particular cohort. What is also in the Bill—I think this is good, catholic stuff—is the intensive supervision court, where the judge gets to grips with what is happening with the defendant. Is it drugs? Is it alcohol? Is it addiction? What is going on? The judge really grips what is going on to get underneath the prolific offending. I emphasise that we are not abolishing short sentences entirely. I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes.

Under the measures, released offenders will still be deprived of their liberty. Immediately after prison, offenders will enter a period of intensive supervision by the Probation Service. Clauses 24 and 25 introduce a strengthened licence period with strict conditions tailored to risk and offence, and it will be possible to apply new restrictive licence conditions to stop offenders from going to the pub, attending football matches or driving cars—restricting their liberties and their life in order to prevent them from being prolific.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I have served for many years with the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and, dare I say it, we have not agreed on everything over the years, but we have published a few articles on this topic. Those articles have always started with the fundamental principle of the NHS. Some of us—maybe myself included—have been rather critical of the NHS over the years, but at least when we go into the NHS, we know that everybody is really trying their best to preserve life. That is the fundamental principle.

The reason why the right hon. Lady and I both oppose the Bill is that, as has been said several times, we are not talking about just a principle here; we are talking about an actual Bill. I know some people will criticise me and say, “Oh, you would oppose this, because of your religious views and all the rest of it.” Actually, I take quite a sensible and, I hope, pragmatic approach to this. I have listened to all these debates, and we have heard so many harrowing stories of people’s last hours. I think we should treat people on both sides of this argument with respect, understand their points of view, and respect the dignity of dying people.

I have always taken the view that we should open up this debate. Actually, I have brought forward a ten-minute rule Bill—which of course will be objected to at half-past 2 this afternoon—saying that we should have a full study, led by the Department of Health and Social Care, by health professionals, to work out how we can help people in their final hours. I have been to many hospices and care homes, and talked to many palliative care specialists who assure me that they have the resources and skills nowadays to make those final hours pain-free and bearable, but we have heard testimony from others saying that that is not possible. If they could convince me that there were some extreme cases where people were dying in agony, totally lacking in dignity in their final hours, then I would listen to those arguments, but I do not think that is the Bill that we have before us today.

I therefore urge Members to remember that we will be voting on a Bill, and I think that the Bill is so riddled through with difficulties and inconsistencies. I think it will be subject to human rights legislation. It is very difficult to argue that we can ask somebody to assist in a person’s death when they are within six months of dying of cancer—although there is no universal testimony or acceptance about how we work out those six months—but not if they are suffering from some appalling degenerative disease or are a quadriplegic or have no quality of life. So I think there is actually an argument that, if we pass this Bill today, we will move in the direction of Canada and we will have death on demand.

I will end on this point. Before voting for this Bill, just pause for a moment and think, “Wouldn’t it be better?” We have heard about the many hours on the abortion Bill, and the universality of clinical acceptance of it. Before we vote for this Bill, do we not think that we should ask the Health Department to have a profound and knowledgeable study, working with the royal colleges, on whether it is possible to have decent palliative care, not just in our wonderful hospices, but in all our hospitals? There is no doubt that in recent years, particularly since Shipman, there has been a fear among many NHS health professionals about providing that degree of palliative care—that degree of morphine, fentanyl or these hugely effective modern drugs.

So, just pause and think. We are not voting on a principle; we can come back to this, and, at a later date, we can get consensus and we can have a really good Bill that will allow everybody to die in dignity.

Decriminalising Abortion

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 700014 relating to decriminalising abortion.

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. The petition creator is Gemma Clark, and this is what it says:

“I am calling on the UK government to remove abortion from criminal law so that no pregnant person can be criminalised for procuring their own abortion.”

Gemma became involved in campaigning on this issue during the pandemic. She was particularly alarmed by the tactics of some campaigners harassing women trying to access abortion in Scotland. She also has a friend who experienced a stillbirth but was investigated by the police.

Gemma is worried that there is a lot of misinformation about abortion, especially late-term ones, and that that is linked to the rise of extreme ideologies and misogyny. She is a primary school teacher and is fearful that the young girls she is educating now will have fewer rights when they grow up than she does. I thank Gemma and the more than 103,000 people from across the UK who signed her petition. That includes 152 from my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe. I also thank 55 of my constituents who emailed me to express their views on the issue. That has fed into this speech.

How is abortion criminalised in the UK? It depends on where we live. Abortion is, in effect, decriminalised in Northern Ireland, whereas long-standing laws maintain the criminalisation of abortion in England, Wales and Scotland with two main offences: procuring miscarriage under section 58 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, and child destruction under section 1 of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is describing the law. One of the justifications for the Abortion Act 1967 was that it would end back-street abortions; indeed, whether we like it or not, we have abortion on demand in safe environments. If the proposals we are discussing go ahead and, de facto, it becomes possible to have an abortion at home up to birth, does he not think that could endanger women’s health? Is he not worried about that, or are the movers of the petition not worried about that?

[Tony Vaughan]

I am not aware that following the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland there has been a strong current to re-criminalise it, which might be expected had a situation such as the right hon. Gentleman referred to actually occurred. It is not my understanding that that has happened.

For each of the two offences I described, sentences of up to life imprisonment apply. A person is guilty of the offence of child destruction when the pregnancy is of at least 28 weeks and they commit a wilful act to cause the child’s death; it is a defence if the act was done to preserve the mother’s life. The offence of procuring miscarriage can be committed at any stage of gestation when a person uses a poison or instrument to induce miscarriage. As the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said, there are defences, variously, under the Abortion Act when two registered medical practitioners authorise abortion in an approved clinic in broadly four situations. The first is when there is a risk of injury to the mother’s physical or mental health up to 24 weeks—that was the exception expanded during covid, so that women could access pills for medical abortions at home, following a consultation, for pregnancy of up to 10 weeks.

Sentencing Council Guidelines

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend is right to contrast the approach of the soundbites from the shadow Justice Secretary with the Justice Secretary’s approach of rolling up her sleeves and getting on with the job of sorting out the mess left in our prisons, Probation Service and courts.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Just to be constructive for a moment and to try to get a bit of consensus, surely no one is suggesting that anybody in Parliament wants to restrict the power of judges and their traditional right to sentence people according to their own lights. All we are questioning is whether a quango like the Sentencing Council should try to stack the deck against certain groups. All we are saying is that judges should impose sentences irrespective of people’s race, colour or whatever.

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

The Father of the House and my constituency neighbour brings a constructive note, and I agree with exactly what he says. We have an independent judiciary that we should let get on with the job.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Absolutely. The Minister with responsibility for courts, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), has already outlined the steps that the Government are taking to increase sentencing in our courts. We will of course consider what other action we can take. We know that the budgetary position that the Government face is incredibly tight, because of the inheritance that we received. However, it is vital that we make fiscally responsible decisions.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

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

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)]

SDS40—the standard determinate sentences early release scheme—was an emergency measure that we had to take to avert the complete collapse of the criminal justice system following the shocking inheritance left to us by the previous Government. The emergency measure is not, of course, the solution to the crisis that we inherited. That is why we will build the 14,000 prison places that we need, and have launched the independent review of sentencing.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

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

[Shabana Mahmood]

I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that the past is relevant in so far as it sets the context for the crisis that we have inherited, which needs resolving. Given that we all but ran out of prison places—numbers had fallen to fewer than 100 in the summer—it is important that we recognise that the prison system is and has been on the point of collapse. That is why we had to take emergency measures. We have made exclusions to the SDS40 scheme that should take account of his concerns. It is of course important that offenders are monitored and supervised effectively when they are not in prison, and that is what we are trying to do now. Tech can play a bigger role there, and I have asked the independent review into sentencing to look into that.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Edward Leigh Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), and I want to follow her in talking about palliative care. Let me start by reading an email that was sent to me only yesterday by a personal friend and constituent:

“I apologise for adding to the thousands of emails you will be receiving. I just wanted to tell you why I oppose the right to die Bill. I know you are aware of the experience I had when my husband was dying. In hospital we had a dreadful experience because they had no end-of-life care and he suffered. Once in the Hospice it was a different story and he received the loving care he rightly deserved.

My argument is that, instead of assisted dying, we should be spending much more money on end-of-life care and funding the wonderful Hospice movement. Thank you for reading this.”

I will read another letter, from a doctor, which I think encapsulates some of the problems that we encounter in this issue:

“Only recently, I was giving my condolences to a grieving woman who had lost her husband in the early hours. He had been given a few small doses of pain relief and mild sedatives over the last few nights for symptom control and had passed away peacefully at her side. She asked me in all seriousness, ‘Doctor, did the nurses give him something to make him die quicker last night?’ This was an awful lingering doubt that she had. I was able to firmly reassure her that, no, the medication would not have sped up his passing.

For her, and the vast majority of other patients, doctors are there to prolong life and palliate symptoms. Were this to change, then we would not be doctors in the eyes of many, but bringers of death, agents of a state which counts its weakest members as expendable and worthy of nothing but an early grave.

I do not want to be a member of a profession which has that reputation or role”.

Those are two witnesses who have written to me. I have taken an increasing interest in this whole issue of palliative care, and the law frankly—

[Mr Perkins]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me if I do not? I know that many people want to speak. I just want to develop this argument, then I will finish.

The law is so unclear. I have talked to a number of palliative care specialists, and they say that we can give as much morphine as we want to a patient and we will not kill them, but there is real doubt in the minds of the public. A lot of the impetus around this debate, and the reason why people in opinion polls are apparently supportive of this measure, is that they are terrified of dying in pain. There is no need for this. When I talk to consultants and practitioners in palliative care, they say that they can manage pain. I was struck by a very touching email that was sent to me by a constituent, who actually supports the Bill on the grounds that when his wife was dying, and he was begging the doctor in a national health hospital to give her more morphine, the doctor said, “If I did that, I would be breaking the law.”

I can see the Health Secretary is sitting here, and I really think that if we are going to have a serious debate about this issue, we need to have something equivalent to a royal commission to determine what doctors can and cannot do. It is essential that we really reassure the public. There is tremendous interest in and huge doubt about this issue. Many people are conflicted, and we have heard many moving stories about people’s fear of dying in agony, but until we clear this up, I do not think that we can make the progress that this issue deserves. Yes, we have to fund our hospice movement seriously. It is very worrying that we are going to fund the NHS to fund death, but that we are not adequately funding our hospice movement.

Before we take this momentous decision, we have to be realistic about it: if the Bill were to pass at 2.30 pm, that would be it. I do not believe that a private Member’s Bill, which has only five hours of debate and on which many Members of Parliament will not be given time to speak, is the right mechanism. In the last Parliament, we discussed a certain subject that we all know about—it was a very different issue. We had hundreds of hours of debate, questions and scores of civil servants crawling over the issue. Surely this issue is even more important. Surely we should have had more than just two or three weeks to consider this Bill. We should be looking at the detail, because the devil is in the detail in respect of possible coercion, the facilities available to the hospice movement and the issues I have talked about, including the lack of clarity in the law as to how we can or cannot relieve pain. Can we not pause a moment? Those are the practical points that I want to make.

This is so important: the futures of so many vulnerable people are at stake. I was struck by the comment made earlier by the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) that we cannot consider this issue just in terms of individual hard cases. We must consider it in terms of society as a whole. What sort of society are we? Are we a society that loves our NHS, that loves life, that loves caring and that loves the hospice movement? Or are we a society that believes that there is despair? I will vote for hope at 2.30 and I will vote against the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

19. What steps she is taking through the criminal justice system to facilitate the removal of foreign national offenders from the UK.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

21. How many foreign national offenders were removed from the UK through a prison transfer agreement in each year since 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

As I say, we are on track to remove more foreign offenders this year than in previous years. In fact, over the period when the shadow Justice Secretary was the Immigration Minister in the previous Government, the number returned was around 1,300. We have already returned more than 1,500 foreign offenders, utilising all the prisoner transfer agreements at our disposal. We are actively trying to negotiate more such agreements, so that we can continue to speed up removals from this country.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The previous Government negotiated a scheme by which we can deport Albanian prisoners back to Albania. It is an excellent scheme; Albania is a completely safe country, of course. Given that those crossing the channel are committing an illegal offence, is there anything legally to stop us arresting them and putting them on a flight straight to Albania? We do not even need to lock them up in Albania; they can just start their journey all over again—what a good deterrent.

[Shabana Mahmood]

As the right hon. Gentleman well knows, we have legal obligations to those who arrive in this country that have to play out. However, PTAs relate to those who have committed an offence, have been convicted and are being held in the prison estate. They can therefore be removed from this country under a prisoner transfer agreement. We are working with the Albanians to ensure that the PTA with Albania is as effective as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I have visited Cookham Wood. I cannot remember the precise date, but the really important statistic to note is that in the period up to the end of September last year, we recruited an additional 1,400 prison officers. The numbers are going up, and the attrition rate is going down. [Interruption.] Hold on. That is because we have introduced measures such as the new colleague mentor scheme, rolled out £100 million on security and so on. We recognise that the safety of our prisons is in large measure down to the quality and quantity of our staff, and we are improving on both counts.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T3. There was an interesting debate in the House of Lords last night, in which Lord Hoffmann confirmed my understanding that the European Court of Human Rights was wrong to impose a rule 39 injunction to stop flights to Rwanda, and that we could safely ignore such an injunction. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that is his understanding of the law, and if we get the Bill through Parliament and have flights on the ground, will he ignore such an injunction? And would that not be a good issue on which to fight the election?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Sir Edward, you should know better. This is topicals. You are a member of the Panel of Chairs as well; you are meant to set an example, not abuse your position.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I do not have plans to do so, I confess, but if the hon. Lady is to have those conversations, I invite her to consider writing to me afterwards; if there are matters we can take up, I would be happy to do so.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T5. And so another migration Bill winds its way slowly out of the House of Lords, and when it becomes law, an army of human rights lawyers will try to frustrate it. Will the Government reflect that, if only we had had the courage to get out with a derogation from the European convention on human rights and the refugee convention, we might have solved the small boats crisis two years ago? Now my constituents are victims of that, because the Government want to put 2,000 migrants in RAF Scampton, and the same human rights lawyers in the Refugee Council will oppose it on the grounds that it is inhumane to put them next to hangars ridden with asbestos. Why do we not just get out of the convention?

[Alex Chalk]

No one is a more doughty defender of the people in his constituency who are concerned about matters relating to Scampton than my right hon. Friend. This is principally a Home Office matter, as he knows, but the points he has made will have reverberated not just in this Chamber but, I am sure, all the way down the road to Marsham Street.

Abortion: Offences against the Person Act

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

May I say that that was dextrously done by the shadow Leader of the House? She makes valid points in her typically reasonable and measured tone. She is right to highlight that this was an extremely complex and emotive case. Again, I hope she will forgive me for not straying into commenting on the judgment or the decision taken in this case. There is a legal framework for safe abortions, which is set out in the Abortion Act 1967. It set out the conditions under which abortion is legal and is available.

On the hon. Lady’s comments about the CPS, I gently say that in considering any decision it has to look at both the evidential test and the public interest test. However, the CPS is independent and it makes those decisions; again, it would not be appropriate for a Minister to comment on CPS charging decisions. Similarly, the Sentencing Council is independent, and it determines what to review and how to review it. I suspect that it will have heard her comments, but, again, it would be inappropriate for me to seek to direct the Sentencing Council, given its independent function.

Like the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North, the hon. Lady mentioned that there is a difference in the frameworks in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales. The House was cognisant of that difference when it chose to make that decision, and that decision must be respected. As for any future decisions made by this House, I simply reiterate that were the House to seek to change the law and come up with a different framework, the Government would of course work to implement the will of the House.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

When the House debated whether it should be possible to receive an abortion pill through the post, we warned that there might be a tragic case such as this. Some people in the abortion industry are now using this tragic case to argue for some sort of legal right to abortion up to birth. Given that many babies are surviving at 24 weeks, that is an obscene and cruel proposal. Surely the solution, given that it is difficult to determine gestation without an in-person appointment, is to return to the system of in-person appointments, so that women can receive safe, legal abortions if they wish.