Role of Big Tech in Society

Brian Leishman Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the right hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall.

Apatura has submitted a planning application to Falkirk council for a 300-MW AI data centre just 500 metres from Forth Valley Royal hospital, 20 metres from a care home and next to a densely populated residential area. From the outset, it is worth noting that the council has received nearly 1,800 objections from local people. It is no wonder that the strength of feeling against this big tech project is so strong: the proposed site, which covers about 55 acres of land, is being labelled as “sustainable”, which is frankly insulting to my constituents. An environmental impact assessment shows that the proposed data centre would emit pollution that would rank it among the worst 10 polluters in Scotland. The data centre requires its own electricity substation and 200 diesel generators as back-up. Even if they are never run for operational purposes, the generators will have to come online as part of a regular maintenance programme.

As we are here in Westminster Hall today in sweltering temperatures in the middle of a heatwave, let us also ponder the scale of the low-grade waste heat that the AI data centre would produce. The direct thermal exhaust creates hot air, which needs to be dispersed into the atmosphere. AI chips created by the big tech company Nvidia get so hot that they need liquid cooling, creating a warm liquid that must then be piped out. That intense thermal exhaust can raise temperatures by up to 9°. Surface warming can impact areas up to six miles away. As I said, the proposed site is just 20 metres from a care home, 500 metres from a hospital that serves approximately 300,000 people and is in a residential area full of families with children. The proposal is outrageous.

The noise being produced by the data centre will be constant. It will include infrasonic noise, the long wavelengths of which travel vast distances and can penetrate walls and glass, even defeating ear protectors. That pollution can cause serious physical and psychological harm and distress. Surely there will be consensus in this Chamber when I say that technology should not come with a health warning to people, families and communities. I would like to think that legislators at every level of government consider that to be the baseline for any of their decisions.

Of course, technology will play an increasing role in our society, but proposed developments like the one in Larbert rightly have people worried. Its proximity to the hospital, care home and many houses shows that people are right to be concerned. It is shameful that tech companies do not seem to be bothered about that. Technology cannot and must not be an industry that exploits people, communities and our environment for profit.

Digital ID

Brian Leishman Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

When we look at the popular things that this Labour Government have done since coming to power—and I am talking about raising the minimum wage, raising the living wage and abolishing the two-child cap—we see that these decisions are rooted in Labour party values. Eroding civil liberties, as seen in the proposals for jury trials and for digital ID, is not in keeping with Labour party values, and nor is it necessary or, indeed, popular. Will the Minister feed my thoughts back to the leadership at Cabinet level?

[Josh Simons]

Of course.

Pride Month

Brian Leishman Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

As a straight man, I cannot speak from personal experience about the prejudice that LGBTQIA+ people have been the victim of, nor have I been a coalminer and experienced the feeling of having the source of my livelihood snatched away. However, in this Pride Month debate, I wish to share with the House a collaboration that emphasises the importance of allyship and—something this House does not hear nearly enough about—class solidarity.

This collaboration was between the London-based activist group Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners and the mining community of the Dulais valley in south Wales during the miners’ strike of 1984 to 1985. Co-founders of the LGSM, Mark Ashton and Mike Jackson, were inspired to combine gay rights activism with the labour movement after attending a talk by a striking miner. This duo brought collection buckets to the London Lesbian and Gay Pride march in June 1984 to support the miners and their families who were affected by the financial hardship caused by the strike.

The LGSM was subsequently set up to officially declare that members of the gay rights movement supported the striking miners, because the LGSM strongly believed that solidarity between the working classes was essential, as all of them would be suppressed if the Thatcher Government succeeded in weakening the National Union of Mineworkers and the wider trade union movement. Indeed, the miners and the LGSM shared very similar experiences and common ground, as both were targeted and vilified by a right-wing media, police brutality and the Government of the day. Attitudes towards the gay community soon began to change in the mining community. The LGSM visited south Wales, with the mining communities reciprocating the solidarity and friendship shown to them by the LGSM.

[Chris Bryant]

I just want to correct one thing in the film “Pride”, which is the plot my hon. Friend is referring to. The south Wales valley mining community—I represent the Rhondda and Ogmore—is portrayed as openly hostile to the lesbians and gays and, in fact, bisexuals who came down to support their cause. That was far from true; there was almost unanimous support for them.

[Brian Leishman]

I very much thank the Minister for that correction—I appreciate the intervention—and for subtly dropping in my mispronunciation of south Wales.

By the end of the strike, the LGSM had raised over £20,000. As the Welsh mining communities had made the Londoners feel so welcome, the LGSM organised a return visit, with a fundraiser called “Pits and Perverts” held at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Despite the defeat of the mining industry, south Wales miners and their families marched alongside the LGSM at a Pride march in London the following year. At the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, this allyship was much needed. On 11 February 1987, LGSM founder Mark Ashton died of an AIDS-related illness, and his funeral was attended by many of the miners whom he had supported through the LGSM.

In a wider context, the NUM acknowledged the support shown by the gay community during the strike when the union called for gay equality at the 1985 Labour party conference and Trades Union Congress. In addition, the NUM backed the campaign against the hateful and harmful section 28, which was passed in 1988 by the Conservative Government. Altogether, the collaboration of those in the gay rights movement and the labour movement highlights the shared struggle and solidarity across communities bounded by oppressions and class interests.

Our labour movement must therefore show unwavering support to those in the LGBTQIA+ community, many of whom will march this summer to demand equality and protest against the rise in homophobia and transphobia. As the gays and lesbians and the miners showed in the 1980s, when two very different communities come under attack from prejudice and form an unlikely alliance to fight for what is right in the face of persecution, then understanding, kindness, respect and solidarity happen, and those emotions always win.