"The single greatest motor of world prosperity is free trade. Although it is allowable to have trade remedies to deal with unfair dumping or subsidies, they must be strictly temporary and must be based on the clearest evidence. Will the Secretary of State proclaim once more that this Conservative Government …..." Edward Leigh - View Speech
"I am speaking from Lincolnshire, the bread basket of England. It is a prosperous county, but in the area of world free trade before the second world war, we could walk on derelict farms from Lincoln to Grimsby. Can the Minister assure me that this free trade deal with Australia, …..." Edward Leigh - View Speech
"I do not know whether the Minister heard my saying in the last debate that I am worried about the courts dealing with this in the absence of a defendant. However, I also expressed my worry about vexatious motions against our allies—Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. How can the Minister assure …..." Edward Leigh - View Speech
"I understand the point my right hon. Friend is making, and we do not have a free trade deal with China at the moment, and we are not likely to, but many of us for years have been frustrated that every time we try to raise genocide in this place …..." Edward Leigh - View Speech
"I think we need to be far more robust about calling out genocide when it takes place. I can do no better than quote our present Prime Minister, writing in the Financial Times in 2016, when he criticised the Foreign Office because
"There is one section of the community for which trade deals are literally a matter of life and death for their business, not just some minor tweaking of tariffs and regulations. In the 1930s people could walk all the way from Lincoln to Grimsby across derelict farmland because of the …..." Edward Leigh - View Speech
"Relations with Japan matter enormously. Our termination of the Anglo-Japanese treaty 1923 was probably one of the worst geo-strategic mistakes we ever made, propelling that country into autarchy and nationalism. Will the Secretary of State confirm that post Brexit his priority will be to ensure a global free trade world, …..." Edward Leigh - View Speech
"May I ask the Minister for Women and Equalities whether some MPs are more equal than others? Back Benchers—the poor bloody infantry—have to traipse through the Lobby for every three-line Whip, but Cabinet Ministers can sit brazenly on the Front Bench and then slope off in their limousines after betraying …..." Edward Leigh - View Speech