Edward Leigh
Sir Edward Julian Egerton Leigh is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Gainsborough, previously Gainsborough and Horncastle, since 1983. Parliament's longest-serving MP since 2024, Leigh is styled Father of the House and, in July 2024, acted as a Temporary Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons.
Leigh has a reputation at Westminster for his independence of mind as a "serial rebeller", who is prepared to vote against his own political party if it conflicts with his own principles. He was one of the original Maastricht Rebels and was reportedly sacked for organising Euro-rebels among ministers. In 2003 Leigh opposed military intervention in Iraq; he has since called for those who voted for the Iraq War, and are still seeking to justify their support for it, to be held to account.
Leigh served as the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee from 2001 to 2010, investigating government waste and seeking value for money in public expenditure. Leigh stepped down at the end of the parliamentary session in 2010, it being customary for an Opposition MP to hold this post. Leigh was knighted in the Queen's 2013 Birthday Honours for "public and political service" and has also been honoured by the French and Italian governments.
A prominent Roman Catholic politician and former President of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, Leigh has edited and authored four books: Right Thinking ; The Nation That Forgot God ; Monastery of the Mind ; and Another Country.
Early life and career
Edward Leigh was born on 20 July 1950 in London, the son of a civil servant, Sir Neville Leigh, and his wife Denise née Branch. Sir Neville served in RAF intelligence during World War Two and was Clerk to the Privy Council between 1974 and 1984. The Leigh family hails from the Cheshire landed gentry family of West Hall, High Legh, descendants of the Egertons, earls of Bridgewater.Leigh is a descendant of the family of the Roman Catholic martyr, blessed Richard Leigh who was hanged at Tyburn during the Reformation in 1588 for being a Catholic priest, and beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1929.
His maternal grandfather, colonel Cyril Denzil Branch, was a nephew of Nikolai Golitsyn, the last Prime Minister of Imperial Russia.
Leigh was privately educated at the Oratory School and the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, before going up to University College, Durham, where he read history and was elected President of the Durham Union Society.
After graduating Leigh was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple and practised in arbitration and criminal law at Goldsmith Chambers, then elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He also served as an Army Reservist Trooper in the Honourable Artillery Company.
Leigh worked in the private office of Margaret Thatcher from 1976 to 1977 as a political secretary when she was Leader of the Opposition. Elected as a Councillor on Richmond Borough Council in 1974, Leigh was then elected to the Greater London Council, representing Richmond, from 1977 to 1981. He lost his GLC seat to the Liberal candidate, Adrian Slade by 115 votes.
Parliamentary career
Leigh first stood for Parliament at the October 1974 general election, when he unsuccessfully contested Middlesbrough, coming second with 24.4% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour Party MP Arthur Bottomley.Leigh was elected to Parliament as MP for Gainsborough and Horncastle at the 1983 general election, winning with 50.9% of the vote and a majority of 5,067. He was re-elected as MP for Gainsborough and Horncastle at the 1987 general election with an increased vote share of 53.3% and an increased majority of 9,723.
A strong supporter of Margaret Thatcher, Leigh visited 10 Downing Street with fellow MP Michael Brown on the morning of Thatcher's resignation as Prime Minister in 1990 to try to persuade her to carry on. Although Charles Powell advised them it was a forlorn task, they were nonetheless granted access to the Cabinet which was in process at the time. Leigh and Brown departed 10 Downing Street and walked down Whitehall back to the House of Commons reputedly with "tears in their eyes". After Thatcher resigned, in the ensuing leadership election, Leigh supported Michael Heseltine, under whom he had served at the Department of Trade and Industry, preferring to support someone who had stabbed Thatcher in the front to those who had stabbed her in the back.
At the 1992 general election, Leigh was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 54% and an increased majority of 16,245.
Leigh served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State under John Major's premiership but was sacked in May 1993 over his opposition to the Maastricht Treaty. Whilst a Minister he was a keen advocate of privatisation of the Post Office. In the 1995 Conservative leadership election, Leigh supported John Redwood.
Leigh's constituency of Gainsborough and Horncastle was abolished prior to the 1997 general election, and replaced with the new constituency of Gainsborough. At this election Leigh was elected, winning the seat with 43.1% of the vote and a majority of 6,826. He was re-elected as MP for Gainsborough at the 2001 general election with an increased vote share of 46.2% and an increased majority of 8,071.
From 2001 until 2010, Leigh served as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the principal parliamentary body auditing the Budget, investigating government waste and seeking value for money in public expenditure. During his two terms as chairman, the PAC took evidence on 420 separate government projects and programmes and was responsible for saving the taxpayer over £4 billion.
At the 2005 general election, Leigh was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 43.9% and a decreased majority of 8,003.
Leigh was President of the socially-conservative Cornerstone Group representing the views of over 40 Conservative Members of Parliament and was author of the group's inaugural pamphlet Faith, Flag and Family in 2005.
In October 2006, Leigh was vocal in stating that after David Cameron became leader of the party, core supporters were drifting away from voting Conservative. Nonetheless, his effective chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee led to the rejuvenation of his parliamentary career.
Early in 2008, as Chairman of the PAC, Leigh was embarrassed by relying on flawed Department for Transport statistics to attack motorcyclists for tax evasion. Accusing 38% of motorcyclists of evading vehicle excise duty, he later apologised for this following the admission by the DfT that 95.5% of motorcycles are entirely legal.
At the 2010 general election, Leigh was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 49.3% and an increased majority of 10,559.
From 2010 to 2011, Leigh served as an Independent Financial Advisor to HM Treasury, appointed by George Osborne to bring external challenge to the development and implementation of a new financial management strategy for central government. He stood down in 2011, but was then reappointed to report directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on improving Parliament's financial scrutiny of the Budget. He was a member of the Treasury Financial Reporting & Advisory Board and, in 2010, Leigh became a delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, speaking regularly and serving on the Culture, Science, Education and Media Committee. Leigh also supported Boris Johnson's call to George Osborne in 2011 for lowering the rate of taxation in the UK so as to assist its economic recovery following the credit crunch.
At the end of 2010 Leigh was offered but declined the British ambassadorship to the Holy See. Leigh, an Assembly Member of the Council of Europe, opposed further human rights legislation, as proposed by the European Court of Human Rights.
In 2011, Leigh was appointed Chairman of the Public Accounts Commission, the body which audits the National Audit Office.
In 2012, Leigh, together with a record number of fellow Conservative MPs, including numerous Privy Counsellors, successfully voted against the Coalition Government's attempted railroading of House of Lords reform by limiting time for meaningful parliamentary debate on this major constitutional issue.
In September 2014, Leigh criticised the Government's decision to allow Mitochondrial replacement therapy to prevent the birth of the children with incurable diseases such as muscular dystrophy. These diseases affect up to 1 in 6,500 babies which Leigh stated could lead to people being "harvested for their parts" and a divide between what he referred to as "the modified and the unmodified". The Department for Health asserted no genetic modification is involved.
In 2015, the French President François Hollande appointed him to the Légion d'honneur for his role as "a bridge between our parliaments, our governments and our societies", as stated by Ambassador Sylvie Bermann at his investiture.
Sir Edward was again re-elected at the 2015 general election with an increased vote share of 52.7% and an increased majority of 15,449.
In March 2016, he joined three other Conservative MPs in "talking out" a Bill introduced by Green Party MP Dr Caroline Lucas, which aimed to reverse moves to privatise the NHS. By filibustering for three and a half hours, Lucas was left with just 17 minutes to present her Bill, which was subsequently shelved without a vote.
Leigh was again returned to Parliament at the snap 2017 general election with an increased vote share of 61.8% and an increased majority of 17,023. He was one of 21 MPs who, in March 2019, voted against LGBT-inclusive sex and relationship education in English schools.
Re-elected at the 2019 general election, with an increased vote share of 66.4% and an increased majority of 22,967, in August 2020, Leigh suggested that the UK take back Calais to prevent migrants seeking asylum by crossing the English Channel from France.
On 1 March 2022, Leigh praised Home Secretary Priti Patel's 'proportionate response' over admission of refugees into the UK from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Speaking in the Commons, Sir Edward urged the Government "to listen to the voices of people from, for instance in Lincolnshire, where we feel we have done our bit in terms of migration from eastern Europe where we are under extreme pressure in terms of housing and jobs." Despite receiving criticism for these remarks by Labour councillors on Lincolnshire County Council, at the 2024 general election, Leigh was again re-elected, albeit with a decreased vote share of 35.6% and a decreased majority of 3,532.
Succeeding Sir Peter Bottomley as Father of the House after the election, in July 2024, Leigh was appointed a Temporary Deputy Speaker acting as Chairman of Ways and Means until Deputy Speakers for the new parliament were elected.