Edward Leigh

Sir Edward Julian Egerton Leigh MP, Kt (born 20 July 1950) is a British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP).

Leigh has represented Gainsborough, Lincolnshire in the House of Commons as its Member of Parliament since 1997, and for its predecessor constituency of Gainsborough and Horncastle between 1983 and 1997.

He served as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee for 10 years between 2001 and 2010, investigating government waste and seeking value for money in public expenditure. Under his leadership, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was responsible for saving the taxpayer over £4 billion. Sir Edward stepped down at the end of the parliamentary session in 2010, as it is customary for a member of HM Opposition to hold this post.

Leigh was knighted in the 2013 Birthday Honours for public and political service. He was previously nicknamed "the Viscount" in parliamentary circles, alluding to his landed gentry background.

Leigh has opposed most instances of abortion and human embryonic research, deferring to his religious beliefs which accord with papal pronouncements. He was on the losing side in defence of Section 28, which barred Local Authorities from promoting "the teaching in any maintained-school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship" and was a vocal opponent of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, voting against it in Parliament at its Second Reading. Leigh later proposed an amendment to extend the property and pension rights afforded by civil partnerships to siblings who had lived together for more than 12 years. This was opposed by many backers of the initial Bill, such as fellow Conservative MP Sir Alan Duncan, who dubbed it a wrecking amendment.

Leigh

Leigh may refer to:

Places

In England

Elsewhere

Other uses

Edward

Edward is an English and Polish given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon form Ēadweard, composed of the elements ead "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and weard "guardian, protector".

Variant forms

The name has been adopted in the Iberian peninsula since the 15th century, due to Edward, King of Portugal, whose mother was English. The Spanish/Portuguese forms of the name are Eduardo and Duarte.

Other variant forms include French Édouard, Italian Edoardo, German and Dutch Eduard and Scandinavian Edvard. Short forms include Ed, Eddy, Eddie, Ted, Teddy, Woody and Ned. Edward can be abbreviated as Edw.

People called Edward

Medieval

House of Commons

The House of Commons is the name of the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada and historically was the name of the lower houses of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and North Carolina. Roughly equivalent bodies in other countries which were once British colonies or federations thereof include the United States House of Representatives, the Australian House of Representatives, the New Zealand House of Representatives, and India's Lok Sabha.

In the UK and Canada, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the respective upper house of parliament. The leader of the majority party in the House of Commons usually becomes the prime minister. Since 2010 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has had 650 elected members, and since 2015 the House of Commons of Canada has had 338 members. The Commons' functions are to consider through debate new laws and changes to existing ones, authorise taxes, and provide scrutiny of the policy and expenditure of the Government. It has the power to give a Government a vote of no confidence.