Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Foreign National Offenders: Deportation · Hansard source

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  4. Whether he has set a target for the number of foreign national offenders in prison who will be deported.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Foreign National Offenders: Deportation · Hansard source

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  In July, the then Mayor of Manchester, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), said that “nothing is off the table” and that he would “explore all possible options” to deport child rapist Shabir Ahmed to Pakistan. Where is the necessary draft legislation to amend the Immigration Act 1971? Where is the credible threat to Pakistan to turn off visas, and where is the credible threat to Pakistan to stop money and other assistance to that country if it does not co-operate?

• 15 Sept 2026 · Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation · Hansard source

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  Order. We are going to struggle to get everybody in, so brevity, please, colleagues.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation · Hansard source

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  Order. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

• 15 Sept 2026 · Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation · Hansard source

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  Order. Many colleagues want to speak and we have limited time. Front Benchers will be called at 10.28 am, so I suggest everyone takes four or five minutes for speeches.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation · Hansard source

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  Commendably brief—thank you very much indeed.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Residential Buildings: Safety Remediation · Hansard source

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  Minister, please allow a couple of minutes for the winding-up speech.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T4. Prison officers do an increasingly tough job that most of us would not want to do or could not do, and the least they should be able to expect is to have their pensions and lump sums paid on time, yet thanks to the incompetence of MyCSP, Equiniti and now Capita, that is not happening. What is the Minister going to do about it?

• 14 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  The Minister will have to be very careful about what we say and do because of the effect on Jews in this country. In that regard, what assessment has he made of the Campaign against Antisemitism’s findings on Jew hate in our national health service? Does he agree that everybody needs to be assured that when they are at their most vulnerable, they will be dealt with equitably, without reference to their colour, creed, race or anything else? Yet we find that patients are being abused simply because they are Jewish, and that Jews working in the NHS are being disadvantaged.

• 14 Sept 2026 · Sovereign Grant Bill · Hansard source

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  We are extremely fortunate to have a monarchy, particularly this monarchy. Since the reign of George III, the profits from the Crown Estate have accrued to the Treasury; in return, the institution of the monarchy receives a grant, which we are debating today. Part of that is an annually determined proportion of the profits. However, for things other than exceptional expenditure, such as on Buckingham Palace, the institution presumably requires some sort of stability and certainty about the receipts necessary to carry out its functions. Is it logical for the grant to be a proportion of profits, which will inevitably vary year by year, because they are a commercial matter?

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the promoter of the Bill, the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Lauren Edwards). For her, and for the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), this is a remarkable feat of political endurance; I pay tribute to them for that. I start by declaring my interest as a registered medical practitioner and an active doctor, but far more importantly, as somebody who has sat by relatives in their final hours and minutes, as many in this Chamber have done. That really has an impact, and is certainly germane to what we are discussing. Although he is apparently not voting today, the new Prime Minister has said that he wants to improve palliative care before we weigh up this extremely difficult matter, which will affect a relatively small number of people at the end of their life. I do not agree with the Prime Minister on much, but I do agree with him on that. Happily, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed), who is no longer in his place, agrees with it, too. If I may paraphrase the Prime Minister, I want good palliative care to be available in every postcode. The criticism we have of it in this country right now is that it is not universally available to all. I believe that if it were, many of the considerations that we are deliberating on today would be profoundly altered, and that is one of the reasons why I will not support the Bill today.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I certainly do, and I expect that those sort of things were on the mind of the Prime Minister when he made his remarks recently. The first reason why I will not support the Bill today is that I seriously do not want to live in the kind of society in which the frail, elderly and vulnerable feel coerced into “doing the right thing.” We can set up panels, and involve judges in chambers, social workers and all the rest of it, but as humans, we know how humans work. We know the light side and the dark. Often, the currency that passes between vulnerable adults and their influencers is things that are not said; some of the contributions today have touched on that, and none of it is captured in clause 34. We know that certain groups particularly like to please, to acquiesce, to oblige. We all know constituents like that, and they are often among the most vulnerable. They are people with Down’s syndrome, and people like the lady who featured in the advert for simple cremations, cited by my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley)—quiet people, if you like. They are among the people who are not adequately protected by this Bill. Can we genuinely say that there would be a level playing field for them? Our first mission in this place must be to protect the most vulnerable. Speaking of the vulnerable, Canada has seen the most appalling mission creep, particularly into mental health. That is probably why the Royal College of Psychiatrists is so wary of the Bill, and it is in company with the most impressive array of medical, disability and charity groups—count them off! Do not turn a deaf ear to them. I do not want the tone and texture of my profession, or of any other, to be changed irrevocably by its involvement in termination. Nor do I want others in the NHS or elsewhere in our care system who are unprotected by codes of ethics and opt-outs, and who will not be explicitly protected by the Bill, to feel obliged to be involved in termination. Clause 31 is all very well, but if this Bill passes, the pressure on those in the palliative care sector in particular to facilitate assisted dying will be substantial. Earlier in my career, I considered being an obstetrician; it was a career to which I was attracted, but one of the reasons why I did not take that route was that I did not feel comfortable being involved with a very large part of that practice, which is termination of pregnancy. I feel that this Bill will irrevocably change the nature of palliative services in this country. The previous Health Secretary pointed out the tedious business of opportunity costs. Five per cent of deaths in Canada, where the law we are debating has been in place for a decade, are now assisted.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will not, because of time. I would get the evils from Madam Deputy Speaker. One in 20 deaths in Canada is assisted. If that were translated to this country, it would mean a huge extra cost, and the money would have to be found from other frontline services. Which ones? Likely it would be taken from Government support for hospices, which are already reeling from national insurance increases that have yet to be fully offset. In my view, the moral, ethical, legal and practical issues that we are discussing today, complex as they are, are well beyond the scope of a private Member’s Bill. The only way to achieve a halfway safe and competent Act is to make this a Government Bill, mentioned in a manifesto. So far, no major political party has wanted to do that. It is true that, each day, lives are shortened by interventions aimed at easing pain or suffering, which is what the caring professions do. That is quite different from a deliberate and systematic state-sanctioned and delivered programme to end the lives of people approaching death. At the end of the day, we can rationalise the pros and cons of assisted dying, but most of us will go with what we feel in our guts. My instincts tell me that giving the state or its agents leave to end life in this way is wrong. They tell me that, however well intentioned, it would lead in one direction, and would, over time, leave a grisly trail of unintended and unforeseen consequences. That is why I oppose this Bill.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  It is good to hear that the Government plan to replenish the dwindling stocks of Patriot missiles in Ukraine, which I suspect it will need this winter. However, Patriot is low volume and high cost. What the Ukrainians need is high volume and low cost. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the Fire Point consortium’s Freya missile system, which stands every chance of providing the solution to that conundrum not just for Ukraine, but for the UK and its allies in NATO as we try to face down the threat from Russia?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  Since the Foreign Secretary is not going to get the co-operation, fulsome or otherwise, of the Israeli state in differentiating goods and services made in the settlements from those that are assembled, repackaged, produced and grown in Israel itself, how is he going to distinguish the one from the other?

• 8 Sept 2026 · Falkland Islands: Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  Currently, the Royal Navy has an offshore patrol vessel permanently stationed in the Falkland Islands, but given the threat that is being faced and our need to demonstrate resolve—the sort of thing that, sadly, we did not demonstrate in the early 1980s, which led to miscalculation—will the Minister consider speaking to her MOD colleagues to see whether naval assets might at least pay a visit to the Falkland Islands, with a significant platform?

• 7 Sept 2026 · Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  The Government insisted on applying the social time preference rate to the disastrous Chagos deal to make an appalling deal look slightly better. Will the Minister confirm that the changes she has announced today as part of her Green Book revision will increase the cost of that deal by £288 million, which is 10 times the amount that she proposes to cut from the Army training budget this year?

• 2 Sept 2026 · Rewiring the State · Hansard source

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  Will the First Secretary of State’s exercise in delivering democracy and local accountability and empowering local people include a look at large organisations that cannot be described as governmental or as quangos but that nevertheless exist firmly within the public domain, are established by statute, serve the public and are big employers, and in which the public have a direct interest, such as the National Trust? That is ripe for review—it is meant to be reviewed periodically—and it would certainly fall within the scope of the work she has been talking about.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Detention of UK Nationals Abroad · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Government on the hiring of Alistair Burt—he is a good hire and will do great things for some of these most complex of cases—but does the Minister agree that many of these cases are extremely difficult and exceptionally traumatic, and that it is far better to prevent them happening in the first place? What more can be done to advise discretionary travellers on the risks they run when travelling to some of these exceptionally challenging locations, and particularly to advise them in advance of the finite nature of any consular support that may be forthcoming if they get into trouble?

• 15 Jul 2026 · Waste Management Sites · Hansard source

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  Order. Members will have to be brief. I am sure that Adam Jogee will be an exemplar.

• 15 Jul 2026 · Waste Management Sites · Hansard source

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  Order. We are under time pressure, so I will place an indicative limit of four minutes on speeches.

• 14 Jul 2026 · UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  Obviously I welcome this deal, but the Minister recently told CNBC’s Ritika Gupta that he believed that this country’s “historic destiny” was to rejoin the European Union. Last December, the Deputy Prime Minister said that we should rejoin the customs union. Do either of those things represent Government policy?

• 14 Jul 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The middle east has been in a state of rolling crisis for months and months, yet the Leader of the House comes to this place and says that things have got so bad that we need to do this extraordinary thing—which is unprecedented in my 25 years in the House—in order to discuss it. This is from a Government who have a marginal impact on the conduct of affairs in the middle east. Will the Leader of the House commit to a very low bar for a recall of this House over the summer recess to discuss the middle east? What he is saying is that there is such a low bar, and that if anything happens in the middle east beyond background, we need to come back to this place to debate the matter.

• 8 Jul 2026 · Community Cohesion · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State is plainly taking this very seriously, which is very much to his credit. Can he say what points of agreement and dissent there were in the discussions that he and his Ministers are reported to have had with the party leaders in Northern Ireland, and what actions the UK Government undertook to advance in order to try to reduce the possibility of these dreadful scenes—which, for many of us who lived through them, are reminiscent of the 1970s in Belfast—happening again?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  Left liberals may not like this, but it remains the case that the public expect the criminal justice system to exact retribution on those who have offended against society. If we do not do that, then individuals may wish to take the law into their own hands. We do not do that in a civilised country; we expect the state to do that on behalf of society. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we constantly diminish the sentences we hand down to serious and dangerous offenders, society may begin to lose faith in the Government it expects to do that work on its behalf?