Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Apr 2025 · Irish Republican Alleged Incitement · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that there is no context at all in which it would be acceptable to utter the remarks attributed to this group? Does he hope, as I do, that the criminal justice system pursues them with the utmost rigour, without any thought to mitigations such as so-called artistic licence? Does he share my disappointment as a south-west MP that, as of this afternoon, Glastonbury is still listing this outfit for a performance on Saturday 28 June?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Recycling of Tyres · Hansard source

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  Tessa Munt will move the motion and then the Minister will respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Criminal Injuries Compensation · Hansard source

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  Thank you. Contributions are always more powerful when they are rooted in personal experience, as we have heard today. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered compensation for criminal injuries.

• 29 Apr 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister is presumably keen to determine how much money is lost to fraud in Scotland, and I imagine he will require the Scottish Government to report back to the UK Government on their progress in clamping down on benefit fraud, but the same should apply in the rest of the country. That, of course, is the purpose of new clause 13, which would require an annual report on the amount of money recovered through the processes that he has outlined. Will he accept new clause 13? Will he also assure me on the point about the Scottish Government’s reporting of fraud?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister said that powers exist, but, plainly, they are not working, because we know that “sickfluencers” are doing their deeds and people are responding to them, particularly in the mental health sphere, where many of the claims are made. Indeed, we know that officials, or those acting on behalf of officials, are looking out for buzzwords, because, if there is a buzzword in there somewhere, they can bank the case and move on to the next one. Therefore, something plainly needs to be done to stop this. Will he look again at the Opposition’s new clauses 8 and 21, which would ensure that “sickfluencers” are targeted specifically, and say what, in the Government’s amended terms, they would do to deal with this particular group that are contributing significantly to the failure identified by my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) in relation to the amount of money that we are able to claim back from the huge sum that is lost to fraud every year?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  When will the Government decide whether to support the UK-Morocco power project?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Before the Secretary of State goes any further in her speech, will she take the opportunity to pay tribute to Dame Tracey Crouch, whose work in government laid the foundations for what the Secretary of State is talking about now? Since independence should be at the heart of everything we do, will she also say that it would be a pity if this Bill were mired in another story about Labour cronyism?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Headingley Incident · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister share my surprise at just how easy it is to get hold of one of these weapons? A few clicks will buy someone a Guillotine X+ compound crossbow for £324.91 plus £6.99 for delivery, or a Jaguar Deluxe for £129.95, with free delivery. These things are as deadly as shotguns, yet we do not license them as such. Will the Minister, in the plans that she has heralded, consider seriously going down the same route as other European countries and ensuring that these deadly weapons are properly controlled?

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  Further to the answer that the Minister gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), will she at least concede that it would be opportune to conduct an audit of our critical national industries, to ensure that if there are issues around foreign ownership, or ownership by malign state entities, we know where they are and have a plan to deal with them?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Ukraine Update · Hansard source

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  “Reassurance force” sounds like a euphemism for escalation that would expose our boys and girls to very significant risk, yet on 3 March the Prime Minister said to me, from the Dispatch Box, that we would not be deploying troops to Ukraine without a US backstop and without a US security guarantee. He was right, wasn’t he?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Birmingham: Waste Collection · Hansard source

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  The Minister failed to answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on whether troops should be used to clear up the mess. Will he do so now? The Defence Secretary, who is sitting next to the Minister, will know very well that a trained soldier’s pay starts at around £25,000. If troops are used, will they receive arduous duty payments under the arrangements for military aid to civil authorities?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Israel: Refusal of Entry for UK Parliamentarians · Hansard source

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  Like many colleagues, I have visited Israel, the west bank and Gaza, facilitated by the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority. I benefited greatly from those visits, and I hope that both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government will facilitate future visits by parliamentarians. However, does the Minister think it was wise for the Foreign Secretary, in his remarks on X/Twitter, to try to conflate China and Israel?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Scunthorpe Steelworks · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that we appear to have hammered out a cross-party consensus on the need to ensure that this country is able to continue to produce virgin steel, just like every other G7 country, for a whole raft of reasons? Does she agree that the case is underscored and reinforced by the Trump slump, by her party’s welcome, albeit belated, pragmatism on net zero and, one hopes, an attendant fall in energy costs, and by the Prime Minister’s intriguing announcement of the end of globalisation? Does she agree that those three things have underscored and reinforced the case for continuing to produce virgin steel in this country?

• 2 Apr 2025 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  The United States is busy increasing its presence on Diego Garcia, most recently with its B-2 Spirit aircraft, probably facing towards Iran. Given that, how much will the Trump White House be contributing to the endowment that the Minister proposes we hand to Mauritius?

• 2 Apr 2025 · Onshore Wind and Solar Generation · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 2 Apr 2025 · Onshore Wind and Solar Generation · Hansard source

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  Rather than traducing what remains of our countryside, what assessment has the Minister made of the UK-Morocco power project run by Xlinks, which would deliver 11.5 GW of energy and power about 8% of our grid needs? It would seem that the block to this project is not the Moroccan Government, nor the Governments of countries through whose territorial seas the cable would pass, but resides instead in Whitehall. What is the Minister doing about it?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  What assessment have the Government made of reports that Iran is considering pre-emptive strikes against American B-2 Spirit bombers that have recently been forward-located in Diego Garcia?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Foreign Influence Registration Scheme · Hansard source

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  On the subject of the political tier, can the Minister say how domestic politicians might be affected—those who have foreign interlocutors, as well as those who are simply involved by virtue of all-party parliamentary groups? As for the enhanced tier, while I appreciate that he is reluctant to be drawn on specifics, can he say whether the scope of what he has in mind might include a foreign jurisdiction with a stated intention to annex the territory of a European neighbour and Commonwealth partner?

• 1 Apr 2025 · NHS Pensions · Hansard source

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  I declare my interest as a practising doctor and a public sector pensioner who has been through the McCloud process. Does the Minister understand that we will not improve productivity in the NHS as far as doctors are concerned if they continue to retire routinely in their mid-50s—in their prime? They do so because their accountants tell them that they would be foolish not to, given the fiscal environment and the structure of the NHS pension scheme.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The Minister is right to praise the House of Lords for making sure that the great British pint is in this Bill as an exclusion from the metrology regulations. However, this will not satisfy the metric martyrs. The Minister will remember that the ability to sell in imperial measures was a big issue a few years ago. Why is it that there is an elaborate schedule to the product regulations, but not to metrology, and why in particular is food generically not included in the exemptions from what the Minister proposes to do?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  On pints—

• 1 Apr 2025 · Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member described the Bill as a Trojan horse—it is more like a Trojan donkey. Does he agree that clause 2(7) is a particular problem, because it appears to take European Union regulations as the baseline for determining safety? To many of us, the assumption that European Union regulations should be the starting point for any safety regulations that we might want to make seems somewhat bizarre.

• 31 Mar 2025 · Myanmar Earthquake · Hansard source

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  The regime’s use of its Kremlin-backed military during a humanitarian crisis to attack its own people is a complete obscenity. Has the Minister called in the Myanmar ambassador so that he can offer an explanation?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Draft Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 31 Mar 2025 · Draft Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations 2025 · Hansard source

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  The Minister has pretty much answered the question I was going to put to her, which was: what assessment has she made of the competitive advantage? I am trying to be helpful to the Government. I know that they say they want lots of growth, and this is an opportunity to get growth, is it not? But to get growth we need competitive advantage, not just with the States, but with the EU. So my question really is: how much does she think we will be advantaged by the legislation? She has given me a figure, which sounds like a lot of money. I encourage her to go further and, as Europe becomes more and more restrictive in the technologies that it appears to be fighting scared of, the UK must be able to be rational in how it positions itself. In this area, that means being encouraging to our science base, of course, as well as our ability to exploit the findings of that research here in the UK.