Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend, who is experienced in these matters, makes an extremely good point. We need to keep our heads in all this. The Conservative party has been consistent in its opposition to this terrible, terrible surrender deal. The people out there honestly cannot understand why the Government persist with it. It is plainly not a matter of national security. I fear that all this is underpinned by the Government’s insistence on satisfying their post-colonial guilt. The Government need to get over that and understand that national security has primacy in this matter.

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  What a pleasure it is to be called so soon, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am very grateful. My goodness me! I do feel sorry for the Minister, being wheeled out to defend the indefensible. I have to say, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), has done a Trojan piece of work on behalf of the Government, and it is only fair that he should be given the day off. Every day is a school day when it comes to Chagos, is it not? We learn something new every day of the week, it seems. Perhaps the Government might like to reflect on whether, in that wonderful Keynesian way, when the facts change, we change our mind—apparently not. The facts have changed. The ground truth has certainly changed, not least the attitude of the United States; that is clear beyond peradventure. In February last year, the then Foreign Secretary said that without US agreement, the deal would be dead. But in recent days, the US commander-in-chief, no less, has said that the deal is “stupid” and “weak”. There cannot be any ambiguity in that. That is the contemporaneous view of our greatest partner and friend. Surely to goodness, that is justification for pausing the deal. We have learned about the Pelindaba treaty. I have to say that I was not aware of it until very recently, but it is a showstopper. Paul Bérenger, the Deputy Prime Minister of Mauritius, recently said that there will be no nuclear weapons on Diego Garcia. He has been very helpful to the Government by laying out exactly what things will look like when Mauritius takes control of Diego Garcia. The Minister says, “Well, we cannot comment on that because it is operational,” but that is precisely what it is not. We are not talking about precise B-52s or Ohio class submarines going into Diego Garcia—I do not want to know about that. What I want to know about is the legal structure within which it is possible for these things to be in Diego Garcia and Chagos in general.

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Gentleman see any parallel between the plight of Chagossians and the plight of Greenlanders? The Prime Minister has gone out of his way, correctly, to defend the rights of Greenlanders, but he is doing the complete reverse for Chagossians.

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  That is precisely the case; it is as plain as a pikestaff, yet the Government persist with the policy. It is perfectly reasonable and respectable for the Government to say, “The facts have clearly changed, and all these things have come to light, so we will pause this. There is no hurry in this matter, nor any dishonour in saying that we need to consult on it more widely—potentially indefinitely. Nevertheless, we will continue the process and keep it open.” I appreciate that, to save the Government’s blushes, we cannot simply can it, but we can pause it. If the Minister wants more evidence that the Chagossians have been trampled all over during this process, she need only refer to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which said in December 2025 that we should pause the deal in order to ensure that the Chagossians’ voices are properly heard. She is being attacked from all quarters, and the unifying message from all those quarters is, “For goodness sake, let’s pause this—just think again.”

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  I do not have any insight into the hon. Gentleman’s conversations with Labour Members. As a former Foreign Office Minister, I would say that there are negotiations and then there are negotiations, and sometimes we can use negotiations as a tool to keep certain parties happy, while having no intention of agreeing to what they are demanding of us. Furthermore, a lot of the pressure for all this comes from the advisory note by the ICJ. In this country, we think of judges as upstanding and impartial maintainers of our legal system and the rule of law. That is not necessarily the case when it comes to supranational judicial bodies. We know, for example, that Patrick Robinson—one of the judges involved with the 2019 ICJ decision—has been demanding that the UK pony up £19 trillion in slavery reparations. Those are not apolitical, independent judicial figures. Many of them have an agenda, and it is one that is hostile to this country—as hostile, I would say, as some of the parties, like Russia and China, that we are currently trying to prevent from getting a hold on those islands. It is perfectly reasonable for the President of the United States, who I have to confess is not my cup of tea, to decide—belatedly, but nevertheless—that this is a disastrous measure and that he wants nothing to do with it. He has signalled that in his own inimitable fashion, and the Government should take note, pause the surrender treaty and come back with something better, if at all. This deal, surely, is as dead as the dodo.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree with the Chair of the Select Committee that we need to keep Brits working in our national health service. Does she agree that we need to add to the priority list British nationals who, for one reason or another, are training in medical schools outside the United Kingdom—in Prague, in Malta, in Cyprus and in the Caribbean? The reasons why they are training in those places are many and varied, but they are British, and their intent is to practise in the national health service. However, they are being deprioritised by this measure.

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Secretary of State give way?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Bill is basically a good one, and we all share the intent to encourage home-grown talent to remain in our national health service, so could the Health Secretary explain why he appears to have set his face against British students who for various reasons train at, for example, St George’s in Cyprus or St George’s in Grenada and who then want to come back and practise in our national health service? They want to come back and practise at home. Amendment 9 would deal with that conundrum. Why will he not support it?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Health Secretary; he is being generous with his time. Is he saying that he intends to use this as some sort of lever or bargaining chip in his discussion with the BMA?

• 27 Jan 2026 · Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I think the Secretary of State has perhaps misunderstood how traumatic the process is for the young medical graduates going through this performance. Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that the sooner this legislation comes into force, the better it is for those young people, some of whom are finding the current situation incredibly difficult? They do not know what the successor scheme will look like, and the delay is adding to that unhappiness.

• 27 Jan 2026 · UK Bus Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  I will call the Front Benchers at 10.28 am. There are about half a dozen Members seeking to catch my eye, so they will have five or six minutes each. Colleagues should reflect on keeping their remarks brief—a copybook example of which will be provided by Graham Leadbitter.

• 27 Jan 2026 · UK Bus Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  Given that it is his birthday, the hon. Member sponsoring this debate has quite a long time to wind up. He does not have to take the full 10 minutes.

• 27 Jan 2026 · UK Bus Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  I appeal to colleagues to be brief in their remarks so that we can get everybody in.

• 27 Jan 2026 · UK Bus Manufacturing · Hansard source

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  I call the co-sponsor of the debate, Jim Allister.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  May I first express my respect for the Minister’s ability to consistently defend the indefensible? An absolute masterclass! Is it not the case that the President of the United States now has our Prime Minister completely over a barrel after his incautious and unhelpful remarks over Greenland? Would it not have been better, along the lines of “The Art of the Deal”, to have dealt with this before the Government signed the surrender treaty, and not after?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State refers to the local connection test. Will he acknowledge that the removal of that test was initiated by the previous Government? That is not the impression he gave in his initial remarks, although it is certainly the case. Secondly, is it his intention to allocate service housing going forward on the basis primarily of rank or primarily on need?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  The truth is that there was a level of serendipity in this matter of which the current Government are the beneficiary, and that is the High Court decision on Annington Homes. My hon. Friend is being characteristically modest, because I clearly remember that he initiated this work while he was at the MOD. I am very pleased to hear that the current Government are taking it forward, which is absolutely right, but we need to lay on record the provenance of all this work and who its author is. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for that.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Police Reform White Paper · Hansard source

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  There are a lot of things to welcome in this statement, but police licence to practise is probably not one of them. I say this because other trades and professions that have licencing, annual appraisal, or periodic revalidation have found that it simply becomes a time-sapping industry. I am sure that is not the Home Secretary’s plan for the police, particularly since my constituents want our police to be on the frontline and dealing with online fraud, not ticking boxes.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  It is worth bringing to the House’s attention again the fact that the legacy Act, whatever its legality or otherwise, was predicated on our membership of the European convention on human rights. Does the Secretary of State agree, and will he reflect on the fact, that there was an appeal against the supposed illegality of the Act at the time of the general election by the previous Government, and this Government decided to ditch it?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  I have been listening very carefully to what the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said. He is right to assert that there is no moral equivalence and there should be no legal equivalence between the perpetrators of terror and those sent out to do the state’s business in Northern Ireland. But can he understand the views of the great majority of veterans, many of whom I have the privilege to represent, who feel that what this Government are doing is undermining and holing below the water line legislation that, however imperfect and subject to appeal, was going some way towards giving them some comfort?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Northern Ireland Troubles: Legacy and Reconciliation · Hansard source

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  On a serious point—

• 20 Jan 2026 · Gaza and the West Bank: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  Pressure on the UK to join the expensive and dodgy-looking Gaza board of peace has been ramped up by President Trump’s messaging overnight. Will the Government politely decline to join the Gaza board of peace while reviewing their position on Chagos, given the US intervention overnight?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I am very sorry about his throat. I suspect that he, like me, is keen for Greenlanders to have the right of self-determination. Time and again, we have sat through the speeches of Ministers who have harped on about the need to defend their right to a say in what happens to them. Will the hon. Gentleman compare and contrast that with the situation faced by the Chagossians, and explain why the Danes can put into law the right for their people to have a say in their future but we are about to rule it out for people to whom we owe a duty of care?

• 19 Jan 2026 · Proposed Chinese Embassy · Hansard source

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  Circumstances have changed dramatically since 2018, and the Minister cannot simply dismiss this as a planning application, just like it were a conservatory—it is a matter of national security. Will the Government at least concede that if the building goes ahead all the cabling along Mansell Street at the Wapping exchange should, as a condition of any planning permission, be relocated at the applicant’s expense?