Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Jan 2025 · UK Air Defence · Hansard source

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  There is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says. Historically, buying off the shelf has proved to be somewhat more cost-effective than designing exquisite systems of our own. I hope very much that, as we go further into this process, we can partner with others to ensure that what we buy is both integrated and cost-effective. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on ESSI. Ukraine has shown the limitations of the “just in time, not just in case” policy that has driven our failure to stockpile the materiel of war in recent decades. In the 1930s, the shadow factories initiative fitted commercial premises that typically produced cars for reconfiguration as armament factories, in case the need should arise, which it did. Car workers would switch to become the basis of the skilled workforce necessary to create materiel for prosecuting the war effort. That then happened, to the point that in 1940, this country was outstripping Germany in the production of fighter aircraft. With every respect due to the Few, the Battle of Britain was won in Britain’s factories and on its production lines as much as in the skies. Victory hinges just as much on logistics now, except the timelines are far shorter. The defence ecosystem in the US 2022 national defence strategy had more than a whiff of the 1930s in advancing an intertwined commercial-military co-operative. In a good light, we can see shadow factories in the thematic approach to missile defence taken by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory missile defence centre. Crucially, it is industry partner-based, with a heavy focus on growing suitably qualified and experienced people, of whom we are desperately short. The MDC is now 20 years old. What assessment has the Minister made of it, and what changes does he propose to its structure and remit to help plug holes in our missile defence architecture? In the light of prevailing circumstances, will he consider upgrading the MDC so that it has the salience and clout approaching that of the pre-war directorate of aeronautical production? Then, it was Spitfires and Hurricanes; today it is missile defence, SDEAD—suppression and destruction of enemy air defences—and drones. Then, it was preparation for the total war to come; now—God willing—it is deterrence. There are those who say that the solution to our vulnerability to missile attack from the east is simple: it is Israel’s Iron Dome—the close-in element of the layered missile defence system used successfully to thwart Iran in April. However, Israel is a small country with a small population concentrated in a small number of cities with limited critical national infrastructure. It is surrounded by hostiles. Happily, none of that applies here. Our missile defence must be fully integrated with NATO partners. NATO needs European leadership as the US pivots, and we must not encourage those whose primary interest in defence lies in extending the remit of the institutions of the European Union, rather than the defence and security of Europeans. We do not need the distraction of a separate, competing EU defence architecture; NATO is our strength and our stay, and we must use our status as the continent’s leading military power to ensure it remains so. In particular, we must articulate clearly the case for layered missile defence and SDEAD within a NATO construct, as the US pivots towards the Indo-Pacific. The UK and Europe need NATO integrated air and missile defence that incorporates close-in systems to guarantee major centres of population, defence assets and critical national infrastructure. Crucially, member states must not give an aggressor capable of waging an attritional war grounds for believing that the west will exhaust its ordnance in the first few hours or days. Where are we with the versatile and scalable very short to medium-range modular ground-based air defence system envisaged by NATO Defence Ministers at their meeting in October 2020? What application might that system have to provide the last arrow in our quiver—one that will destroy missiles that have evaded intermediate layers and are about to land on critical sites in the UK? For a country with no money, directed energy weapons offer a potential solution for dealing with drones and missiles, albeit in line of sight and in good weather. Is DSTL’s DragonFire weapon still on course for service with the Royal Navy in 2027, and what export opportunities are Ministers exploring? Do they expect that Type 26s, Type 31s, and any Type 32s will carry DragonFire or successor directed energy weapons? Will they be fitted as standard, or as expensive retrofits? Do we really need a sixth-generation manned—or even hybrid—fast jet to replace Typhoon? Would it not be better to rely on the F-35 airframe with mid-life upgrades in a future that is surely progressively unmanned? The lineal, if less romantic, descendants of the Few will be tech geeks, gamers, coders and those who provide a human interface with artificial intelligence. What are we doing to grow them, and will the Minister visit the #TechTrowbridge initiative that I started in Wiltshire’s county town, which was once a centre for Spitfire manufacture? He would be warmly welcomed on his way to his constituency. The reason that a grisly artillery war has played out in Ukraine is because nobody has been able to command the airspace. Happily and to our surprise, Russia has been unable to suppress or destroy Ukraine’s air defences. In the future, unmanned combat aerial vehicles configured to shoot the archer, not the arrow, will do that. I would be very surprised if Lord Robertson were not casting a critical eye over the global combat air programme, and comparing and contrasting its cost and effectiveness with those of unmanned combat aerial vehicles. I appreciate the deep cultural difficulty of envisaging an unmanned future battlespace. It is deeply unsettling for those of us steeped in the traditions of the armed forces, but while there will always be a need for sufficient booted and spurred combat troops ready to close with and kill the enemy and hold the ground—as the Member of Parliament for a garrison town, I am not for one moment suggesting a further reduction in headcount—this country will never again be able to expose itself to attritional warfare of the sort we are seeing being played out in Ukraine. Politically and societally, that would be impossible and unconscionable. That means integrated missile defence, SDEAD, drones, and command of the electromagnetic spectrum. Once again at a dreadnought crossroads, Britain must configure the forces at its disposal for the long term in all domains and take a lead as what is still the principal military power in its Euro-Atlantic voisinage. Early pointers suggesting that this Government are taking the right fork in the road would include difficult and unpopular decisions such as standing firm on the deep space advanced radar capability envisaged for Cawdor barracks on the St David’s peninsula, which was bottled by previous Governments. As we chop to an unmanned future, those pointers would—for example, and very painfully—include consignment of the RAF Red Arrows aero-acrobatics team to the historic flight. This Government have four years left to run—the time the directorate of aeronautical production had to fit out this country with what it needed to prevail. Recent events have revealed the fundamental truth that we are vulnerable now, as we were then, and the shifting geopolitical plates will likely make us more so. The public will never forgive an Administration of whatever colour who muddle through, leaving them open to the predations of Putin’s advancing missile programme.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  Commendably brief, if I may say so. I call the Opposition spokesman.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  Order. Interventions should be short.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  Jim Shannon, you have 30 seconds.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  We are massively oversubscribed. It is plain that we are not going to get everybody in. I remind those who wish to speak that they should bob. I also ask that, voluntarily, Members restrain themselves to two minutes. If we do that, we will get most people in, but not everybody.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  Order. Colleagues will have done the maths. Not everybody is going to get in. I am reluctant to introduce a formal time limit, but you really ought to limit yourselves to two minutes, please. I am sure John McDonnell will be an exemplar.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  Colleagues, the wind-ups will begin at 3.28 pm.

• 15 Jan 2025 · UK Submarine Fleet · Hansard source

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  I intend to call the Opposition spokesman at 5.8 pm. There are several Members seeking to catch my eye, so brevity is a virtue.

• 14 Jan 2025 · UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue · Hansard source

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  The Chancellor raised the issue of human rights abuses in China, but did she get the opportunity to raise with her interlocutors the extrajudicial work of the United Front Work Department, particularly in relation to UK institutions, especially universities?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Pro-democracy Campaigners: Arrests · Hansard source

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  The malign extraterritorial reach of the Chinese Communist party is being played out in very human terms, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) on bringing an example of that to the Floor of the House today. Why, then, are this Government potentially facilitating that reach by handing over the Chagos islands?

• 6 Jan 2025 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State said that his aim is to ensure that Ukraine is in the “strongest possible position”, but for what? Does he intend to support Ukraine in commanding her internationally recognised borders or to ensure that the de facto border, which excludes Donbas and Crimea, becomes a more permanent feature?

• 6 Jan 2025 · NHS Backlog · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. Does he agree that part of our duty is to support our general practices? Our constituents often say, “I cannot see my GP”, but if we probe, we find that it is a question of whether they are prepared to accept a telephone consultation, which is probably just as good for most of them. Radiology was mentioned earlier. The issue for the future, surely, is embracing technology rather than outsourcing. In many cases, AI reading of films and scans is probably as good as, if not better than, a reading by a radiologist in India, Shropshire or anywhere else.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Frozen Russian Assets: Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has to say, and I agree with much of it, including that Russia must pay for what it has done, in terms of supporting Ukraine in its war and the reconstruction to come, whatever that looks like. However, does he share my concern that were we to act unilaterally, or indeed with others, we may encourage the attractiveness of other reserve currencies and systems, in particular China’s, and that capital among the $12 trillion or so globally invested may find its way to Beijing rather than currently safer destinations in the western world?

• 6 Jan 2025 · Health and Adult Social Care Reform · Hansard source

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  The previous Labour Government did a hatchet job on community hospitals, including in Wiltshire, with a consequent uptick in the amount of delayed discharges in the acute sector, notably at Bath, Salisbury and the Great Western in Swindon. Will the Casey commission look at that and find ways of unpicking the damage that was done?

• 18 Dec 2024 · British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty · Hansard source

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  Merry Christmas, Mr Speaker. The Minister says that views across the Chagossian community are mixed. In my experience, Mr Speaker, when politicians say that, they are simply choosing the views that they want to hear. Will the Minister take the opportunity that has been given by the incoming Mauritian Government to take a breathing space in which he can consult formally and in a structured way with the Chagossians to find out what they want?

• 16 Dec 2024 · United Front Work Department · Hansard source

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  The Government recently put on hold the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, passed last year. Does he feel that that has helped or hindered the work of United Front in our universities, particularly our elite institutions?

• 4 Dec 2024 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important to set the facts right? It is important to reflect on the fact that, during our 14 years in government—despite the 2008–09 financial crisis, despite the pandemic and despite the energy crisis—more than 1 million jobs were created, and 4 million people were in employment who were not in employment when we took office.

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  I must begin by drawing attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I rise to support the land-based and agrifood sector in my constituency, a sector that stands bewildered at what this Government are doing to it—a Government who it thought had its back, and that were going for growth. A farmer constituent wrote to me shortly after the Budget, saying: “All these changes have meant that our already tight margins are non-existent. The next few months are going to be spent calculating if it would be better to just sell up and no longer farm.” That is hardly surprising, given that the average salary of a farmer in this country is a little over £22,000, although farmers are described by many as being multimillionaires. My constituents’ disappointment is heightened by the Government’s assurances before the election, and the specific promise that they made on APR and BPR. I think that, if I may say so without damning his career too much—I see that he is no longer in the Chamber—the hon. Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours) did us a service by reminding us of that promise. However, we should not be surprised. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) and the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) have already drawn attention to John McTernan, who very helpfully allowed the mask to slip when, referring to farmers, he said that we should “do to them what Margaret Thatcher did to the miners.” He went on to say that farming was “an industry we can do without… we don’t need small farmers.” I hope that when the Minister winds up the debate, he will do us a service by distancing himself completely from those sentiments. The Government’s estimate of in-scope farmers is either incompetent or tricksy and duplicitous. Setting aside Ministers’ apparent confusion over what constitutes an acre and what constitutes a hectare, we are of course indebted to the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, which says that 75,000 farms over a single generation will be affected—five times the Government’s estimate. I think the Minister should reflect on that, because there is no shame in admitting that the Government and their officials have got this wrong. There is time to fix it, and there is time to look at such independent sources, to compare and contrast their data with the data that the Government’s officials have produced, and to tack accordingly. Were the Minister to do so—I appreciate the Treasury pressures that he is under—his stock among the farming community would rise substantially in these early few months of his tenure. I have a helpful suggestion: the Government have picked the wrong target. I think that many Members of this House would be perfectly happy for this Government or any Government to target those who have, over years, used land to avoid inheritance tax, particularly institutional investors, hedge fund managers and oversea investors, who have artificially put up the price of land in this country, which forces new entrants out of the market and distorts it. That is a perfectly legitimate thing for any Government to do, but what this Government are doing is picking on small and medium-sized farms, many of which have been in families for generations. The Government are doing the productive sector of our land economy in this country a massive disservice and, frankly, are acting in a way that is unfair and unworthy. I implore the Minister, who I know is a good man, to think again. He should talk to the Treasury, and turn his fire on individuals and institutions using land to avoid tax, which forces up land prices. Hands off our family farms!

• 4 Dec 2024 · Farming and Inheritance Tax · Hansard source

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  It is important to get the facts right and to get the right number of farms in frame. The Minister must know that the CAAV has said that the Government estimate is down by a factor of five. According to its impartial independent review, 75,000 farms will be in frame for this tax, not the figure the Minister is relying on.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Migration and Border Security · Hansard source

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  Given the promises made at the general election, the opening of more asylum hotels is deeply regrettable. As the Home Secretary seeks alternative accommodation to be able to close down those hotels, will she assure the House that she will not overdo her requests of other Government Departments, in particular the Ministry of Defence, which historically has been very helpful in finding surplus accommodation to house migrants? I hope that she agrees that enough is enough, and that she will not disadvantage service families in their accommodation needs.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Chagos Islands: UK-US Defence Relationship · Hansard source

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  The Minister says that the outgoing Biden Administration in the US are keen on the deal, which may or may not be the case, but the British public plainly are not—for good reason—and they see the payment of a dowry to Mauritius as rubbing salt into the wound. If he is not prepared to comment on the quantum that he has in mind, will he at least explain the structure of the costings he is applying to come to the figure that he wishes to give Mauritius for taking on these islands?

• 2 Dec 2024 · North-West Syria · Hansard source

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  Assad and his family have reportedly gone to Moscow, which is probably significant. Let us hope that he stays there; they deserve each other. However, HTS is very much worse. As HTS takes territory, people will be on the move in very large numbers. Historically, the United Nations has managed the situation in northern Syria and triaged those who are claiming asylum. This country has been generous in taking refugees, particularly from the most disadvantaged groups: old people, women and children. What discussion has the Minister had with the United Nations and will that process continue, because I feel sure that the British people will want to continue to be generous?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the Minister give way?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  Earlier this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in her conversation with the Confederation of British Industry, which did not go terribly well, that her tax-raising days are over. Yet significantly, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury failed to reiterate that assertion. Does he believe her?

• 27 Nov 2024 · Finance Bill · Hansard source

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  The then Leader of the Opposition, and now Prime Minister, rightly said that his Administration would go for growth. He made it his No. 1 priority, and he inherited the fastest-growing economy in the G7. [ Interruption. ] The Minister shakes his head, but this is a fact. Can he say what has happened to growth since 4 July?