Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

• 27 Nov 2024 · Respect Orders and Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  I certainly support the Minister’s intent in bringing this forward, but I am still struggling to understand what the material difference is between these respect orders and antisocial behaviour orders. If it is the case that they are materially different, will the Minister say in what respects they are, and will she say to what extent that will be based on perception by a complainant? We have recently had considerable controversy around perception of an allegation and its effects in non-crime hate incidents, which has caused all manner of problems and bogged the police down in a whole load of controversy. I am sure the Minister would want to avoid that with this particular measure.

• 27 Nov 2024 · Supporting Innovation · Hansard source

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  Has the Minister yet studied the national semiconductor strategy for Ireland published by the Irish Government? If so, can she say how Northern Ireland will be able to exploit that strategy, and how the whole of the United Kingdom will be able to compete with Ireland, which has plainly identified this as an important growth sector?

• 26 Nov 2024 · COP29 · Hansard source

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  Where is the leadership, and what example does it set, in flying 470 officials and delegates—more than any other western European country—halfway across the world to a climate change jamboree? Can the Secretary of State say what the cost has been in terms of carbon and cash?

• 26 Nov 2024 · Middle East: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  When the Foreign Secretary was in Baku recently for COP29, did he discuss with his interlocutors across the region the extent to which the global finance goals would impact on humanitarian assistance in the middle east?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Defence Programmes Developments · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the constraints on the Defence Secretary, but this statement makes a mockery of the SDR process. It also removes significant lines of contingent capability. He says that these will not be the last difficult decisions that he will have to make and that he is working in lockstep with the SDR, so is he, and is it, rolling the pitch for the removal or mothballing of the carriers, as has been rumoured? Does he understand what that means for the future of the Royal Navy as a globally deployable blue-water navy? Given his comments on Albion and Bulwark, is he also rolling the pitch for the future of the Royal Marines, since the two are intertwined and will be for the next 10 years before a replacement can be provided?

• 20 Nov 2024 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q5. The Scottish and Welsh Governments have banned the construction of new waste incinerators because of health and pollution concerns. The previous Government paused them and committed to banning them. Why are this Government busy approving them?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Ukraine: 1,000 Days · Hansard source

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  Despite the Foreign Secretary’s congratulatory assessment, the fact remains that Russia is running rings around western sanctions and that it is using black and grey fleets to threaten the global maritime order. I have heard nothing from the Foreign Secretary about what he intends to do about that. Can he enlighten us?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree that it is just not fair on the small businesses that are independent schools, such as Warminster School in my constituency, which traditionally have taken a significant number of service pupils, to have that level of uncertainty about what the school roll will look like in January?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has to say. May I tempt him to agree with me that the Armed Forces Commissioner should have his or her powers extended to veterans, on the grounds that a lot of the themes that he or she would look at would be hybrid matters that affected both the veterans community and those currently serving? At the risk of being accused of being a one-trick pony, may I suggest that the Camp Lejeune case exemplifies that point?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Armed Forces Commissioner Bill · Hansard source

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  Of course, the other group excluded from that provision is veterans—I speak as a veteran. Why is the Secretary of State not concerned about them? Should they not come under the auspices of this new official too? An example might be those who were exposed to potential contaminants at Camp Lejeune in the US. That is a thematic investigation that the new commissioner might undertake.

• 18 Nov 2024 · Financial Services: Mansion House Speech · Hansard source

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  Investing in small pension funds is boring, because it is risk-averse, safe for beneficiaries and principally concentrated in this country. While investment in UK start-ups and tech through venture capital and other vehicles is to be warmly welcomed, if it happens, there is nevertheless a very real risk that funds will simply be invested overseas, and the Canada experience suggests that that may very well be the case. What assessment has the Treasury made of the extent to which the small pension funds that the Minister envisaged being amalgamated will simply have their capital and investments lodged overseas in the tech and start-up companies of other countries and deprive our own of the same?

• 13 Nov 2024 · Chagos Islands · Hansard source

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  Alexander Downer, a former Australian Foreign Minister, a former high commissioner to this country, a former United Nations special adviser on Cyprus and a good friend of this country, says that the surrender of the Chagos Islands is “symptomatic of a country that no longer has geopolitical perspective.” What is the Minister’s response to Mr Downer’s remarks, and does he agree with his comment that the last Labour Government were prepared to capitulate on the two Cypriot sovereign base areas, Dhekelia and Akrotiri? Who would have thought it? Is not the Chagos surrender just same old Labour—strong on post-colonial guilt and weak on safety, security and stability?

• 12 Nov 2024 · National Grid: Energy Mix · Hansard source

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  Offshore wind has been a real positive for our energy security and grid independence, but unfortunately not when the wind does not blow. Given the election of a President who tells us he is going to “drill, baby, drill,” what revision does the Minister anticipate to his timetable towards net zero?

• 12 Nov 2024 · National Grid: Energy Mix · Hansard source

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  8. Whether he has had recent discussions with National Grid on diversifying the energy mix of its network.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I think I will agree with what my right hon. Friend will come on to suggest, but are we being a little unfair on their lordships, since clearly a lot of them did not get the memo that says, “You have been appointed to this high honour, and you will turn up and do some meaningful work”? Some of them think they are simply at the apex of the UK honours system. Is not the fundamental issue that we have failed to separate the honours system and doing a piece of work in our Parliament?

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am very much attracted to the argument laid out by the Father of the House. He is right to say that consensus in these sorts of matters is nigh on impossible, as poor Jack Straw found out in 2007. The Father of the House is also right to aim for a reductionist strategy in trying to decide what we can do to improve the situation. That will get a majority consensus in this House, difficult though census most certainly is in these matters. This debate has been characterised by some levity, which is okay—it is positive. It probably reflects the fact that most of our constituents are not usually seized by constitutional matters, which is not to say that such matters are not important, because plainly they are. The attendance here today is not what one might expect for a matter of this importance. That probably reflects the fact that when we are all knocking on doors a few months ago, this kind of thing really was not No. 1 among people’s concerns, but it remains important nevertheless. I confess that I have been on something of a journey since 2007, at which time I was persuaded that the upper House ought to be elected. I am not any more, because I have seen in the workings of this place how it is possible for this place ultimately to be challenged by a subordinate secondary Chamber that is itself elected. Try as I might, I cannot work out how it is possible to avoid that kind of situation. This is the primary part of our legislature, and that must remain the case. We must be unchallenged, but we need checks and balances, which is precisely what the upper House aims to provide. Many have spoken today about who we might remove from the upper House. I have no objection in principle to the things that the Government are trying to do, but I am persuaded that matters of this sort should be part of a wider package, which is why I will be supporting the Opposition amendment today. However, my view is that we have probably got this round the wrong way, which is why I very much support the amendments being brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) in relation to the bishops. I remember when I was pontificating in another country—a majority Muslim country that was a nascent democracy—on democracy. At the end of my spiel, a lady put up her hand and, to her great credit, said, “I have listened very carefully to what you have said, but with the greatest of respect, who are you to come here and lecture us, given that you have within your legislature people who are there by dint of hereditary right and people who are there because they are part of a particular religious persuasion?” We have heard some quotes today, including from G. K. Chesterton. I am not sure whether I can match that, but I think I probably can. Robert Burns said: “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us!” I like that. He is saying that it is important to note how we appear to other people, other countries and other legislatures, and it seems to me that that lady, all those years ago, had the measure of it. We may not think we are a theocracy in the same way as Iran is, or that we retain the hereditary principle in the same way as Lesotho or Swaziland do, but we are and we do. We need to remedy that, because appearances matter and that lady was absolutely right. That is why I support my right hon. Friend’s amendment, and I hope that the Government will reflect on that. I also agree with the assertion of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) that this is it, and that it is no good hoping for another Bill. That Bill is not going to come. If it does, there is no guarantee that it will not end up in the same place as poor Jack Straw’s measures ended up in 2007. Given the difficulty with consensus, I suspect that that is exactly where such a measure would land. So this is it. I do not particularly want to see our legislature populated by people who are there because they are representative of one particular faith community in this country. I am an Anglican, just like my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge. I am a practising Anglican and I value the views of bishops —of course I do—but it is simply not right to have them being politicians in dog collars generally propagating a left liberal world view. I would much rather that they were in their dioceses engaged in the cure of souls. That is where I, as an Anglican, want to see them. I will certainly support my Front Bench’s measured amendments this evening. I very much hope that the Government have been listening carefully to what has been said. These grave, serious matters need to be debated in a careful and measured way. I see virtue not in ploughing ahead with the Bill as an emergency but in incorporating it into a wider set of proposals at a later stage, although hopefully not too late, so that we can consider these things in the round. I hope we will be able to see those proposals before too long. I live in hope. The Labour party has had 14 years to consider all of this. My view is that this Bill will be it. That is disappointing and a missed opportunity.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Lady recall that, in fact, we have had that debate? We had it last in a proper sense in 2007, on Jack Straw’s proposals when, on the basis of the consensus that we are trying to establish here, consensus there was none, and the thing descended into complete chaos. Would she remember that, when making her proposals? If she thinks there will be consensus on this extremely difficult issue of an elected House of Lords, I am afraid she is in cloud cuckoo land.

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am listening with the greatest of respect and interest to the hon. Member. Does he think that there would be virtue and merit in having a unicameral system, a bit like the plan B suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), rather than having a competing elected upper House—because this is the primary Chamber in our system?

• 12 Nov 2024 · House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am very much warming to what my right hon. Friend has to say. He rightly speaks of the Reformation, but will he recall that, broadly speaking, there were two reformations in this country? There was the English Reformation and the Scottish Reformation. We never have any discussion about the place of the other established Church, the Scottish Church, in our constitutional arrangements. That seems to be a quirk of history. I am not for one moment suggesting that Moderator of the Church of Scotland should sit in the other place, but it underscores and highlights the issue that my right hon. Friend has raised about the position of the English bishops.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rail Performance · Hansard source

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  What lessons has the Secretary of State drawn from rail networks in other countries about rail performance and safety, given that many of them are now automated? Will she make herself a heroine in the south-west by dealing at long last with the notorious Tisbury loop, west of Salisbury, which has added inestimable time to rail journeys to the far south-west? The situation could be resolved at very little cost.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment · Hansard source

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  Why, then, Mr Speaker, did this Government decide, last week of all weeks, to defund combined cadet forces and thus remove the advantages that state school pupils are now enjoying as a result of decisions taken by the last Government?

• 11 Nov 2024 · Defence: 2.5% GDP Spending Commitment · Hansard source

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  The last Government extended to state school pupils the undoubted advantage of the combined cadet forces, which had been the almost exclusive prerogative of private school students. Why, then—

• 11 Nov 2024 · Rural Affairs · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State understand that a farmer coming towards the end of his career is hardly likely to invest either in improving his land or in the hundreds of thousands of pounds that a piece of agricultural plant costs these days, knowing that there will be a surcharge when, sadly, he deceases?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  Given the raid on family firms, it is worth pointing out that the art of a good Budget and smart taxation is plucking the goose to get the maximum number of feathers with the minimum amount of hissing. On that basis, I am afraid this Budget fails lamentably, and it certainly does in my constituency. The Secretary of State for Business and Trade, in his opening remarks, said that 500 farms a year will be affected by the Budget’s changes to agricultural property relief. He said it casually, as if it is acceptable. Well, that is approximately one for every constituency, and very much more in rural constituencies. The prospect of this affecting, and potentially closing, two farms a year in my constituency is, frankly, horrendous. I urge the Government to think again. I agree with the Government that it is legitimate to look at those who are land-banking to avoid inheritance tax. If that is their intention, they will have support across the House, but attacking family farms is not on, and I hope the Government will think again. The Government say that growth is their No. 1 priority. How so? In my constituency, as we have heard, the long-awaited A303 improvements have been canned, and I suspect that the A350 improvements will follow, as the north-south strategic study that was to be the prelude to a Westbury bypass looks like it has been indefinitely delayed.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  The problem with our economy is that, too often, people build small businesses and then sell them off. They do not sit and develop them before potentially handing them on. Can the Minister explain how the proposed inheritance tax changes will encourage people to take risks in nurturing and growing their businesses in order to pass them on to succeeding generations? Plainly, his suggestion will have the reverse effect and will, therefore, make the situation worse, which will damage growth.