Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

• 16 Dec 2025 · Chagossians: Trust Fund and Resettlement · Hansard source

  More

  After a string of high profile corruption cases across Mauritius, what confidence does the Minister have that the bounty he is about to bestow on the Mauritian Government, including on the Chagossian trust fund, will be spent appropriately and will not end up in the pockets of corrupt officials and politicians?

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Health Secretary ensure we have clarity on advice regarding the use of face masks, particularly where they are mandated? He will be aware that conflicting advice is issued by various agencies, which confuses people and reduces confidence. Will he ensure that advice is rigorously evidence-based?

• 15 Dec 2025 · Defence Spending: Economic Growth · Hansard source

  More

  Most of our allies and our industrial competitors have a system of offsetting to support their domestic defence capability, economy and jobs, and traditionally this country has had global by default. When will we see the detail in the defence industrial strategy that states that the Government intend to bring forward a programme of offsetting to match our competitors?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

  More

  Has the Minister compared and contrasted Pride in Place with the future high streets fund, which was a proven mechanism for uplifting the state of many of our high streets, including Trowbridge in my constituency? He is trotting out a load of things that he thinks will benefit retail and hospitality. The whole point of retail and hospitality businesses is that they must be welcoming places that are open to all, so what does he make of the dozens of pubs and restaurants up and down the country that are now feeling forced to put up signs in their windows that say “No Labour MPs”?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Seasonal Work · Hansard source

  More

  Does my hon. Friend agree that this Budget and the previous one have been hammer blows to our already flagging high streets? Does he also recognise that the only retail premises that can currently be exempted from business rates are those that are listed and unoccupied? That introduces perverse consequences for the tone and texture of our high streets. By abolishing business rates, we will remove that perversity, and the look and feel and the vibrancy of our high streets should be improved.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

  More

  My right hon. Friend is being very generous. The truth is that through dither, delay and changing their mind, the Labour Government in the run-up to the Budget had a real impact on people’s lives. Does he agree that pensioners in particular were encouraged to withdraw funds from their pension funds, which will have an impact on them for many years to come? What does he think of the remarks of Michael Summersgill, the chief executive officer of AJ Bell, who said that millions and billions of pounds were withdrawn from pension funds precisely because of the changing mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer expressed before the Budget?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

  More

  Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

• 10 Dec 2025 · Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister is a reasonable man, and I imagine that he would subscribe to the Government’s much-vaunted duty of candour that they are selling in their Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which is currently in Committee. The Bill is so important to the Government that the Prime Minister himself had to introduce it on Second Reading. Will the Minister examine what has happened over the past couple of months? Does he really believe that the Treasury, and in particular the Chancellor of the Exchequer, can truly be said to have discharged that duty of candour in their dealings?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

  More

  On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?

• 9 Dec 2025 · Railways Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene. Her Wiltshire constituents and mine are not really interested in organisational change, but they are interested in railways that run on time, are reasonably comfortable and have interconnectivity. When will those passengers who use South Western Railway expect to see tangible improvements, rather than the 50% increase in cancellations that they have seen since May and the 29% increase in delays that they have seen during the time that the service has been renationalised?

• 3 Dec 2025 · Venezuela: US Military · Hansard source

  More

  On data sharing with our allies, does the Minister agree that signals intelligence and human intelligence are not a pick and mix when it comes to the Five Eyes community? Will he assure the House that we will continue to provide the information that the US needs in order to deal with Venezuelan cocaine, most of which lands up in Europe? I need not remind the Minister that cocaine deaths in this country were up by a third in 2022-23. Will he ensure that we do not apply an overly lawyerly approach in our dealings with an ally doing its best to tackle the scourge of drugs in the US and the rest of Europe, and in particular on the streets of Britain?

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. What has unfolded since September reflects badly not just on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Prime Minister, or the Government, but on all of us. On 17 September, the OBR—

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  I will start on a positive note by commending the lines on productivity in the Red Book, and the recent comments that various Ministers have made about that. Productivity has to be the No. 1 objective in getting our NHS to where it needs to be to deliver for our constituents. I have to say to the Health Secretary that objectives two and three are probably dentistry and adult social care, and on those, I have heard less positive news. Dentistry in particular is still struggling as a result of the units of dental activity created by Gordon Brown back in the day—a system that has bedevilled the provision of dentistry in this country and is in urgent need of reform. Without that reform, we will make no progress at all on one of the principal issues in the health service that concern my constituents at the moment. I think that a degree of humility is important when we talk about the NHS, and I say that with all due respect to the Health Secretary, because otherwise he will be setting himself up for a fall. Reform in the NHS is fiendishly difficult, and we all remember the ghost of PFI, which still stalks the corridors of our hospitals and clinics and will do so for some time to come. The day before the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave her pre-Budget speech, her boss—the Prime Minister, no less—took the very unusual step of personally moving the Second Reading of a Bill. The Bill was admittedly a very important one indeed, and the Prime Minister might have thought, perfectly understandably, that it was too important to be delivered by his Justice Secretary. It was the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which begins its Committee stage today. At the heart of the Bill is a new duty of candour, and despite its name, it extends well beyond the holders of public office. It carries a legal obligation to act transparently, creates new criminal offences of misleading the public, and contains new codes of conduct based on the Nolan principles of selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, leadership and honesty, and it imposes appropriate sanctions. Lying is a very strong test, Madam Deputy Speaker, and you would call me out of order if I applied it to any right hon. or hon. Member, but this Government, through their Bill, are insisting on another test. They are insisting on a test of candour, and a duty of candour is a noble principle, but nobility cannot be confined to one area of the public realm; it has to be universally applicable, and it has to be applied from the top. Now, I am not accusing anyone of lying, but it should be abundantly clear that in preparing for this Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not approach her duties with the candour that she and her colleagues are demanding of others—which the public have a right to expect—and that is incorporated, in principle at least, in the Bill that the Prime Minister introduced on Second Reading just a few days ago. I suggest that before that Bill comes back to the Floor of the House, the Chancellor might like to reflect on the duty of candour as far as it applies to Ministers. I feel that a new clause that would make it more difficult for her and her successors to stray into the kind of shenanigans that we have seen over the past couple of months would be greatly welcomed by the House.

• 2 Dec 2025 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Lady is outlining an extensive programme of capital expenditure on the national health service. Between last year and this year, we have had the largest set of Budget increases in the history of this country, but are the Liberal Democrats proposing that we should tax the British public even further to pay for the kind of thing that she has just described?

• 25 Nov 2025 · Waste Incinerators · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the carrying out of construction work in respect of new waste incinerators, other than in cases where substantial construction has already begun; to make provision about the taxation of waste disposed of by way of incineration; to prohibit local authorities from entering into any contract for the incineration of waste which requires them to pay financial penalties if a minimum amount of waste is not delivered for incineration; and for connected purposes. I begin by paying tribute to colleagues from across the House who have spoken out against waste incinerators. My commendations go too to the United Kingdom Without Incineration Network and local campaign groups, including Westbury Gasification Action Group, which have been a thorn in the side of the incinerator industry. For too long, too many of our constituents have lived in the shadow of waste burners that pollute the air that we breathe. This Bill puts the reduction, reuse and recycling principles of the waste hierarchy back into waste management. Since the landfill tax was introduced in 1996, consecutive Administrations—Labour, coalition and Conservative—have encouraged incineration and discouraged landfill. They have been helped by the burner industry, which has greenwashed its operations as “energy from waste”. The generation of a few tepid calories and a feeble stream of electrons has convinced Whitehall that waste burners are part of a transition to a green future and to net zero. They are not. We are allergic to putting waste in the ground, but happy to consign it to the landfill in the sky—out of sight, out of mind and straight into the lungs of those living downwind and on to the nation’s carbon ledger. Not only does the incineration of plastic produce 175 times as much CO 2 as landfill, but the emissions per unit of energy produced from burning mixed waste is the same as coal and nearly double that of gas. It is the dirtiest way we generate electricity in this country by far. We have to change course. We tax oil and gas, we have turned our back on coal entirely, we are turning off the taps in the North sea, we refrain from exploiting shale deposits while importing liquefied natural gas and our share of global emissions is less than 1% and falling. We are more than doing our bit, at considerable cost—in the short to medium term at least—to our economy and the people we serve, yet we do not tax incineration, which gives off the most world-warming, health-harming emissions, in return for a paltry amount of energy. A welcome inclusion of incineration in the UK emissions trading scheme is necessary, but it is not sufficient. The time has come to use the same infrastructure that raises the landfill tax to levy an incineration waste tax at rates that will promote the handling of rubbish in a way that puts it at the top of the waste hierarchy, not at the bottom. Unfortunately, an incineration tax has not been among the kites flown in advance of the Budget, but I will gladly pull my Bill if the Chancellor pulls this rabbit out of the hat tomorrow. She knows that we have too many waste incinerators already. The Government’s own analysis, published in December last year, confirms that. With the 50 waste burners already operational in England and Wales, we already have more capacity today than we will need in 2035. In other words, the 12 plants being built and the 41 that had been granted planning permission as of last December were already surplus to requirements. Why do we need to almost double our capacity to burn waste when the Government know that it is already excessive? Where is the social justice in the way we consign the nation’s waste to the atmosphere? Unsurprisingly, incinerators are sited disproportionately in poorer, densely populated places with a heavy burden of ill health. The growing monster at Edmonton, for example, which already takes waste from leafier, more favoured districts to burn in the capital, is belching a cocktail of gases and ultrafine particles with uncertain health consequences across a huge swathe of north London. Having too many incinerators for the residual waste available might be tolerable if it were not for the clauses in contracts between local authorities and incinerator operators that demand councils consign a minimum amount of waste for burning to avoid financial penalties—so-called “deliver or pay” contracts. What happens if a council that is reducing, reusing and recycling waste, as it should, turns out not to have enough waste to feed the monstrous burner that has been foisted on its community? Waste will be imported—of course it will—because the monster must be fed. Geneva, of all places, trucks in waste from Milan to keep running a burner that, once built, failed to secure enough rubbish locally. The more households reduce their waste and local authorities recycle, the less waste councils will have to send for incineration. That triggers penalties under “deliver or pay” that they cannot afford. It is little wonder that recycling has stalled for the last 15 years, and that where incineration rates are higher, recycling rates are lower, as Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs figures have made abundantly clear. It gets worse. Transitional arrangements laid last year will allow 31 waste collection authorities, including Wiltshire, to defer the separate food waste collections required from March next year under the otherwise excellent Environment Act 2021, in some cases to the 2040s. This means sending compostable waste to the burner. We have a ludicrous situation in which councils are being actively encouraged to recycle less and even import waste just to keep running a set of wholly unnecessary incinerators that pollute far more than they power. This Bill will outlaw the importation of waste for burning, terminate “deliver or pay” contracts and rescind the Environment Act 2021 (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2024. We must revoke planning permission for those 41 pending sites, including the monstrosity planned for Westbury in my constituency, where preliminary work has recently begun. We must immediately prohibit any more permissions and permits. The last Government paused the issuing of environmental permits to new burners—the only attempt by any Government to alter course in the last three decades. My party’s manifesto last year contained a firm commitment to put a stop to them. The Welsh Labour Government wisely placed a moratorium on new burners in 2021. The Scottish Government did so the following year after a review highlighted the risks that incineration posed to human health and the environment. The review went on to say: “Scotland should not construct more capacity than it needs and only some of the currently planned capacity should be built.” The Government’s in-principle acceptance of this Bill, perhaps by launching a consultation on the future of incineration like the 2022 Scottish review, might be enough, because it would signal to investors that the incineration game is up. It would say that if they want to be in the waste business, they must stop burning and start operating higher up the waste hierarchy. My Bill calls time on one of our biggest polluters, one that is hidden in plain sight. It would begin to lower the curtain on a filthy enterprise cynically passing itself off as green because it generates a few calories, a trickle of electrons and the promise of carbon capture at some point in the distant future. As the Government’s own figures show, we are already at overcapacity. Without the measures in this Bill, the industry will almost double its capacity in the decade to 2035. That means the hierarchy of waste will be inverted to soak up the excess capacity. This Bill would end Whitehall’s obsession with incineration. It would direct the UK waste industry to start operating much higher up the waste hierarchy. We must tax incineration, ban “deliver or pay” contracts, outlaw waste imports and, above all, build no more incinerators. Question put and agreed to . Ordered , That Dr Andrew Murrison, Steve Barclay, Brian Mathew, John Glen, Danny Kruger, Euan Stainbank, Ben Obese-Jecty, Lee Barron, Lloyd Hatton and Robbie Moore present the Bill. Dr Andrew Murrison accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 16 January 2026, and to be printed (Bill 336).

• 24 Nov 2025 · Critical Minerals Strategy · Hansard source

  More

  This country has no phosphates, and no phosphates means no agriculture. Happily, our close friend and ally the Kingdom of Morocco has most of the world’s reserves of phosphates, but it is closely followed by unreliable countries such as Russia, China, Syria and Algeria. Does the Minister’s 60% rule apply to phosphates? Will he ensure that the association agreement signed between the UK and Morocco in 2019 is strengthened further so that we can ensure that we do have access to phosphates, without which our farming sector would be completely finished?

• 19 Nov 2025 · Community Groups: Northern Ireland and Great Britain · Hansard source

  More

  Does the Minister agree that reported attempts to extend European Parliament observer status to politicians in Northern Ireland are bound to inflame tensions between communities in Northern Ireland and between communities in Northern Ireland and Great Britain? Will he say that the UK Government will have absolutely nothing to do with this attempt to break up our United Kingdom?

• 18 Nov 2025 · Flood Risk and Flood Defence Infrastructure: North-west England · Hansard source

  More

  I call Sarah Hall to wind up extremely briefly.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Flood Risk and Flood Defence Infrastructure: North-west England · Hansard source

  More

  That was commendably brief. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered flood risk and flood defence infrastructure in the North West.

• 18 Nov 2025 · Flood Risk and Flood Defence Infrastructure: North-west England · Hansard source

  More

  Order. I shall begin calling the Front Benchers at 5.08 pm, so colleagues might like to titrate their contributions accordingly.

• 18 Nov 2025 · ExxonMobil: Mossmorran · Hansard source

  More

  The company has been absolutely clear that this is the result of the economic and policy environment that it found itself in—it is as plain as a pikestaff. The Minister said that he has been in discussion with Exxon, including today, when presumably he discussed what it meant by “policy”. Will he please say clearly what policy issues Exxon has had that has led to this decision?

• 18 Nov 2025 · Land Use Change: Food Security · Hansard source

  More

  I will begin calling the Front Benchers at 3.28 pm, so hon. Members need to be aware of time. I am sure that Chris Hinchliff will be an exemplar.

• 18 Nov 2025 · China Espionage: Government Security Response · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome the package and the Minister’s commitment to continued engagement with Beijing, but does he share my view that one cannot reason with a tiger when one’s head is in its mouth? We are rapidly approaching that position because of the stranglehold that China has on this country by virtue of our reliance on critical minerals and rare earths. As he seeks to strengthen our position, will he ensure that we diversify our ability to gain access to those critical elements, thus ensuring that China respects this country rather than sees us as weaklings—a situation that would of course deteriorate further in the event that, God forbid, China controls Taiwan?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Asylum Policy · Hansard source

  More

  It was a genuinely good statement—as far as it went—from which we learnt that countries could be determined to be safe at some point in the future and refugees from them returned home. What would be the Home Secretary’s criteria for safety, and which countries does she have in her sights? For example, would they include the Council of Europe and NATO member, ECHR signatory and EU candidate, Turkey?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Illegal Waste: Organised Crime · Hansard source

  More

  On the dumping of waste across the countryside, what assessment has the Minister made of the ability and capacity of the Environment Agency to adequately control and regulate the dumping of toxic emissions by wholly unwanted and unnecessary waste incinerators that are being foisted on our communities, including in Westbury in my constituency?