Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  I call Sarah Hall to wind up extremely briefly.

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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill is in the business statement. Does the Leader of the House accept that that will cause concern for many members of the armed forces and the veterans community, who are worried that in years to come they may be judged by the standards of the day rather than the standards that applied when they were engaged in doing the state’s business? Does he further recognise that there is good evidence now that people are leaving the armed forces, and certain parts of the armed forces in particular, because of those concerns? Will he also ensure that adequate time is provided on Second Reading and in Committee to assure the House that steps are being taken to remove that threat to national security?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister pay tribute to Philip Wilkinson, Wiltshire’s PCC, who has realigned policing in my county with the priorities of my constituents? Will she account for the difference between the £100 million that she says in her statement this measure will save, and the £20 million she cited in response to an earlier question? Will she do all she can to ensure that the new formation is less bureaucratic than that which preceded it? At the moment, it rather looks like it will be much the same but without the PCC.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Taxes · Hansard source

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  So far, Labour Members do not appear to have mentioned covid. We reduced the deficit by 80%, which enabled us to spend £373 billion to support households and businesses during those years. I have businesses in my constituency that would no longer be in business had it not been for that support. What does the shadow Chancellor think would happen if, God forbid, we had a similar event right now? The answer is, as I suspect he is about to tell me, that the Government simply would not be able to sustain households and the economy in the way that we did.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

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  The Minister’s constituents, like mine, are worried about their electricity prices right now—not in 10 years’ time or 20 years’ time, but right now. They are paying the highest electricity prices, bar one, in the world and the industries and businesses on which they rely are paying the highest electricity prices. A third of the wholesale price of electricity is the carbon tax. There is a solution here, is there not? It is to reduce this ridiculous carbon levy.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Energy · Hansard source

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  Would my right hon. Friend agree that the Government could at least be consistent in their management of contracts for difference and auctions? Does she share my bemusement at the fact that they have dismissed one way of providing about 7% of our grid requirements in fairly short order, which is accepting the interconnector between Morocco and the UK? That would bring reliable solar and wind-powered energy to the UK.

• 11 Nov 2025 · BBC Leadership · Hansard source

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  Why does the Minister think the BBC’s national leadership has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of licence fee payers’ money resisting attempts to publish the 2004 Balen report? Does she suspect, like I do, that it might be because the conclusions drawn 20 years ago are very similar to the conclusions that have been made apparent in the now leaked Michael Prescott report, particularly around a culture that makes it possible for it to be okay to doctor and distort the facts to suit a preformed agenda?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Remembrance Day: Armed Forces · Hansard source

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  May I say that there is no more appropriate Member of the House to be introducing this debate than the hon. and gallant Gentleman with his distinguished record? I think I represent more generals than any other right hon. or hon. Member of the House. The Minister will have seen that nine four-star officers wrote to The Times to raise their concerns about the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill and the legal activism that it is likely to encourage, which “risk weakening the moral foundations and operational effectiveness of the forces on which this nation depends.” While we all honour our brave servicemen and servicewomen today rhetorically, does the Minister agree that we need to follow that through with real action, to ensure that they are not disadvantaged today and into the future?

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

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  It is good to see a quieter, more emollient and, even by his own lights, humbler Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box than the one we saw last week. Will he say how many people have been wrongly detained and how much money his Department is setting aside for the likely ensuing litigation?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Curriculum and Assessment Review · Hansard source

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  Scrapping the EBacc means potentially reducing the exposure of disadvantaged children to modern foreign languages, and the problem with that—a bit like their access to classics in the past—is that they will become relatively disadvantaged when it comes to places at elite universities. Does the Secretary of State agree that we must make sure that that does not happen, since we all want to see improved social mobility in this country—and scrapping the EBacc looks like a very funny way of doing it?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q8. Burning waste is as polluting as burning coal, and our incinerators are already over-capacity. When will this Government renew the previous Government’s pause on new incinerators, end perverse deliver-or-pay contracts with incinerator companies, and deliver an incineration tax, such as the landfill tax, to encourage waste reduction, reuse and recycling?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Conflict in Sudan · Hansard source

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  Sudan is a crushingly poor country, but it is not without resources, so it is hardly surprising that malign state actors and their proxies are closely involved there, and not in a good way. What can be done in particular to disrupt the smuggling of gold from Sudan to Syria by the Wagner Group to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—

• 5 Nov 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  It very much is, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have this week had the publication of a very important Bill—so important that the Prime Minister himself came to this House to present it on Second Reading. The sponsor of that Bill is the Justice Secretary. While I have no doubt that the Justice Secretary was being truthful today, there is a question over whether he was being candid, which is a higher test. Can you advise me on how the Justice Secretary might be requested to come to this House to clarify his position?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  One thing that the Government might like to reflect on is the perverse situation that people facing VAT find themselves in. The £90,000 threshold is causing many small business people, such as barbers, to adjust their behaviour—classically, reducing their working week from five days to four or three. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Treasury needs to look at the increased tax take that it might receive if it changed VAT thresholds to allow those small businesses to work full time?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and I am listening very carefully to what she has to say. One of the more useful things the Liberal Democrats have done in the past is to support the future high streets fund, brought in by the last Government, but she has not mentioned it and neither did the Minister. That is surprising. Nearly £10 million of future high streets funding was given to Old Kent Road in Peckham in her constituency, but she did not mention it. A large sum of money was given to Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire, to good effect. What does she think of the fact that the future high streets fund has been ditched and replaced by something called pride in place, which is a pale reflection of the future high streets fund? Would she like to think about including that in her contribution?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Welfare Spending · Hansard source

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  I am listening, as always, to the hon. Gentleman’s wise words—he presents his case very well—but, honestly, has he forgotten the pandemic? Will he give any credit to the then Government for managing it? Does he talk to his constituents, and all the businesses that are still going thanks to the work done at that time? With regard to his attacks on the Conservatives, will he just grow up? I hope to goodness that Labour never has to manage what we had to manage, but if it does, I hope that it manages it even half as well.

• 29 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: MOD Housing · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister ensure in future that Members are given some notice of the Government’s plans relating to MOD accommodation? Will he ensure that the gross discourtesy that has been visited on the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) in this particular case is not repeated, and that communities may even be able to suggest to the Government alternatives, where alternatives exist? As for the pull factors to which he rightly alluded, will he ensure that accommodation that is offered up by the Ministry of Defence is at the more austere end of the spectrum? It is certainly the case that the men and women of our armed forces, families and veterans are heartily fed up with seeing people not being put in accommodation that apparently is not fit, but that apparently was fit to hold soldiers, sailors and airmen.