Andrew Murrison MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Oct 2025 · Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation · Hansard source

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  Order. I have not imposed a time limit, but the hon. Gentleman has been going on considerably longer than other colleagues. He may wish to reflect on that.

• 16 Oct 2025 · Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements · Hansard source

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  The deputy National Security Adviser is clear in his evidence that China is the greatest state economic threat to the UK. Does the Minister agree with that? Is he seriously trying to suggest that the deputy National Security Adviser, given what he has said in his evidence, did not clear what he was doing with the CPS with his superiors, Jonathan Powell or Ministers?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State said yesterday that his new legacy commission will not relitigate previous investigations involving veterans unless there are “compelling reasons” to do so. That is reinforced in clause 30 of the Bill that has now been published. To remove scope from opportunistic lawyers, would he consider defining far more closely than he has done up to this point precisely what he means by “compelling reasons”?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Pride in Place · Hansard source

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  The future high streets fund worked well, because to get any funding, areas had to demonstrate that they had a plan, and that the money would be used effectively, in accordance with local priorities. Pride in place is structured in a very different way. I accept that the Minister’s intent is to ensure that redundant premises are repurposed and reused; that is really good, and as chairman of the Trowbridge Place Partnership, I certainly welcome that. However, how will she ensure that the whole thing is not just bunged up with endless legal challenges, as her unelected boards make diktats that will be subject to endless review?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  The Hamas leadership are making it clear that their fighters, many of whom will have been involved on 7 October, will not disband but will merge into the nascent army of a Palestinian state—a state which the Prime Minister unwisely and prematurely recognised. Is he comfortable with that?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Northern Ireland Troubles · Hansard source

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  The young men sent out to do the state’s business during the troubles are now old men, often sick, often disabled. Some of them are my constituents. They will be listening carefully to the Secretary of State and will be hearing honeyed words. They will be reading those words in this framework document, even as the protections given by the legacy Act are stripped away from them and they listen for the metaphorical knock on the door as activist, left, liberal human rights lawyers construct, open and reopen cases that will do them in in their failing years. Is that what the Secretary of State wants? Is this not a beanfeast for lawyers? Is it any wonder that no veterans groups have come out to support the framework that he has announced today?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Security Update: Official Secrets Act Case · Hansard source

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  I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman, whom I respect very much indeed, that his answer to the question put by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), the former Attorney General, raised more questions than he gave answers. Is he seriously suggesting that the National Security Adviser, with all his links to the 48 Group and to the Grandview Institution, had no involvement whatsoever in the advice that went to the Crown Prosecution Service? While he is about it, will he clarify that apparent conflation of this country’s economic ties with China, which he appeared to give in mitigation for the mess that the Government appear to have got themselves into?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Manchester Terrorism Attack · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Home Secretary on an excellent statement, in which she said early on that the police officers involved are being treated as witnesses. That is absolutely right, but does she understand that many members of the security forces involved in this kind of work fear that they will be hung out to dry? Many of them will not have their fears assuaged by the written ministerial statement today on the legacy of the troubles, on which more anon. Will she reassure me that everything is being done by the Greater Manchester police to put an arm around those officers who were directly involved in this incident, and that they will be given every support necessary?

• 13 Oct 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Why does the Minister think that a staggering 3 million people have already signed a petition against her expensive and intrusive plans? Does she perhaps think that those people want her to get on with fixing things that matter to them, like illegal immigration and smashing the gangs, which this measure will do nothing to fix, as the construction of her statement seemed to suggest she understands? Will she spend her time trying to sort things that really matter to people, rather than trying to create problems to which there is no obvious solution?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  The Chairman of the Select Committee is being very generous. She is elegantly describing due process and is implying—at least I think she is—that due process may have been set aside for other purposes in this case. However, we know that due process was done because the Prime Minister stood at that Dispatch Box last Wednesday and said that it had been done—unless he is using the Bill Clinton defence, and it turns out that due process was done, but set aside. Where does that leave the Prime Minister?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights: Impact on Businesses · Hansard source

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  Order.

• 16 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights: Impact on Businesses · Hansard source

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  Minister?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Official Secrets Act · Hansard source

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  The Minister euphemistically described our relationship with China as “complex”. It is not complex. It is characterised by espionage, malign behaviour and a massive trade imbalance. How is that complex, and why do this Government persist in opposing the views of their advisers and permitting—even facilitating—this massive centre for espionage close to the centre of our financial quarter?

• 15 Sept 2025 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  In opposition, those now in government probably rightly criticised the Conservative Government for introducing Henry VIII powers, yet the Bill is absolutely riddled with them. Does the Secretary of State agree with the Attorney General that such powers strike at the heart of the rule of law?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Qatar: Israeli Strike · Hansard source

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  Several of our partners in the region—in north Africa and the middle east—have expended a great deal of political capital in trying to achieve a rapprochement with Israel in recent years. The Minister will be aware, for example, of Morocco and its work and leadership in achieving the Abraham accords. What does he think this attack has done to them, and what confidence can they have that Israel is now truly embarked on a quest for peace in the region?

• 10 Sept 2025 · Russian Drones: Violation of Polish Airspace · Hansard source

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  President Zelensky has been consistent in his argument that the invasion of his country is just the beginning and that we are all in the crosshairs. He made that argument forcefully—and famously—in the Oval Office. Does the Minister not agree that what has happened with this violation of Polish and NATO airspace completely vindicates President Zelensky?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  On that point, will the Minister give way?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  The Government are clearly not going to take any lessons from us, but I wonder whether they would listen to one of their own. Lord West of Spithead was a Security Minister under the previous Labour Administration and then First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, so he knows a thing or two. He has said very clearly that in his expert opinion, this deal is “irresponsible” and that it will damage our strategic interests. Who are we to believe: the Labour party or my old boss, Lord West?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Minister on his promotion, but must say how sorry I am that his first outing has been to defend this load of nonsense. What does he say to the UK Statistics Authority and to the Government Actuary’s Department, which appear to have a very different view of the costing of this to the one that he has just outlined? Is it not the case that what he has said represents a load of accounting double-speak and is dubious, to put it politely and in parliamentary terms?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  The Minister is being extremely generous with his time. He was pressed earlier, but I would like to press him again on the social time discounting method. He should be able to give examples of big projects to which his Government have applied this method. Could he now do that and say why, for example, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) did not use that method when she was calculating the cost of the 10-year affordable housing programme?

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case. The answer is none, because Mauritius has no navy and practically no coastguard. With which means will Mauritius defend a territory that is hundreds of kilometres away? It cannot possibly do so.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 8 Sept 2025 · Omar al-Bayoumi: Arrest and Extradition · Hansard source

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  We know that 67 Britons died on 9/11. Does the Minister agree that we owe it to them, their memory and the families to get to the bottom of what look like very fishy reports over the weekend on how this individual was handled? Will he assure the House that the police at the time had operational independence—an issue that he referred to in his response to the previous urgent question? Does he understand that the British public are deeply sceptical about the stance taken by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, particularly as the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi is still very much at the forefront of their mind?

• 8 Sept 2025 · Defence Industrial Strategy · Hansard source

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  The Swedish Archer self-propelled gun is in the process of replacing the AS-90, and it will itself be replaced by the German Remote Controlled Howitzer 155 system. Can the Minister say when the in-service date of the Howitzer will be? How much UK componentry will be in it? How many UK jobs does he anticipate will be generated by it?

• 8 Sept 2025 · Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that, while in this case, proscription may be a finely balanced decision, the law must be upheld whether you like it or not, whoever you are and wherever you are? Does he therefore share my concern that in this case, there appears to be some regional disparity in the interpretation of the law, as evidenced by the different rates at which people were arrested across this country at the weekend?