James McMurdock MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  That is a good point very well made, and it brings me to another point, which has not been raised in this debate: although the Government state that digital ID is optional—at least, at this stage—for the taxpayer, the cost is not optional. If they go ahead with it, we are all paying for it whether we like it or not, and whether we use it or not. Even if the intentions today are benign, the power created has the potential to long outlive those who introduced it. I am of the view, therefore, that digital ID offers only the potential to inconvenience law-abiding citizens, while also creating the foundations for a powerful new mechanism capable of controlling banking, travel, property ownership, employment, public services, and daily activity into a single, state-managed system. Even if one trusted today’s Government, and many do not, no Government should ever have that level of centralised control over their citizens’ private lives. The Government’s own website already suggests that digital ID would introduce access to social services, we have mission creep already, whether we like it or not. The digital ID webpage also states that the digital ID will be free. Of course, that is not entirely true, because the cost is £1.8 billion. In addition to the above we have the inevitable security risks and the fact that millions of people will struggle with digital access. The Government talk liberal, but act authoritarian. Prison sentences for bad language and the proposal to reduce an eight-centuries-old right to jury trials are only two examples of this. Coupled with the digital ID white elephant, it paints an unpretty picture. I am against this measure.

• 8 Dec 2025 · Digital ID · Hansard source

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  Thank you for saving me until last, Ms Furniss. With Christmas around the corner, the squats from bobbing will come in very handy. The proposal to introduce digital ID represents one of the most significant changes to the relationship between the individual and the state in modern British history. The measure cannot be taken lightly; nor can it be brushed aside as a simple matter of convenience or administrative efficiency. Britain already operates with a substantial set of identification systems—birth certificate, passport, driving licence, national insurance number, NHS number and the electoral register—none of which is optional in practice for law-abiding citizens. The Government’s own digital ID webpage confirms that none of those existing documents will be replaced by the new proposal, which creates a logical fallacy: if digital ID is optional and does not replace any of the existing documents, it cannot simplify the existing system. It is also written in the very first paragraph of the digital ID webpage that the data held on digital ID will be limited to four pieces of information: name, date of birth, nationality or residency status, and a photograph. What does that tell us? It tells us that it is not a system really built to simplify domestic life; it is a system built to manage immigration status. Here we have another logical fallacy, because this does nothing to tackle the root cause of the immigration crisis, or anything to strengthen or enforce any of the right-to-work restrictions already in place. I would add a third logical fallacy, which was somewhat innocently referred to earlier: if digital ID is optional, it can serve no purpose in a “papers, please” scenario. Thankfully, that is probably the better of the two scenarios, despite the cost of nearly £2 billion. Britain operates on a simple democratic logic: we are born free, and the state may intrude only where necessary, proportionate and agreed by the public. Digital ID risks inverting that principle. I will point out that there was no mandate for this in the Labour manifesto.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Homelessness Guidance · Hansard source

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  12. What steps he is taking to improve homelessness guidance for local government.

• 24 Nov 2025 · Homelessness Guidance · Hansard source

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  Ministers will be well aware that the maximum period of time for which the most vulnerable people should ever be placed in temporary accommodation is six weeks, but I have seen repeatedly from Labour-run Basildon council a tweaking and gaming of the rules, whereby a single-room bed and breakfast property is incorrectly reclassified as a self-contained unit through the addition of a microwave and a fridge. Vulnerable people, including pregnant women or women with children, are being crammed into one room for periods of time that we recognise as unlawful, essentially because the rules are not strict enough. I do not blame Ministers for that, but I do blame the local Labour council for abusing those rules. What will the Minister do to strengthen things up?

• 19 Nov 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q7. It is an open secret that the gig economy is a magnet for organised crime and illegal workers. As Christmas approaches and demand increases, so do the associated risks. Will the Prime Minister please explain why enforcement in this area is so low and what he will do to restore order?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  According to a recent National Audit Office report, £15.3 billion will be spent on asylum accommodation alone over the next 10 years. That money will be spent on people who will, in some instances, commit violent and sexual crimes—crimes that would make our skin crawl—against the British people. What do we say to our residents, voters and taxpayers, who feel like we are spending money on people who want nothing for us but harm?

• 17 Nov 2025 · Channel Crossings · Hansard source

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  7. What steps she is taking to reduce the cost to the public purse of migrants who have crossed the channel illegally.

• 17 Nov 2025 · Social Media Posts: Penalties for Offences · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way on that point?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q2. Earlier this week, I got to see the very best and some of the worst of our national health service. When my own daughter needed it, it was there, but when an 89-year-old gentleman in the restaurant I was eating at collapsed, it took over an hour and 15 minutes from my first call to the arrival of two exhausted paramedics. Basildon hospital has just been downgraded to inadequate in the latest Care Quality Commission report. I invite the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—or the Prime Minister, if he has time in his schedule—to visit Basildon with me so that he can thank the staff for their exceptional work and get to grips with the problems they are facing.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Holidays During School Term Time · Hansard source

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  Would the hon. Member agree that, while price controls are a nice idea in theory, they are a terrible idea in practice? Supply and demand ultimately dictate the price of something so, while it is a nice suggestion, it would not work in real life. Does he agree?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Holidays During School Term Time · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for securing this debate, and for a remark that he made during his opening speech, which I think we can all thoroughly agree with: everyone in this debate, regardless of view, completely supports having children’s welfare at the centre of this. I certainly champion that. We are not debating the importance of education, because we all thoroughly agree on that. Regardless of our side of the debate, we also agree that some of the statistics relating to children’s attainment depending on their attendance records are quite striking. There is clearly a correlation there. But correlation is not necessarily causation. We have heard today that people can be there in body but not in mind. There is definitely a difference between trustworthy, decent parents choosing to take their children out of school at an appropriate time for appropriate reasons, and truancy. We are debating whether fines are appropriate for holidays. I do not think they are at all appropriate, but I agree with tackling the causes of truancy and supporting families so that children receive an education. I hope everyone believes me when I say I am a firm believer in education. However, it is not appropriate for the Government to fine families who are decent, thorough and good—as we should assume they are in the vast majority of cases—for choosing to take their children out when there are no opportunities for debate with the school, to make exceptions or to let reason speak for itself. It is thoroughly wrong, and we are doing a lot of decent families a disservice. I am not for letting children and families just do whatever, because I appreciate that, on the other side of this debate, are the teachers who have to manage the additional challenge that that would bring. However, we are humans and this is a human world; ultimately, we should support, not penalise, decent and reasonable people making decent and reasonable decisions for themselves. On that basis, I support the cancelling of fines for parents taking their children out of school.

• 13 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State and the other Ministers on the Front Bench have to great fanfare today talked about responsible governance, but Basildon council and its Labour leader have repeatedly failed to meet basic housing standards. Worse than that, its leader has gone live on social media to admit to counting postal votes and using that information to influence a recent by-election. When he is held to account, will Ministers agree to throwing him out of their party?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Social Housing Supply · Hansard source

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  My constituency is seeing approximately 60,000 new homes being built across the Basildon and Thurrock areas. Basildon hospital is consistently running at 98% capacity, and a school I visited today, which I was very proud to see in such a good state, has roughly 1,100 pupil applications for 300 available spaces each year. Along with housing, my constituents are deeply concerned about the level of infrastructure being developed and the state of the existing infrastructure. What reassurances can Ministers give them about those concerns?

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  On that point, I invite the hon. Gentleman to elaborate on what he thinks it might mean that the Government scrapped the European Scrutiny Committee.

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  Would the hon. Lady clarify whether she believes the deal is a good thing for fishing or not? She seems to be bashing it, but also remarking on the 12-year extension.

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  To my mind, the core of the issue is the sense of suspicion. No one disagrees that trade barriers are a bad thing and that clearing them is a good thing for trade, but there is an awful lot of suspicion about the exact details and about how much the benefits are real benefits, not just the removal of punitive hurdles.

• 22 May 2025 · EU-UK Summit · Hansard source

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  As with anything, when the terms are unclear there is a big risk of unintended consequences. Given that 60 million people in the EU are under 30 and that the scheme does nothing for the immigration issues we are already facing, does my hon. Friend agree that those unintended consequences could be quite severe?

• 22 May 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base · Hansard source

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  I am concerned about the influence of foreign nations levied through the criminal courts. If it is not too vague, I should like to read out a very brief quote: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” Given that this land was always going to be ours and now it will be ours for only 99 more years, who will benefit from that shade in a century?

• 12 May 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will correct the record very briefly now. As the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) is aware, I had received multiple verbal notices that discussions were being had between Thurrock and other councils in the area, so I put in a freedom of information request, which concluded that there had been discussions. It turned out that it was only due to an administrative error that they said there had not been. I had received verbal information and written confirmation that there had been, which is why I gave the speech I did. I would point out that in the speech I gave, I even referred to the fact that the conversations had been denied; again, I also explained that to the hon. Member for Thurrock. I believe I have done all I can on that, but given the number of strained relationships in this place, I certainly hope that this does not strain ours, and that we can continue to work constructively together.

• 7 May 2025 · Havering Borough and Essex Devolution · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a important point about ULEZ. In my constituency, there has been huge concern about the creep of ULEZ. Though denied, I understand that there have been conversations between local councils about Thurrock joining London. Does he agree that Thurrock, like his own constituency, is Essex through and through and should remain that way?

• 29 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) said, the Government seem to have a three-point plan. Point one is to cover farmland in solar panels, and point two is to block out the sun. What is point three?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Child Rape Gangs · Hansard source

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  This is clearly a deeply distressing topic that affects the whole House, and I fully accept that the Minister is affected as much as anyone. That being said, it is not clear to me why we would not do absolutely everything within our power to get to the bottom of this, and that includes a full national inquiry with all the powers that come with it. Will the Minister please explain to me why we will not have that inquiry, and why she sees having one as capitulating?

• 7 Apr 2025 · Scunthorpe Steelworks · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for her comments. Given the vital importance of this industry, on which I believe the whole House agrees, does she recognise that it would be a siren to those who, on a national scale, would be less than trustworthy, if we were unable to produce virgin steel ourselves? Given the undoubted national security risk, does she agree that, despite no options being off the table, one outcome that is absolutely off the table is closure? If so, why not just commit to protecting and saving these jobs?

• 10 Feb 2025 · Inheritance Tax Relief: Farms · Hansard source

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  Like many here, I prepared a short speech, but I would rather pull out some of its highlights, because this has probably been the most interesting debate I have been involved in, and all the more interesting for being rather one-sided. Let us go through this issue. First and foremost, the change will achieve the opposite of food security. I could stop there. But if we carry on, we will see farms forced to sell, bought by private equity firms, and half our food production could be lost within a generation. It will be hugely damaging to mental health, and I say with all sadness and sombreness that I believe lives have been lost already. This policy is damaging and ill thought through. Laws should not be made retrospectively—that is a fine point that has already been raised. Farmers would have had to be aware of this change seven years ago in order to be in a good position for it today, and I want to add to that point. As I understand it, this is also a breach of a promise. If a policy is wrong, stop doing it—that makes pretty good sense to me. It is a self-defeating policy because it will not raise the money that it is supposed to, and it may be rather counter-productive. That brings me to my rather limited experience of farmers in my constituency of South Basildon and East Thurrock. We do not have a huge amount of farmland, but where we have farmers, they share the exact same concerns as those in the rest of the country. One gentleman shared the story of his finances with me, and this policy will cover essentially every penny that his farm will make over the next decade. Guess what his point was? He was concerned not in the least bit about money for himself but about investing in his business. We also have in Essex a rather large New Holland plant. If our farmers do not have any money to invest in their businesses then businesses such as New Holland, which produces vehicles worth £200,000 or £300,000, will not have any customers. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say in response to the debate. As I understand it, he is a reasonable man, and I hope he has reasonable things to say. From my perspective—and I believe from the perspective of Reform—this is a disastrous new policy and I hope the Government change course.

• 5 Feb 2025 · English Devolution and Local Government · Hansard source

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  What does the Secretary of State have to say to the 5 million people who have lost their right to vote in this election, who want to vote before this generational power shift and not after it?