Health and Social Care

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me say again what I have said repeatedly: the social care workforce of this country have done an amazing job and continue to do so. They did an amazing job throughout the pandemic as well as before it and beyond. I met more of them today. What they are getting from this package of measures is not only investment in their careers and progression but the long-term structure and respect that they need as a profession and the prospect of integration between what they do and what the NHS provides. That is a massive prize.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on grasping an issue that his predecessors have been ducking for decades. Does he agree that what has been announced restores some equity to a system that relies on pooling our risk and that, in particular, people who have been excluded with dementia, neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson’s disease and the general frailty of old age, and their relatives, can look forward with some confidence to the system that has been there for others also applying to them?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend knows exactly what he is talking about, because he is a former GP who has seen these issues at the frontline. With this measure, we are not only investing in care and in the NHS but bringing the magic of averages to the rescue of millions.

Afghanistan

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The US surrender of its wardship of a problem child is a monumental failure of statecraft, geopolitical confidence and strategic patience that has been made all the worse by the fact that it spans two Administrations. The US is diminished by this, but so are all of us in the free world. The winners are those who are lined up against us and against our values. The losers, from Taiwan to the Caucasus, are those who will see their champions as having feet of clay.

We are left with a looming sense of foreboding at this ignominious end of the fourth Afghan war. It seems very likely that murderous civil war and the mother of all refugee crises will ensue, and it seems to many of us that the geopolitical plates are shifting—and they are shifting against us.

But the past 20 years have not been for nothing. Shout it from the rooftops! Four hundred and fifty-seven men and women demand it; their families demand it; and hundreds and thousands of our countrymen and countrywomen who are damaged in mind and body demand it. Twenty years of fundamentalist terror has been denied a power base, degrading its exportability to our streets. Twenty years of progress in Afghanistan cannot be erased by the brutes now in charge. They are 20 years in which the Taliban and its associates have not destabilised a fragile neighbourhood, and in which the export of opiates has been cut, to the benefit of our streets, and 20 years of Afghan dreams of a better life that will not be undreamt.

What now? What mitigation? Who will step up where the US has stepped back? Who will lead? Who will be the convener? Who will hold the pen? It must be Britain. Four hundred and fifty-seven British dead demand it. The Prime Minister has taken an early lead. I would expect nothing else, and this House must get behind him.

Afghanistan

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]]

Given the high likelihood that China will now exploit the opportunity presented by the US departure by extending the belt and road initiative, buying off the Taliban and muting their opposition to abuses in Xinjiang, what approach will my right hon. Friend take, with our allies, to the resulting greatly strengthened Beijing-Tehran axis, with all its grisly potential impact on security, prosperity and human rights?

[The Prime Minister]

The Chinese are not as yet a very major player in Afghanistan, but my right hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is vital that the people of Afghanistan should determine their own future.

Armed Forces Bill

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

Absolutely I can, and I am very pleased to.

I turn to the technical amendments. Amendments 8 to 15 relate to the armed forces covenant, amendments 16 to 23 and 31 to 38 amend the service complaints provisions, and amendments 24 to 30 relate to the provision on driving disqualification.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Leo Docherty]

I am delighted to give way to my right hon. Friend.

[Dr Murrison]

Can the Minister confirm, before he gets technical, that the overriding consideration in all this is that servicemen, servicewomen and their families should suffer no disadvantage by virtue of their military service? There will be test cases arising from the guidance to which he has referred in which people say, “Look, I’ve been disadvantaged because I’m in the armed forces.” The acid test has to be what they would have got from the system if they had not been serving. Surely that is the guiding star in all this.

[Leo Docherty]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. That is the fundamental basis of all this, and that is at the heart of the statutory guidance. We are confident that local authorities will bear that in mind in the way they afford provision in the critical areas that I have described, but of course there may be test cases and we will take note of them if they arise.

A number of Opposition amendments and new clauses have been tabled. I want to concentrate on the key ones that specifically relate to the service justice system and the armed forces covenant. Amendment 7 seeks to ensure that the most serious crimes are automatically tried in the civilian courts when committed by a serviceperson in the UK, thereby undermining the current legal position that there is full concurrent jurisdiction between the service and civilian justice systems. The amendment would mean that the most serious offences, when committed in the UK, could never be dealt with in the service justice system, even though the Lyons review recommended that the most serious offences could and should continue to be tried in the service justice system with the consent of the Attorney General.

The Government have a more pragmatic approach. We are confident that the service justice system is capable of dealing with all offences, whatever their seriousness and wherever they occur, bolstered by improvements recommended by the Lyons review, such as the creation of the defence serious crime unit and improvement to the support to victims. The service police, prosecutors and judiciary are trained, skilled and experienced. Victims and witnesses receive comparable support to the civilian system, for example through the armed forces code of practice for victims of crime, which we continue to keep updated in line with civilian practices. The amendment would remove the valuable role of independent prosecutors in allocating cases to the most appropriate jurisdiction.

Clause 7 improves and strengthens the protocol between service and civilian prosecutors to determine where cases are tried. That improvement will bring much-needed clarity on how decisions on jurisdiction are made and will ensure transparency and independence from the chain of command and Government. To be clear, the aim of this approach is not to increase the number of serious crimes being tried in the court martial. The civilian prosecutor will always have the final say. I therefore urge the Committee to reject amendment 7.

Amendments 1 to 4 would create a duty on central Government and devolved Administrations. Clause 8, as it stands, covers public functions in healthcare, housing and education exercised by the local or regional bodies that are responsible for those services. Those are the key areas of concern for our armed forces community. Central Government’s delivery of the covenant is regularly scrutinised, as I referred to in my answer to the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), and the Armed Forces Act 2006 requires the Secretary of State for Defence to lay an annual report before Parliament. Devolved Administrations and other bodies are given an opportunity to contribute their views to that report. That duty to report will remain a legal obligation, and it remains the key, highly effective method by which the Government are held to account for delivery of the covenant.

Amendments 39 to 42 seek to ensure that all service housing is regulated in line with the local minimum quality. These amendments are unnecessary because, in practice, 96.7% of MOD-provided service family accommodation meets or exceeds the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s decent homes standard. The amendments would introduce an unhelpful disparity across the UK and would not achieve their intended effect, because local authorities that fall within the scope of the current duty are not responsible for the provision of service accommodation, so these amendments should be withdrawn.

The provision of high-quality subsidised accommodation remains a fundamental part of the overall MOD offer to service personnel and their families. Over the past decade, we have invested £1.2 billion in single living accommodation and another £1.5 billion will be invested over the next 10 years. Additionally, we are rolling out the future accommodation model to improve choice, and I am pleased to report that the forces Help to Buy scheme has helped more than 24,000 personnel to buy a new home over the past seven years.

New clause 9 seeks to introduce artificial timelines for the progress of investigations. These are operationally unrealistic. They do not take account of the nature of investigations on overseas operations and could put us in breach of our international obligations, including under the European convention on human rights, to effectively investigate serious crimes. The right hon. Member for North Durham will be aware, following my letter to him on 7 June, that the detail of this new clause has been provided to Sir Richard Henriques for consideration as part of his review into investigations, and I am confident that Sir Richard will consider this matter very carefully.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the $100 billion is a totemic figure. We are doing everything we can to ensure that we are able to deliver it by COP26. I can assure him that I am having very frank discussions with donor countries—with developed countries —to ensure that they deliver on that commitment made in 2009.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Does the COP presidency share my concern at the reputational hit that the UK will take in the event that it continues to approve old-style carbon-belching waste incinerators such as the one proposed at Westbury in my constituency?

[The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

All energy-from-waste plants in England are regulated by the Environment Agency and must comply with the strict emissions limits set in legislation. I am aware that Northacre Renewable Energy Ltd has applied for an environmental permit from the Environment Agency to operate an incinerator in Westbury, Wiltshire, and the Environment Agency is considering responses to the public consultation.

Debate on the Address

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will endeavour to do the same. I very much welcome the Gracious Speech. I am in awe of the person who delivered it and in awe of its delivery. How fortunate we are in our Head of State.

I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for North West Cambridgeshire (Shailesh Vara) and for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) on delivering wonderful speeches, full of good humour and good sense, and kind and generous.

Covid mercifully appears to be retreating in the UK, at least faster than Darius from Alexander, but every day that passes has been chipping away at our liberties, the prospects of our young people, our mental health, our health in general, the economy and our institutions great and small, including this one. It is a terrible price to pay and it is time to bring it to an end. More than two-thirds of adults have now been jabbed. One-third have been jabbed twice. Yesterday, more people will statistically have died on the roads than of covid. There is no prospect of our national health service being overwhelmed, and if I am worried about a virus this wintertime, it is seasonal flu, not a covid third wave.

The Prime Minister made it clear earlier, in answer to an intervention, that there will be a full review—a comprehensive inquiry—into the management of this pandemic, and I very much welcome that. It would be remarkable if, after all of this, we did not review what had gone on and learn the lessons from it. I do so hope that it will not be a witch hunt; there is nothing to be gained from that. Throughout this, we have been in uncharted waters; there is no route map for this, and people have done the best they can in the circumstances that face them and with the information available to them.

It is important that we learn the lesson because, just around the corner, it is more than likely that we will have a new variant or new variants. It is equally likely that something else even worse may crop up. I think it is also pretty apparent that in the early stages of this pandemic, we were not as well prepared as we should have been. I have been critical in particular of our public health institutions that were, to my mind, not fit for purpose, focused, as they were, on modern pandemics to do with lifestyle in particular, which are very important in themselves, but which I think also took our eye off the ball when it came to traditional, old-fashioned public health around infectious disease.

That is a pity, because in this country we have a very strong tradition of public health. We have a very strong history in dealing with infectious diseases, and our institutions around infectious disease, bacteriology and virology are world-beating. This country, of course, was the home to west country doctor Edward Jenner and west country farmer Benjamin Jesty—less well known—who really set the science of vaccination afoot and made this country the world leader. In recent times, perhaps, we have unfortunately not learned some of the lessons as well as we should have done, and forgotten others.

I am also very sympathetic to Health Ministers who, in the early stages of this pandemic, pulled levers and found that nothing really happened. That is a perception from the Back Benches, but it is why I think that I would likely support those things contained in the Gracious Speech that hint at strengthening the ability of Ministers to control some aspects of healthcare in this country. That is a difficult thing for me to say, because 10 years ago I was a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Department of Health when reforms were going through that, in the full light of day, perhaps we might have done somewhat differently and, in my opinion, have not always been helpful in managing this crisis.

I am particularly keen on further reforms to public health. I think I am the only Member of Parliament with a postgraduate qualification in public health and I take a very close interest in it. There is no question in my mind but that our public health institutions need to be strengthened in order to face down more effectively the infectious disease threats of the future. This country faces many threats. It faces threats from Putin’s Russia, from cyber and from fundamentalist terror. However, the greatest existential threat that this country faces at the moment is more at home in a Petri dish, and we need to make sure that we bend every sinew of our national life and institutions to protect the public from that threat in the future. Any Government who fail to do so will suffer the consequences. I am heartened by what I have heard in this Gracious Speech and what I have heard Ministers talk about recently in relation to building those institutions, strengthening them, and making sure that we are much better placed to face down these threats in future.

I have spent the past 10 weeks or so leading vaccination teams in south-east London and the south-west of England, and will have done or supervised thousands of those vaccinations that come up on our screens every evening to tell us how we are doing. It has been one of the greatest privileges of my professional life. Through Operation Rescript and Operation Broadshare, its overseas iteration, the armed forces have, in my opinion, done extremely well. The warmth with which soldiers, sailors and airmen have been greeted in communities—many of those communities that now have a very small military footprint, and some of them communities that are not necessarily naturally sympathetic to defence—has been extraordinary. It is my view that the participation of our armed forces in helping our NHS through this pandemic has been far more effective than any number of armed forces days with which I have been associated, and has massively advanced civilian-military relations in this country. I pay tribute to all of my colleagues in the reserves and regulars for their service in support of our national health service.

I commend the Government for bringing forward an Advanced Research and Invention Agency Bill—a bit of a mouthful, but nevertheless—and I am very pleased that research features large in the Gracious Speech. I particularly commend Ministers for awarding £30 million for covid research at the MOD’s Porton Down facility near Salisbury. That is money well spent: I have no doubt that it will be met with rewards in the future, not just in this country but worldwide, where we are world leaders in this technology. I am very pleased that the Gracious Speech highlighted the Government’s leadership in promoting access to vaccination worldwide through COVAX and the UK’s approach to vaccine development and acquisition. However, just a small word of caution: we can ship out as much vaccine as we like to developing countries, but if they do not have the infrastructure with which to deliver that vaccine programme, we will be largely wasting our time, and we will find that outside the big urban centres and the élites, our good work will not be felt. It is very important that, especially when delivering surplus vaccine, we also make sure that we use expertise in this country—particularly in the national health service, and maybe even in the armed forces—to ensure that the logistics for delivery are there.

I would like to mention Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom that I have grown to love and respect very much indeed over the years. I listened with great interest, as I always do, to the comments on that subject made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). She is right: sometimes, in government, we have to do things in the greater interest that may seem alien to us, even uncomfortable. We all know the realpolitik that has caused many of us to be discomfited with the way members of the armed forces, some of them our constituents, have been handled in recent times, and none of us wants to do anything that would allow terrorists to go unpunished—allow them to get off the hook. However, that ship sailed in 1998, and we have to acknowledge that there has been a generation of relative peace since. Like my right hon. Friend, I remember those images when I was growing up, night after night. A line must be drawn so that this wonderful, wonderful corner of our country can move on, looking to the future and not the past.

Although there was no Bill in the Queen’s Speech that dealt with social care specifically, I nevertheless commend the Government for their recent language around a social care Bill. I would have liked to see a firmer commitment to it, but nevertheless I have the sense that it is a piece of work that will be done in this Parliament. I very much hope that that will mean in part a Dilnot-style cap on the cost of care. We pool risk in our national health service —that is what it is all about—but we did not do that in the 1940s. That is a piece of unfinished work, and while we will certainly debate integrated care, which is important, we also need to grasp the nettle of who pays. Mercifully, most of us will not end up needing extensive social care, but some of us will. At the moment, the costs of that fall disproportionately. The Government have an opportunity now to stamp their mark on one of the great outstanding challenges of our age. They must seize the day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

What I would say to the right hon. Gentleman is that, like him, I am very proud of the work that successive Governments have done in supporting the most vulnerable around the world. At 0.5% of gross national income, the UK will still remain a leading international aid donor. On the issue of international climate finance, he will know that, over a five-year period, our commitment is £11.6 billion, which is indeed a doubling of the last figure.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will there be an opportunity in Glasgow to debate so-called energy from waste? In this COP presidency year, surely we should be doing nothing to encourage old-style great incinerators that pump effluent into the great landfill in the sky in places such as Westbury in my constituency. Surely to goodness the waste hierarchy demands better than that.

[The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

I note and support my right hon. Friend’s concern and I will pass it on—particularly in terms of the UK leadership—to the Environment Minister. The work that we have done already in setting resources and waste strategy is leading the way and we as a country are looking to implement all avoidable waste by 2050. With so much of COP, it is about our leadership and proving that we are walking the walk by making these policy changes here at home. I will make sure that the Minister continues to work on that with him.

Armed Forces Bill

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 8th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]]

The Select Committee on the 2011 Bill considered whether the armed forces covenant should be codified and contractualised and, after taking lots of evidence, decided that would be unwise. This Bill continues in that vein but places further duties on public sector deliverers that will be of practical help to the service community, including people I have the honour and privilege to represent.

Like the 2011 Act, the Bill does not create rights, but does reaffirm society’s responsibilities. Others have said that the covenant is a contract with country not county, but local councils, schools, NHS trusts and housing associations control things that servicepeople might be disadvantaged in securing by virtue of their service. May I probe the Minister on where this new obligation to have regard to the covenant stands legally—who arbitrates on whether local bodies have discharged the duty placed upon them, and what penalties may ensue if they are judged to have fallen short?

There is increasing public scrutiny of the separateness and differentness of the armed forces. Defence reasonably points out that its distance is necessary, important and enduring by virtue of the extraordinary things its people do. Nevertheless, Defence is not the total institution of even 10 years ago; the trend is for confluence with society at large, and this Bill reflects that.

Justice is done differently in the military. Government are right to have tested that difference with a series of independent reviews, and they have reflected most of the recommendations in clauses 2 to 7 and 11. Servicepeople should not be dealt with any more or less harshly than civilians in relation to the criminal law, either as victims or perpetrators; otherwise the central “no disadvantage” plank of the covenant is merely rhetorical. That is why in the debate on the 2011 Act I said the powers of service police should not be extended unless there is demonstrable service need, and Sir Jon Murphy’s recent review appears to share my caution.

The same goes for setting up service structures that are separate from the civilian mainstream. Lyons recommended a new Service Police Complaints Commissioner, which is in the Bill, but it needs to be tested against the obvious alternative: handing the job to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

There will likely be detailed discussion in Committee and in the other place of the main Lyons recommendation that the MOD has, up to now, declined: that the most serious offences—murder, rape and manslaughter—should go to the civilian courts. We learn that a rape victim’s assailant tried at court martial is significantly less likely to be convicted than if the case had been heard in a civilian court. At the very least, that sits uncomfortably with “no disadvantage”. Service-necessary difference has to work hard to justify such a divergence of process, outcome and confidence in criminal justice from the civilian mainstream. I know that Ministers have worked really hard on this and considered it extremely carefully. It seems to me that the position adopted in the Bill was finely balanced. We learn that it is already under threat of judicial review.

I welcome the defence serious crime unit proposed in the Bill, which may well help to approximate service justice to the civilian mainstream in very serious cases. Nevertheless, one wonders where trials for serious crime will end up, if not in 2021 then in 2026 or 2030. Finally, as an active reservist and an ex-regular, may I say how helpful the Bill’s extension of the regulars’ part-time service opportunity to reservists will be to both individuals and defence?

Northern Ireland Protocol: Disruption to Trade

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con) [V]]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that we have to keep faith with the Northern Ireland protocol, which—long term—shows every sign of benefiting Northern Ireland in its commercial neighbourhood? Will he, however, signal early on to the Joint Committee our willingness to extend the grace period for food, noting the highly pragmatic easement that Dublin has applied? Long term, will he deal with the nonsense—the bureaucratic nonsense—of requiring highly qualified veterinary surgeons to do basic routine sanitary checks?

[Michael Gove]

Very good points. It is in the interests of the European Union to make the protocol work because, as I mentioned earlier, it is subject to democratic consent, and if it is not working then the people of Northern Ireland will reject it, but it is important. It is my responsibility, in the meantime, to do everything possible to make the lives of people in Northern Ireland easier, and my right hon. Friend’s points both about easements and grace periods I entirely endorse.

EU Withdrawal Agreement

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. For Cumbrian farmers, and also for manufacturers in Barrow, we will be doing everything possible to get the best possible set of arrangements.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

The temporary food waiver for trusted traders is very much to be welcomed and my right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on securing it, but may I press him a little on the detail of what will then follow, because businesses need certainty? What he has had to say will of course be welcome to the big supermarkets, but smaller operators, small shops and street traders, on whom the great Ulster fry depends so much, will still be left in a level of uncertainty, particularly if they are not signed up to the trusted trader scheme. Will he say to what extent the trusted trader scheme will extend to small operators of that sort?

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend, who was an outstanding Northern Ireland Minister, is absolutely right. Once the Joint Committee concludes, we will go into more detail on exactly how we can safeguard the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises as well. We will notify the Commission of those businesses that need to take advantage of the grace period that we have got.