Ambassador to the United States

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

The right hon. Gentleman raises some important points. The power of Select Committees to summon witnesses has been an ongoing debate, and I suspect we have not resolved it yet. He also raises the matter of Privy Counsellors; our Committee has myself and another Privy Council member. The difficulty is that if we were offered Privy Council briefings, as we are sometimes, it is quite difficult, because we want to be able to do those things in public and inform the public of the work of the Foreign Office to ensure that when difficult decisions are being made, they understand why those decisions are being made, with all the factors involved in that. That is fine; I think we need to trust the public more than we sometimes do. We certainly need to trust Back Benchers more than we sometimes do.

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

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?

[Emily Thornberry]

I think it is difficult to have answers to all the right hon. Gentleman’s questions at the moment. I think the most important thing is that lessons are learned, and even if all due process was followed and the inquiries were proceeded with to the letter, they clearly are not good enough and we need to change them. Either due process was not followed or it was and we need to change it. Either way, we need to work together to ensure that this never happens again, because something went very wrong.