Africa: New Approach

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I thank my hon. Friend both for his kind words about the diplomatic service and for his own diligent efforts as trade envoy to southern Africa, which I know is yielding real results. He is right that there is a real desire for serious engagement on economic issues. We see in his work and the work of many other trade envoys the potential for further growth in Africa, and the Foreign Office will remain focused on it.

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

Since it is nearly Christmas, and in the spirit of goodwill, may I congratulate the Government on changing and updating the UK language on the Western Sahara? What will the Government now do to ensure that the good progress we have made since the 2019 association agreement with Morocco is sustained and improves further both our bilateral trade and our mutual security?

[Mr Falconer]

In the spirit of Christmas, I thank my predecessor for that important and helpful question. I know the House will be aware both of the shift in position on Western Sahara announced by the previous Foreign Secretary and of our vote in the recent Security Council deliberations about the future negotiations over Western Sahara. The UN special envoy, Mr de Mistura, retains our full confidence. He is working hard to try to advance talks. It is vital to try to bring to a close this long-running conflict and impediment to greater unity in north Africa, and we hope to see progress in the coming months.

Chagossians: Trust Fund and Resettlement

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

The hon. Gentleman will know that I have been asked an urgent question about the trust fund. That is what I have come prepared to talk about. I am sure that the relevant Minister, in the plenty of opportunities he has had before and no doubt the House will give him again, will answer further questions about the UN report. We have undertaken this process soberly and seriously. We recognise that the Members on the Conservative Benches who started this process had views. We are now trying to follow the process through. We will, of course, accord with international law throughout.

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

After a string of high profile corruption cases across Mauritius, what confidence does the Minister have that the bounty he is about to bestow on the Mauritian Government, including on the Chagossian trust fund, will be spent appropriately and will not end up in the pockets of corrupt officials and politicians?

[Mr Falconer]

As I set out in my response to the shadow Foreign Secretary, the trust fund will have a majority of Chagossians on it and a chair appointed by the Chagossians. The conduct of the trust fund will also be observed by our own high commission.

Venezuela: US Military

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for providing an opportunity for me to give a slightly fuller commentary. The UK is clear that the outcome of the 2024 presidential elections in Venezuela was neither free nor fair, and therefore Nicolás Maduro’s claim to power is fraudulent. While the National Electoral Council of Venezuela has not yet published the results of the elections, the results published by the opposition appear to show Edmundo González securing the most votes in the presidential election by a significant margin. Clearly, proper process and a free and fair election is the way to determine the leadership in Venezuela.

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

On data sharing with our allies, does the Minister agree that signals intelligence and human intelligence are not a pick and mix when it comes to the Five Eyes community? Will he assure the House that we will continue to provide the information that the US needs in order to deal with Venezuelan cocaine, most of which lands up in Europe? I need not remind the Minister that cocaine deaths in this country were up by a third in 2022-23. Will he ensure that we do not apply an overly lawyerly approach in our dealings with an ally doing its best to tackle the scourge of drugs in the US and the rest of Europe, and in particular on the streets of Britain?

[Mr Falconer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman—my predecessor—for his question. The Government stand by the principles of international law. I will not provide a detailed commentary on intelligence matters, obviously, but I will say that the Five Eyes remains a vital, vibrant and free-flowing intelligence sharing arrangement that allows us to tackle a range of threats. That includes the illegal drug trade, which is having such an impact in both America and the UK; like many others across the House, I see that impact in my constituency.

Conflict in Sudan

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

As the House will know, genocide determinations are, in the view of the British Government, a question for the competent courts. That does not in any way take away from the horror of what we see and the reports that we receive, including the World Health Organisation reports from early last week, which are absolutely horrifying about the scale of the violence taking place in Sudan.

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

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?

[Mr Falconer]

My right hon. Friend—my predecessor—makes an important point about the role of what was known as the Wagner Group and is now Africa Corps. It has suffered some setbacks in the region, not least in Syria, but it continues to play a deeply malign role. We are focused on what Russian support is doing to that part of the world, and it is all malign. We will continue to bear down on those questions in the way he would expect.

Gaza and Hamas

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I think my hon. Friend refers to the ICJ advisory opinion in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As the House will be aware, there has been another advisory opinion from the ICJ more recently in relation to aid accessing Gaza. Assuming that she is asking about the former, we have made significant decisions since that advisory opinion—not least on the recognition of the Palestinian state. I clarify once again for the House that no British weaponry is used either in Gaza or in the west bank, other than subject to the messages relating to F-35s that we have discussed previously.

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

The Minister quite rightly said that Hamas must disarm and that there can be no place for Hamas in the future of Gaza, yet the White House appears to be licensing Hamas to conduct internal security operations. What conversations is he having with his US counterparts to reconcile the UK position, which he clearly outlined, and that of the US?

[Mr Falconer]

As the right hon. Member knows, disarmament is usually a process. It takes time and requires serious and greatly complex technical work. We want to ensure that Gaza is free of Hamas and that Hamas are disarmed. That will take time, and it is the work that we and the Americans are engaged in.

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.

Qatar: Israeli Strike

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I am disappointed that my hon. Friend’s constituent did not reserve a cookie for me, but I am grateful for the important question that she asks. For the reasons I set out before, it is important that we continue to engage directly with the Israeli Government, particularly on questions such as the evacuation of vulnerable people from Gaza, on which Israel’s co-operation is essential for any further progress.

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

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?

[Mr Falconer]

Even in advance of the events yesterday, nations in the region that had taken the step of signing the Abraham accords were signalling disquiet, most obviously and signally the United Arab Emirates, which released an important statement on this question. I will not seek to speak for our Arab allies, but I am sure that they will be looking at the events yesterday with great concern, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will have seen the number of statements that have issued from the region over the last 24 hours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

My hon. Friend asks a vital question, which I raised directly with the Syrian Minister of Justice and the Syrian Foreign Minister last week. The violence—in coastal regions, targeting Alawites, and in Suwayda in the south, targeting Druze and others—was deeply concerning. The Syrians have conducted an investigation relatively independently in relation to the violence at the coast. I called on them, as the Foreign Secretary has done before, to do everything they can to ensure that minorities in the new Syria feel safe and protected by the Syrian Government.

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

Despite the strategic dialogue referred to by the Foreign Secretary, the Government have decided to veto the UK-Morocco power project, so what are they doing in practical terms to maintain the momentum in our relationship created by the association agreement signed with Morocco in 2019?

[Mr Lammy]

There was no veto. It is right that the Government look at all projects through a value-for-money lens. I was very pleased to be in Morocco, I remain engaged with its Foreign Minister, and I will build on that strategic visit. There is much to do over the coming months.

Middle East

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I reassure my hon. Friend that we are not at risk—we are not complicit. I am a former lawyer, and I study these things closely. I ask her to look closely at what we have done in relation to other Governments; we do not act unilaterally, but I think we are holding up pretty well. I wish the situation on the ground had changed. It has not yet changed, but we will continue to do everything we can to bring this war to an end.

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

Happy birthday, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The law of armed conflict is hardwired into the behaviour of our military, and we should demand the same of our friends and allies. Israel is our friend and ally. What assurances has the Foreign Secretary therefore had from his colleagues in the Ministry of Defence that they have gained from their Israeli interlocutors the assurances that we need that the 40 or 50 incidents involving the IDF on the west bank and in Gaza since 2023 will be brought to a proper conclusion, and that any wrongdoing is held to account?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman put his opening remarks very well, and I would accord with them. We need proper independent scrutiny of some of this behaviour. We did call for that, by the way, for the awful atrocity involving the World Central Kitchen staff, where British nationals lost their lives, and we await an update from the advocate general. I understand that the Israelis have said there will be an investigation into the incidents we saw last week, but there are many for which it is not clear that there will be an investigation. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to put this centre stage, which is, of course, something I do when I speak to the Israeli Government.

Middle East

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Before I call the next speaker, let me say that I heard some unacceptable comments directed at a Member in this Chamber, and I will not be having that. We are investigating it. Until I find out from the Clerks who said those words, please do be assured that I will investigate it.

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

The Foreign Secretary, at the beginning of his remarks, mentioned the savagery unfolding in southern Syria, and said that he had spoken to his Syrian interlocuter, Minister al-Shaibani, about it. Has he spoken to Tel Aviv about it, since the only country that has visibly come to the assistance of the Druze, for all the criticism that has been rightly aimed at it, is Israel? If he has, can he say what his assessment is of the wisdom or otherwise of the action that Israel has taken?

[Mr Lammy]

The UK is clear that we expect Israel to adhere to its commitment that its presence in the area of separation in the south is both limited and temporary. I did press the Israeli Foreign Minister on Israel’s activity, which I worry destabilises the situation further.