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.

Public Health

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I find myself more able to support the Government today than I was on 5 November, and the reason for that is that last month I was concerned about the lack of a plan B and the fact that we might have to have such a thing in the event of the prospect of a third, fourth or fifth wave of this terrible virus. It seems that we are now on the brink of a game changer, in a way that perhaps we could not be confident about last month. That is important, because in the event that we can turn this around in the near future, the need for protected isolation falls away. It is for that reason that I see the logic of what the Government are attempting to do on this occasion, in a way that was eluding me ever so slightly on 5 November. The other thing that probably gets it over the line for me is that the UK appears, with what is proposed for tomorrow onwards, to be doing more or less the same as other similar jurisdictions. That is not just followership; it is important because each one of those countries, with all their experts, will have been making similar assessments and coming to broadly the same conclusions.

We saw in the leaked documents in October that our hospitals in the south-west and the midlands would have been the first to go over capacity. There is a big difference between the two, however, in that the prevalence of the disease in the midlands was much larger than in the south-west. The documents suggested that the hospitals in the south-west would have been overwhelmed on 9 November and the Nightingales on 24 November. In the event, at peak, my largest hospital, the Royal United Hospital in Bath, had 70 cases, and that was on 24 November, 19 days after lockdown. That seems to vindicate the model, the action and even perhaps the broadbrush tiering approach now being proposed by the Government, apropos the point about the midlands and the south-west.

In all this, we have to understand that there is a huge margin of uncertainty. We also need to understand that the facts are changing all the time. I say to some of my colleagues that we have to accept that sometimes there is no evidence in the way that maths, physics and chemistry provide us with evidence, and that we have to deal instead with what appears to be biologically plausible. We have to look at outbreak studies, and we have to look at the application of common sense to anecdote. I, too, am disappointed that the proposed tiering system has so little granularity. We have found, to our dismay, that the tools to do comprehensive contact tracing that would have facilitated such granularity are simply no longer there. Even Germany is now finding that to be the case. In two weeks’ time, it is to be hoped that we will have been able to appraise the situation against the five points, plus the knowledge of human geography that we facilitated with the restrictive measures we put in place earlier this year, and that, where appropriate, boroughs and districts will be able to be re-tiered to the satisfaction of colleagues.

The fundamental problem is our lack of public health capacity, and that is something we need to address in the longer term, notwithstanding the positive early steps the Government have taken at pace in relation to things such as the Joint Biosecurity Centre and the National Institute for Health Protection. Finally, in agreeing with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), I would say that the Prime Minister is no natural Grinch, but we have to be very careful that we do not have five days of partying over Christmas only to regret it in January.

Public Health

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I have looked at the Leicester figures frequently; they do go up and down, but Leicester has never come out of the restrictions. It is a point that I have been making, and it is not a party political one. The point is that if an area is in restrictions and does not come out, the restrictions are not working. If an area was in tier 2 restrictions and ends up in tier 3, tier 2 did not work. To go back to that system does not make any sense. For heaven’s sake, we have got to use the next four weeks to come up with something better than that for 2 December, otherwise we will do the usual thing, which is to pretend that something is going to happen on 2 December, and then, when we get there, find out that what we said would happen will not happen. I can predict what is going happen because it has happened so many times in the past seven months: the Prime Minister says, “x won’t happen”; x will happen; it does happen; and we start all over again. It is not fair to the British public to pretend that something is going to happen on 2 December.

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

Is not the right hon. and learned Gentleman confounding his own logic? He has spent the past several days berating the Government for not introducing a circuit breaker, but at no time did I hear him explain how we would leave the circuit breaker, which it seems to me was simply the half-term holiday rebadged.

[Keir Starmer]

The lower the rate of infection and the lower the admissions, the more chance there is to get the virus under control. That is why you have to go early. If you want to safeguard the economy, go early. How on earth has it helped the British economy to delay and to go into a lockdown for four weeks when, on 21 September, SAGE was saying it could be two to three weeks? How on earth has it helped the British economy to miss the chance to do lockdown over half-term?

All Members will have seen the data about schools. We all want schools to stay open. How on earth did it make sense to miss half-term? Most schools would happily have said, “We’ll get up early—the Thursday before half-term—and we’ll use Monday and Tuesday as inset days,” and we could probably have got the best part of two weeks of schools being closed naturally, because of half-term, and have the lockdown over then. I do not think there can be anybody in this House who does not think that would have been a better period for a circuit break, lockdown—call it what you like.

It has not helped the economy to waste three weeks. If, at the end of those three weeks, the Prime Minister could say, “Well, there we are—the tiered system is now working, and I’m going to stick with it,” that would be one thing, but the Prime Minister is now saying, “I am going to do the lockdown,” which is failure. That is failure.

The next four weeks cannot be wasted—cannot be wasted. We have got to fix test, trace and isolate. The last figures show that, in just one week, 113,000 contacts were missed by the system. Four in 10 people who should be contacted are not being contacted under the system. If you are not contacted, you cannot isolate. It is not just a number; that is 113,000 people walking round our communities when they should have been self-isolating. Hands up if you think that has helped to control the virus.

We have been on about the track, trace and isolate system for months. The promises come by the wheelbarrow, the delivery never. Only 20% of people who should be isolating are doing it. Something is going wrong. Just continually pushing away challenge and pretending the problem does not exist is a huge part of the problem. Those figures have got to turn around, and they have got to turn around in the next four weeks. If we get to 2 December and those problems are still in the system, we will be going round this circuit for many months to come. If this is not fixed in the next four weeks, there are massive problems.

The Government have also got to stop sending constant mixed messages: “Go back to work, even if you can work from home,” or “Civil servants, get to work,” only a week later to say, “Stay at home.” The constant changing of the economic plans is creating even more uncertainty. There have been huge mistakes made in recent weeks during this pandemic. We have been told so many times by the Prime Minister, often on a Wednesday afternoon, that there is a plan to prevent a second wave—it is working. Well, there was not, and it did not.

Now, less than four months after the Prime Minister told us that this would all be over by Christmas, we are being asked to approve emergency regulations to shut the country down. That is a terrible thing for the country to go through, but there is not any excuse for inaction or for allowing the virus to get further out of control, so Labour will act in the national interest, and we will vote for these restrictions—these regulations—tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

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

May I start by apologising for reading a newspaper during the Prime Minister’s contribution? Mr Speaker was quite right. However, I was not, in my defence, reading my horoscope, even if the Prime Minister kindly did. I wonder whether, in mitigation, I could bring to the House’s attention the headline that I was reading in the Metro this morning, which says, “Vaccine on front line in a month”. Just imagine my excitement at reading that. I hope that the Metro is correct, but I gently point out to those on the Front Bench that, in the event that it is not correct and we do not get a game changer soon, we will seriously have to think about a plan B. In the few minutes available to me, I shall explain why I think that is the case.

Irrespective of the Prime Minister’s kind remarks about my future career prospects, I will be supporting the Government this evening. I cannot think of a single issue since 2003 that has occupied me quite as much as this, and I have agonised over my choice. I am going to support the Government because it hinges on one thing for me, which is that schools are remaining open, which I have discussed with the Secretary of State. In the light of evidence produced by Ackland et al in Edinburgh, it seems to me that it would be foolhardy to close down schools based on deaths to do with covid, due to the consequences of such an extraordinary move. It is the right decision to keep schools open and prioritise them, and it is for that reason that I will be supporting the Government this evening.

I will also be supporting the Government this evening because it seems to me that, broadly speaking, they are doing the same thing that other jurisdictions are doing, and there is safety in numbers. I will be supporting the Government too because of the wide margin of uncertainty that attends all this and a sense of some humility in trying to examine all this complicated material and make sense of it. Finally, I shall be supporting the Government because I know that the Prime Minister, who shares many of the libertarian instincts that I hold, has pushed back as much as he can on some of the advice that has been given to him. I find that convincing, and if I was in any doubt, having analysed the data over the weekend, that has pushed me over the line in the decision I have made.

I am concerned about the clarity of data and the logistics chains for the vaccine that the Metro hopes will be with us within a month. As the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care knows, I am concerned because I have granular evidence from my constituency that the organisations that can provide the wherewithal to guarantee the cold chain necessary for the distribution of the vaccine have not yet been tapped into. I cite the company Polar Thermal in my constituency, which is a leader in this technology and has yet to be contacted.

I am concerned about the lack of a plan B. Plan B has been made all the more possible by the advent of lateral flow testing technology, which will facilitate focused protection if necessary, and we need to give much closer thought to that. I am concerned about places of collective worship. I am concerned about non-contact sports such as tennis and golf. I understand the logic behind proscribing those activities, but we have to treat the British public as adults and individuals with autonomy and agency. I respectfully disagree with the decisions that have been made on those fronts, and I hope very much, particularly if this sadly has to be continued beyond the beginning of December, that they are looked at again.

Covid-19 Update

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Clearly, the most important thing is that the R should get below 1.

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

Seasonal flu deaths for the past two years have been relatively light, which means that, in the normal course of things, we would expect a hard winter, noting that in 2014-15 there were 26,000 deaths and in 2017-18 there were 28,000. I appreciate that the Government are doing everything they can to increase the number of vaccinations, but given that we can vaccinate against that disease, unlike covid, will the Prime Minister redouble his efforts to ensure that those who are vulnerable this winter get the flu vaccine that they need?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. That is why I encourage everybody who is vulnerable to get a flu vaccine now, and that is why we have 30 million available.

British Overseas Troops: Civil Liability Claims

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that constructive point. Let me be clear: I am absolutely happy to amend the legislation on the suggestion of any hon. Member to get it right, but it has to be based on fact and reality. The armed forces compensation scheme has a seven-year limit on it anyway. The Limitation Act 1980 also limits the time in which claims can be brought. If hon. Members want to discuss that more widely, clearly that is a broader issue. All we are doing is bringing into line our military personnel and veterans’ experiences.

I will be honest that I cannot, off the top of my head, think why individuals would be diagnosed and choose not to do anything about it, then choose to do something about it much later. I have not come across that in all my experience in the field, but I am happy to learn. If that is the case, I am happy to change the Bill, but that is not what experience shows us. I urge hon. Members to come up with constructive criticism and debate, so that we can really work on the Bill to get it right, because we all agree that we need to do it.

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

I welcome the spirit of the Bill. To congratulate the Minister, I will send him a copy of my book, “Tommy This an’ Tommy That: The military covenant”. He has done well to bring it thus far, but it is tipped to be heavily amended as it progresses through this place, not least because of Judge Jeff Blackett’s remarks. I press the Minister to look again at part 2, because it seems to me that the “no disadvantage” enjoinder within the military covenant is in danger of being overlooked. I know that he would not want to see that.

[Johnny Mercer]

I am more than happy to look at any part of the Bill, but as I am also bringing in legislation to make the armed forces covenant law and make it actually mean something, it would be quite bizarre for me to bring in another Bill that reduced it. I will, of course, look at that, but I do not accept that the Bill brings any disadvantage to those who have served.

Civil Service Appointments

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is precisely because we do want a good deal that negotiations are being intensified. That decision was taken by the Prime Minister and by the Presidents of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. We all wish those involved bonne chance.

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

I very much welcome the appointment of David Frost, who is well qualified for the roles that my right hon. Friend has outlined. At the weekend in a Government press release, David Frost is said to have said that he is particularly exercised by the importance of the integrated review and the formation of the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. What role does my right hon. Friend envisage for David Frost in the formation of that very welcome new Department? When will the new permanent secretary be appointed to the Department? Does my right hon. Friend agree that he or she has to be an excellent change manager? What relationship will David Frost have to the new perm sec?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very thoughtful set of questions from a very successful previous Minister in the Foreign Office. It is right that the integrated review should look at how diplomacy, aid, and defence and security mesh. He is right that David Frost’s experience equips him well for that role. There will be no single individual who will be reviewing these matters. There will be a range of people, including existing civil servants. I should add that one of those is also involved as another political appointee in the Prime Minister’s policy unit—a biographer of Clement Attlee. I am sure that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) would agree that that is a qualification for high office.

Northern Ireland Protocol: UK Approach

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I do not think we need an extension to make the processes work. We just need good will on all sides.

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

The arrangements that my right hon. Friend has described are potentially good news for businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland and a great opportunity but may I press him on what he describes as very minimal checks? Does he mean the 4% of imports that are currently checked coming into the United Kingdom and the 1% that are physically checked? Does he mean more or less than that? Clearly, the European Union thinks that substantial checks will be required, presumably exceeding those levels, because it is setting up a bureaucracy in Belfast to cope with it.

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about the number of checks that are currently required as goods move into the United Kingdom, often from jurisdictions that do not have such high SPS standards as we uphold. We will continue to have high SPS standards, so the proportion of physical checks required is almost certain to be fewer than are currently required for goods coming from outside.