Dr Andrew Murrison
MP for South West Wiltshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“It is good to hear that the Government plan to replenish the dwindling stocks of Patriot missiles in Ukraine, which I suspect it will need this winter. However, Patriot is low volume and high cost. What the Ukrainians need is high volume and low cost.”
“Currently, the Royal Navy has an offshore patrol vessel permanently stationed in the Falkland Islands, but given the threat that is being faced and our need to demonstrate resolve—the sort of thing that, sadly, we did not demonstrate in the early 1980s, which led to miscalculation—will the Minister consider speaking to her MOD colleagues…”
“Since the Foreign Secretary is not going to get the co-operation, fulsome or otherwise, of the Israeli state in differentiating goods and services made in the settlements from those that are assembled, repackaged, produced and grown in Israel itself, how is he going to distinguish the one from the other?”
“The Government insisted on applying the social time preference rate to the disastrous Chagos deal to make an appalling deal look slightly better.”
“Will the First Secretary of State’s exercise in delivering democracy and local accountability and empowering local people include a look at large organisations that cannot be described as governmental or as quangos but that nevertheless exist firmly within the public domain, are established by statute, serve the public and are big employe…”
“I congratulate the Government on the hiring of Alistair Burt—he is a good hire and will do great things for some of these most complex of cases—but does the Minister agree that many of these cases are extremely difficult and exceptionally traumatic, and that it is far better to prevent them happening in the first place?”
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“That means that out-of-county provision is bound to continue, that projected spend on the new school will be greatly exceeded, or that the new school will very quickly become overcrowded, or, more likely, a combination of all three. The plans anticipate no sixth form. Instead reliance will be placed on the county’s further education college, Wiltshire College, for 16 to 19 provision, together with a vaguely defined private provision. No further details are given. For example, we do not know how many days a week pupils aged 16 to 19 will have. All this is of great concern as SEN pupils across the UK have been let down historically in our system in the transition from school to adulthood—from school to life as supported young people in the community. Provision for 16 to 19 is absolutely crucial in this transition.”
“The council wants to remedy this out-of-county placement situation by creating a new school with 350 places serving the north of the county. Although the way that the numbers are presented in the consultation documents makes comparison very difficult, 350 places seems inadequate to cope with the planned closures, the out-of-county placements and the growth that is projected given local population increases, housing demand, and the recently announced moves of the residue of the British Army in Germany largely to Wiltshire and the need to accommodate them. Even by its own arithmetic, the council appears to be set on under-provision.”
“The school community understands that, which is why it is so opposed to the local authority’s prescription. It is clear that, being strapped for cash, the council has to balance the books. Rightly, it worries about the financial deficits that have been projected for each of the special educational needs schools, but deficits are projected at several mainstream schools, too, and nobody is suggesting that the solution is to close them. The county’s financial position is not helped by its having to place 300 special educational needs pupils outside Wiltshire because of the long-standing insufficiency of in-county provision. Those of us who represent seats in Wiltshire will be well used to people attending our advice surgeries to discuss that.”
“That would be a very big school by SEN standards, and many of us have concerns about that, because this particular subset of the school population undoubtedly benefits from a provision that is more intimate than perhaps would be necessary for their mainstream compatriots. That would necessarily not be the case were this big school to be created in place of the ones it would replace. The council refers to the big school as a centre of excellence, but my contention is that we already have a centre of excellence in my constituency—it is called Larkrise School. The claim is made that Larkrise is bursting at the seams and that its facilities and equipment are insufficient, but there is more to a school than bricks and mortar, and there is more to a special school than hoists.”
“I of course agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was once a governor at a special school, before I was elected. If I reflect on the provision then and the provision now, I am quite clear that matters have improved, but that does not mean to say that we should be complacent. What the hon. Gentleman said is correct: we need to ensure that every child has the ability to reach his or her potential. That is as true of a mainstream child who is going to become a doctor or a lawyer—or even a politician—as it is for a child at a special needs school whose horizons, in a classic sense, are necessarily going to be rather more limited. They are equally important and their potential needs to be maximised. The proposition before the council is that it closes two schools and builds a big school on the site of a third one.”
“I applaud it for that—I really do—but I also believe that it has temporarily lost its sense of direction. Its plans to close Larkrise School and for a new super-school are plain wrong. Its action and its conduct in this matter is wholly out of character. I expect the council to respond to the consultation fully and openly—”
“Local campaigners have produced a helpful map to evidence precisely that. Wiltshire Council is rightly concerned about the number of SEN out-of-county placements and the cost, but it is not clear that the new mega-school will help. By the council’s own figures, it will be inadequate to satisfy demand. The council has not published evidence that it has consulted with other local authorities to see whether a model based on collaboration might be possible given that the administrative borders hold very little interest for a mum or dad trying to get their child to school. In many ways, Wiltshire Council has been showing the way. It has grasped the 2014 Act imaginatively and worked on its version of the local offer, from birth to 25, all the way to placement in the community.”
“The council has made great play of getting more therapists into the proposed new school, and it is right to want to improve the level of service for children in school, but it is not clear how that will happen, since the principal difficulty with therapists right now, as I am sure my hon. Friends will agree, is a county-wide shortage of suitably trained staff. How will the council magic up physios, occupational therapists, and speech and language specialists at the new establishment when it cannot at existing schools? To what extent has it taken into account the disincentive introduced by increased travel-to-work times for them? As a rule, therapists are not wealthy people. They tend not to live in premium price market towns such as Devizes and associated villages. They do live in larger settlements such as Trowbridge and Chippenham.”
“For the parents of a mainstream schoolchild, getting their child to school may be difficult, but for the parents of a child with special educational needs, it can be a preoccupation. It can be the cause of anxiety, distress and behavioural difficulties, and it can be the key focus of the parents’ day. Sometimes we forget how vital it is to ensure that the impact of travel-to-school times is minimised in order to enhance the quality of these young people’s school experience. That is why the council needs to think again about the plan to replace the three schools with one school, as it seems intuitive that that will increase the trauma that travel to school causes.”
“I am particularly grateful for my hon. Friend’s presence here today, and the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham. I join my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) in welcoming the extra money that is going into special educational needs, and I commend the council for that, but it is counterintuitive to suppose that the replacement of effectively three schools with one at Rowdeford would reduce travel times. It has been a constant throughout my 18 years as a Member of Parliament that transport is the overwhelming preoccupation of parents with children at special needs schools. It is difficult for many of us who do not have direct contact with children with special education needs to understand how important it is.”
“I expect the council to respond to the consultation fully and openly, and I expect it to be prepared to change course in accordance with the intent and the ethos of the 2014 legislation. I extend an invitation to the Minister to visit Wiltshire to see the good work that has been done and to better understand the SEN vision of service users, their families, and staff. I invite him, furthermore, to visit Larkrise School—a good school, according to Ofsted—and to view the council-owned site next door on Ashton Street that is the very obvious place to spend some of the £20 million to expand provision in Wiltshire. I hope that he will apply his good offices to assist the council in matching its very good intentions with a plan that genuinely improves the lives of the vulnerable young people I have the very great privilege to represent.”
“My right hon. Friend is right to say that this is not simply a matter of uplifting the amount of funding to education or healthcare; this is also about trying to work out how best to spend that money. Will any of the £4 million in transformation funding that she identified last month be used to try to work out how the footprint of the education and healthcare estate might be better utilised?”
“As always, I am following all the hon. Gentleman has to say with a great deal of interest. He has mentioned victims, and he is right to do so. Will he say whether he would include within his definition of a victim those who are victims by virtue of actions by their own hand?”
“I do appreciate that this is a sensitive point. In saying that, however, does the hon. Gentleman accept that he is condoning criminality, because that is what compensating criminals would be? It is an extraordinary thing—indeed, I would say, an unprecedented thing in this country—that the state should seek to compensate those who damage themselves by their own hand while engaged in terroristic activities.”
“It is often forgotten in this mix, but it has done an excellent job in trying to keep things going. Clearly, I welcome the Bill, which is largely of a technical nature, but I share the concerns expressed about scrutiny. I am not entirely clear that this measure should be dealt with as an urgent matter, as referred to in paragraph 27 of the guidance notes. It could have been far more elective than that. Scrutiny is important. I accept that the Secretary of State is avoiding at all costs making decisions on important matters relating to Northern Ireland that are properly devolved, but this place has to assume some responsibility for scrutiny of these important matters, and I am not sure we are doing justice to that process.”
“Like the Secretary of State, I hope that we restore the Executive in the near future—more in hope than expectation—and I understand why she is behaving as she is in trying to keep the ship on an even keel while trying not to interfere in matters that are properly devolved. It is a dilemma she faces on a daily basis. She well knows that the longer this goes on, the more the people of Northern Ireland suffer and the more their lived experience deteriorates. In that context, I congratulate once again the Northern Ireland civil service and David Sterling. It is important to do that. This is unprecedented, and Northern Ireland should be very proud of its civil service. I also thank and commend the work of the Northern Ireland Office under the strong leadership of Sir Jonathan Stephens.”
“I welcome the Secretary of State’s hard work over the past several months in trying to resolve the impasse at Stormont. She has worked tirelessly. If I may be ever so slightly critical of the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), I think he is being a little harsh—uncharacteristically —about the efforts of the Government to restart this process and about the Prime Minister’s efforts. I do not particularly appreciate shuttle diplomacy of the sort we have seen in the past—there are other more effective ways of achieving the same end—but he has to accept the extraordinary difficulty that currently pertains in Northern Ireland and the intransigence of some of the actors therein.”
“It is of concern, obviously, when money is transferred from capital to revenue, because it implies that there will be a backlog in due course of capital spend not being done at the moment that will have to be made good in the fullness of time. Will the Minister say why the Executive Office vote is being uplifted by 4.4%? On the face of it that seems remarkable, and, knowing how eager the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) is to scrutinise these areas, she might have it in mind to press Ministers further on this when she speaks. It is remarkable that when we do not have an Executive in place, the Executive Office should be having an uplift of 4.4%. I would have thought the reverse would be the case.”
“What is important however is that, wherever we can, we make sure we have some level of scrutiny, and that is why in its small way my Select Committee has taken upon itself investigations into health and education, and will be reporting very shortly. I wonder whether the Secretary of State, or the Minister who replies, can update the House on what the £130 million transferred from capital for the next financial year to deal with public service resource pressures is being spent on. It has been referred to already and is a substantial sum of money. We really do need some level of granularity to ensure that money is best spent on areas where it will have the biggest impact.”
“We have heard in our Committee about issues to do with education, and I think we will be drawn to conclude that the footprint is part of the problem. All these things in all our constituencies up and down the country would ordinarily be matters of acute political interest in which politicians would be heavily involved, and there would be public meetings and all manner of things. The hon. Member for Rochdale who speaks for the Opposition was absolutely right to draw that comparison in his opening remarks, because were this to happen in my constituency I know I would be attending public meetings and doing all sorts of things that simply do not happen in Northern Ireland because of the absence of normal politics there at the moment.”
“I welcome the real-terms increase for health and education. My Select Committee has taken the view that it should get involved in both those areas. They are both areas that in the normal way of things we would be firmly told to set aside since they are devolved matters, but nobody else is looking at these particularly important areas of public policy at the moment and we have taken that as licence to exert some level of scrutiny. It has been very clear to us that not only is transformation needed in both areas, but that we need to look at making root-and-branch changes particularly in relation to footprint, to ensure that public money is spent properly and outcomes are improved. In healthcare in particular, outcomes in Northern Ireland are really not good at all. The people of Northern Ireland deserve much better.”
““Transformation” is very politically loaded, because it implies that something is being transformed into something else. It is important to know what is in the minds of those who are doing the transforming. I know that £4 million is not a great deal of money, but it would be useful to know what it is being spent on, because it implies a particular direction in terms of the outcomes that are being sought. I understand from what has been said previously that it is intended to make public services more sustainable. “Sustainable” is one of those words that sound innocuous, but it does imply change, and when change impacts on public services, it becomes politically contentious and, again, politically loaded. We therefore need to be told in a reasonable amount of detail how that relatively small sum is being disbursed.”
“Those projects are unobjectionable and I believe that everyone in Northern Ireland wants to see them, so I think that the Secretary of State is on very safe ground. Nevertheless, they are big infrastructure projects, which, in the normal course of things, would be subject to intense scrutiny one way or the other. That scrutiny clearly cannot come from Stormont, as Stormont is not working, but it falls to someone, and it really falls to us, because we are the default position. I am not clear in my mind that those big projects, and the planned expenditure on them, are being given the scrutiny that they deserve. At the risk of being accused of being a pedant, I should like the Minister, when he sums up the debate, to clarify what the £4 million allocated to transformation is being spent on. I alluded to that earlier in a brief intervention.”
“Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire pointed out, surely the job of this place is ultimately to scrutinise, and this 70% uplift is somewhat unusual. I therefore particularly regret the lack of opportunity that we are having—and, if I may say so, my Select Committee is having—to delve into why the uplift is needed. It may be expedient, but expediency is not necessarily sufficient. I also accept that the Bill does not imply any particular decisions, political or otherwise, except, of course the so-called flagship projects to which the Secretary of State referred in her written ministerial statement on 28 February, which include the A6, the York street interchange and the mother and children’s hospital.”
“Very few of us who have anything to do with Northern Ireland will not be impressed by the sense there that people are being let down by their political class, and that is an indictment of us all. I will not pin the blame on any one party or set of politicians, but it is incumbent on us all to ensure that proper governance is restored to Northern Ireland at the earliest available opportunity. I accept the arguments for the uplift in the vote on account for the financial year 2019-20, because that strikes me as a pragmatic way ahead, but it is quite unusual. Of course I accept everything that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has to say—she is a person of great honour and integrity—but, as my hon.”
“However, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) that the whole thing is unsatisfactory. I suspect that if the Secretary of State were answering his point, she would say that the solution is very straightforward, and it is the restoration of the Executive. I must say that I worry about the state of Northern Ireland and where it is going, given the lack of Ministers. The public are often rather cynical about us politicians, but I think this process has shown that Ministers have utility in improving people’s lives. David Sterling himself has referred to “slow decay and stagnation” in Northern Ireland. Those are strong words, and I take them very seriously: I think he is absolutely right.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. We are in uncharted waters. It is difficult to hold to account Ministers who are not making decisions. It is not clear where accountability lies in this process. I hesitate to say we are making it up as we go along—clearly that would be unfair—but it is difficult to know precisely whom to hold to account, which is the job of this place. Of course we have organisations such as the Northern Ireland Audit Office, which does its best to ensure that public funds are being disbursed in a reasonable manner, and there are other mechanisms for Members to attempt to shed light on the position and hold the Executive to account. Ultimately that process may end up in the courts through judicial review, but the Secretary of State is very keen for that not to happen, hence the guidance that she issued recently.”
“Members in something of an invidious position, because we do not have the level of detail or granularity that we deserve. Paragraph 27 of the guidance notes claims that the Bill needs to be implemented “urgently”. I think it probably does, and I sincerely hope that it is passed this evening, but this really should not happen at the expense of scrutiny.”
“Again, that is highly politically sensitive stuff, and almost certainly involves projects that will be warmly welcomed by the people of Northern Ireland, but our job is scrutiny, and one way or the other, scrutiny must be done. I fear that it is not being done at the moment. We are sort of being asked to sign this off, although the Secretary of State is saying that she has no input into decision making within this process. Nevertheless, the mere fact that we have a Bill before us today means that we have to accept some level of responsibility. I am left with a sinking feeling that I do not have the information necessary to do this confidently, yet it needs to be done, because the consequences of not doing it would be immense. This is putting right hon. and hon.”
“That is perfectly right and proper, and to use that trajectory to guide spending is perfectly legitimate, but that justification obviously falls away in relation to confidence and supply money; the guidebook is not there, which makes it of particular interest. For example, under the non-ring-fenced resource departmental expenditure limit—RDEL—£100 million is being allowed for health transformation. Health transformation is surely needed, but it is politically sensitive. We in this place really do deserve to know how that money is being spent, but we are none the wiser. Under CDEL—the capital departmental expenditure limit—there is £200 million for infrastructure.”
“Yes, I very much do, and if the hon. Gentleman wants to attend my Adjournment debate tomorrow on the subject of special educational needs in Wiltshire, perhaps he will find some commonality between his situation and my own as a constituency MP. [Interruption.] I am looking forward to the contribution of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon); I would be very disappointed if he did not contribute to my debate. He will be very welcome, while of course trying to remain in order since I suspect his knowledge of special educational needs in Wiltshire is somewhat limited—not that that will necessarily stop him. May I press Ministers on how confidence and supply money is being spent? Of course spending in general in Northern Ireland uses guidance set by the collapsed Executive.”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree, further to the point made by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), that a good way to commemorate the signing of the Good Friday agreement would be to encourage the European Union to define what it means by “temporary,” as listed in article 1(4) of the Northern Ireland protocol? Without some certainty on that, it is difficult to see how the withdrawal agreement is compatible with the Good Friday agreement.”
“But the Leader of the Opposition has said that he objects to the backstop because it will not be just permanent; it is potentially forever. Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman have any qualms about that at all? If he does not, he should be supporting the withdrawal agreement, since most of his amendment, especially point i., is contained within the backstop.”
“I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. Its value for both business and consumers is plain. Does he agree that it underpins the importance of ensuring that we do not have a forever customs union of the sort that has been highlighted as a very bad thing, inter alia, by the Leader of the Opposition?”
“Does the Solicitor General agree that whatever agreement is arrived at with Brussels, we must get away from the idea that the potentially forever customs union is seen as basecamp for our future trading relationship?”
“May I say that the loss of Honda in Swindon will be keenly felt throughout the whole of Wiltshire? May I also urge the Secretary of State to be very careful about imputing motives to companies that might be relocating from the UK or to the UK? Honda is entitled to be taken at its word, and it has said unequivocally that this decision has nothing to do with Brexit.”
“I welcome the Minister’s restated commitment to the PSO in relation to Derry and Stansted. Given this latest news, what further assessment is necessary of the long-term viability of Derry airport and of the welcome improvements to the A6 between Londonderry and Dungiven, which will increase connectivity to Belfast International airport? What further support does the Minister anticipate in the light of the Derry City and Strabane regional city deal?”
“Before my right hon. Friend gets on to defence posture, can he tell us whether he has taken note of the Army Families Federation’s recent report, which suggests that the future accommodation model is a major cause of concern among Army families, and a disincentive to remain in the armed forces?”
“The Secretary of State will share my dismay at the stalling of plans for the Tyrone to Cavan interconnector—a huge infrastructure project that will have a direct impact upon lives in Northern Ireland. How does she think the guidance she is able to issue under the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 can be used to resolve that? If it cannot, is she prepared to determine the matter herself, since we cannot continue to kick this can down the road?”
“Will the Minister confirm that the alternative arrangements the Government will be pursuing in the next fortnight have to do with technology and systems, as evidenced in the European Parliament’s “Smart Border 2.0” report in 2017, rather than a customs union that may potentially tie the United Kingdom into an arrangement in perpetuity?”
“It is pleasing to hear that lots of Ministers and shadow Ministers will visit Londonderry in the months ahead. My Select Committee—the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee—will visit in the very near future. There may be no politicians at Stormont, but there will be plenty in the great city of Londonderry. Does the Secretary of State agree that the most striking thing in the past few hours has been the reaction of the people of the city of Derry, who are clearly revolted by this latest outrage? Will she consider accelerating the negotiations on the Derry and Strabane city deal, because prosperity is exceptionally important in ensuring that such things do not happen?”
“They were not needing to be given a second chance, and they were not “anguished”, to use the word of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). They just wanted to leave. They are sovereign. We serve them. Let’s get on with it.”
“Some 57% of my constituents voted to leave and so did I. It may be unfashionable but I will be supporting the Government tonight, because after the sophistry, chicanery and obfuscation of last week, I genuinely feel that we may not have Brexit at all. The Attorney General is absolutely right to say that there is risk in the backstop, and we need to de-risk it. My amendment would have done that, had it been selected, as would the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire). Amendments (b) and (f) have pretty much the same effect, as they would introduce a time limit, and I commend them to the Government. In 2016, people were not being thick or ignorant, and they were not overwrought. They were not racist and they were not prejudiced.”
“I very much congratulate my right hon. Friend on the 10-year plan and on his announcement of the Harding review. Will Baroness Harding look particularly at the way in which pay and pensions are structured for general practitioners and pinch-point specialists within the NHS, since they are retiring or going part time at the moment—a full 10 years before the time they had anticipated when they went to medical school?”
“If the UK sensibly and pragmatically continues to apply the Union customs code after Brexit, given that from the beginning of the new year we will have the new UK customs declaration service and the registered exporter system, which will replace certificates of origin, is it not the case that the European Union would not be acting in good faith if it insisted on its backstop, potentially out to 2099, as is cited in the withdrawal agreement?”
“I very much welcome the statement, and I thank the Minister for providing extra resources to deal with the Salisbury and Amesbury incidents. The fact remains, however, that Wiltshire gets £151 per person from the Government to deal with policing. Nationally, the figure is £171 per person. I am sure that he wants to close that gap. Does he propose that that is done through the £161 million that he has announced today, or does he think that Angus Macpherson, our police and crime commissioner, should be raising money locally through the precept using the powers announced today?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that one way to boost business in Northern Ireland will be to deal with air passenger duty and corporation tax, which are, unfortunately, devolved matters? Will he therefore encourage the institutions in Northern Ireland to get up and going again? If not, will the Government take some action?”
“The Prime Minister’s grit and determination to get the best deal available is truly remarkable. Does she agree that in the event that the EU fails to give anything meaningful in relation to the backstop or a hard border that we all agree is not necessary and will not happen, it will not have demonstrated a scintilla of the good faith referenced in the political declaration?”
“I am following my hon. Friend’s remarks with a great deal of interest. He will know, since he is an expert on “Erskine May”, that it says very clearly on page 168, from memory, that the Humble Address should not normally be used on matters that touch directly on Bills before Parliament, as this clearly does. So was the Humble Address being used correctly, in his view, or incorrectly?”
“Is the hon. Gentleman interested, like I am, in legal advice given to the European Commission and its negotiators by its lawyers, which presumably the European Commission would like to be privileged in the same way as advice to the Cabinet is? Has he interested himself at all in that side of this negotiating process?”