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?”
The complete record
Every one of 4,639 lines we hold for Dr Andrew Murrison, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 49 of 93.
“It is said that, as the Mendi slipped below the waves, the 65-year-old Reverend Isaac Dyobha steadied the men with these words as they conducted the death dance on the sloping deck: “Be quiet and calm, my countrymen, for what is taking place is exactly what you came to do. You are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers. Zulus, Swazis, Pondos, Basutos and all others, let us die like warriors. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war cries, my brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais back in the kraals, our voices are left with our bodies.” Now, that is probably apocryphal, but the event became an iconic moment in South Africa—a rallying point for black consciousness in the years that followed.”
“A hundred years ago today, just before 5 o’clock in the morning, the troop ship Mendi—on its way from Plymouth to Le Havre, in the company of HMS Brisk—was rammed by the freighter SS Darro in thick fog off the Isle of Wight and sank within just a very few minutes. More than 600 mainly black South African Native Labour Corps volunteers were killed in what remains one of the biggest maritime disasters in our waters in our history. On average, about 6,000 men were killed each day throughout the great war, which might explain why the death of 600 men in one incident, dreadful though that is, went unremarked in the House at the time. A search of Hansard will find no contemporaneous reference to it. I am very pleased to be able to rectify that this evening.”
“Indeed. We have to be very grateful to Mr Woodward. He was, I believe, a self-taught diver who dived in an old hard hat rig. In those days—the 1960s—diving off the Isle of Wight was quite something. It would have been difficult work. I am yet to visit his museum in Arreton, but I will certainly make it my business to do so when I am next on the island. In 2009, the Mendi was designated as a war grave by the Ministry of Defence. In 2012, English Heritage commissioned the excellent Wessex Archaeology, which is based near my constituency, to research the wreck and produce a report.”
“We saw that so well last year in the island of Ireland, in the commemorations surrounding the centenary of the Easter Rising and the Somme offensive. To my mind, the Mendi tragedy is primarily a heartrending story of stoicism and bravery in the face of adversity, but inevitably it also prompts difficult questions about attitudes to race in the early 20th century, the progress made over 100 years and where we are today. The story of the SS Mendi, like the battle of Delville Wood during the Somme offensive of 1916 has, of course, particular resonance in South Africa, but we must commemorate it, too, in the United Kingdom. There is a danger—”
“One white officer told his men: “When you people get back to South Africa, don’t start thinking that you are whites, just because this place has spoiled you. You are black, and you will stay black.” Some will say that this is inconvenient history, that we must not judge yesterday by the standards of today, and that we have no business raking it all up, but I would argue that the great war centenary is the last opportunity to shine a light on the unremembered. The story will be incomplete and partial for as long as they remain in the shadows. The experience of the great war centenary so far has been that the candid and respectful exploration of shared history, however uncomfortable, has not driven people apart or reignited hurt and grievance, but brought them together.”
“So although non-whites did fight in theatres where the enemy, too, was likely to be non-white, they served on the western front as unarmed labourers. In France and Flanders, they were treated as second class and were penned up in compounds like prisoners of war. When they returned home, the Government in Pretoria failed to live up to earlier promises, denying them campaign medals bearing the relief of a monarch in whose name they had been prepared to sacrifice all. One veteran said he felt “just like a stone which, after killing a bird, nobody bothers about, nobody cares to see where it falls”. None the less, South African Native Labour Corps members returned to their homeland utterly changed, with perspectives, horizons and ambitions that would not suit their rulers.”
“Some 100,000 men served in the Chinese Labour Corps and 40,000 in the French equivalent under arrangements with the Chinese Government. They were seen as cheap labour and dismissed as “coolies”, and the UK trade unions resisted their employment in the British Isles. In 1917, there was a reluctance to allow black men to raise a hand against whites, even against the enemy on the western front—they might, after all, develop a portable taste for it, which was an alarming prospect for the Union Government of Louis Botha. The South African Native National Congress, the predecessor of the African National Congress, sensing an opportunity to advance the prestige of black people and further its political ambitions, offered to raise combatant troops but was rebuffed by Pretoria.”
“Today’s centenary is an occasion, first and foremost, for us to commemorate brave men who lost their lives in Britain’s icy waters, but it also gives us an opportunity to reflect on the world as well as the war, since the war to end all wars drew many thousands from around the globe to its killing fields. The historiography and remembrance of the great war have, for 100 years, been overwhelmingly of the white war fought by white men in Europe, but the jigsaw has some missing pieces. The centenary is an opportunity to find them and fit them. Drawn from India, China, the Caribbean, Egypt and across Africa, as well as the UK, the labour corps were an essential part of the great war story. Neglected for too long, they must now be heard.”
“Yes, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. These volunteers—they were all volunteers—could have seen this as somebody else’s war on the other side of the world, but they did not. For whatever reason—I suspect there was a mixture of reasons and motives—they travelled 6,000 miles to serve in the conflict on the western front, while others served in other theatres of the great war. We have to be extremely grateful to them for their work and, in many cases, their sacrifice. The Wessex Archaeology report produced in 2012 and the board of inquiry report serve as the authoritative primary sources on this tragedy. It is good to note that from today, the 100th anniversary, the Mendi qualifies under the 2001 UNESCO convention on the protection of the underwater cultural heritage.”
“Over the coming months the project will explore men from across the globe, as well as from the UK, who went to theatres of war not to fight, but to dig trenches and latrines, build hospitals and roads and carry food, water and the wounded. Unremembered will encourage and support communities to explore the role of labour corps during the great war and after it in the great clean-up operation that set about restoring normality to the battlefield and reburying the dead under the supervision of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.”
“We must commemorate it, too, in the UK, because there is a danger that some communities in modern Britain may get the impression that they have little equity in what we as a nation are commemorating during this four-year centenary, and that it has nothing to do with them. On Friday, in the presence of the South African high commissioner, I had the great privilege of launching an engagement project funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government, called “The Unremembered: World War One’s Army of Workers”. Created by the Big Ideas Community Interest Company, it ensures that communities across the UK will remember the 616 brave men of the South African Native Labour Corps and 30 crew members who lost their lives on 21 February 1917.”
“That was despite the political ambivalence at home of many in the already fractious Union of South Africa, despite the complex motives of some in relation to the nascent struggle for political and constitutional change and despite the second-class status labourers were given by those they came here to help. Denied the respect and recognition due to them in their time, we must honour them today.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Yesterday, a commemoration was held in Southampton to mark the loss of people on the Mendi. A service is held every year, with this year being particularly special, given the fact that it is the 100th anniversary. Unremembered will reach out to Britain’s diverse communities, bringing to mind the world as well as the war, and reminding everyone that the events of 100 years ago are very much to do with them today. The Basotho, Pondo, Swazi, Xhosa and Zulu volunteers of 1917, some of them high born and educated, most far more modest men, believed that what they were going to 6,000 miles from home had everything to do with them.”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that company registration with the use of a Companies House-type model is important to promoting the economies of developing countries that seek foreign direct investment, and is also good news for the UK’s financial services sector?”
“I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. Why does he think that the European Union would not seek a free trade arrangement with the United Kingdom, given our balance of trade with the EU?”
“My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. Does he not agree that it is truly remarkable that Germany makes three times as much money on coffee as developing countries because of tariffs and that we are noticing a problem with out-of-season fruit and vegetables in our supermarkets, in part because of the pressures applied to producers in north Africa? It is no good colleagues on the Opposition Benches having a go at those who are concerned about international development assistance if they are prepared to tolerate such tariff barriers, which act against the interests of developing countries.”
“My hon. Friend is making a number of extremely good points, but is not vagueness the virtue as far as the drafters of the new clauses and amendments are concerned? If passed, they would turn a simple one-page Bill into an absolute monster that would be subject to a lawyers’ beanfeast and would be judiciable at every turn, thus kicking the Bill into the long grass.”
“I have been following the right hon. Lady’s remarks with great interest. She has reiterated the shadow Minister’s abandonment of her party’s long-standing principled commitment to free movement. Given that she wants the House to control migration in the future, how would that be possible without leaving the EU?”
“Employing more GPs is, of course, important, but the Minister is right to say that so is collaboration. How far have we got with spending the £1 billion earmarked by the Chancellor in 2014 for improving GP surgeries? Does the Minister share Ara Darzi’s vision of more polyclinics, which will enable GPs to work more closely together?”
“Local communities are often keen to support housing on exception sites if they feel the housing is for local need. Does the Secretary of State share their frustration that too often under the Housing Act 1985 those homes can then be swapped to somebody who does not have that local connection? Does he also share their frustration at the apparent easy waiving of section 106 agreements, whereby housing for local need is determined after a very peremptory examination of the market by registered social landlords and others, who may turn down people with a local connection who are living in private rented accommodation, whether or not they can afford to live in that accommodation?”
“The hon. Gentleman has just asserted that the analysis he wants to see will be superior in quality to some of the others that may be available. On what does he base that assertion, given that the people he wants to report on the situation have given us the most extraordinary information? Before the referendum they told us that we were going to be attended by plagues of frogs and locusts and that the sky was going to fall in.”
“Would the hon. Gentleman’s constituents rather that development aid from this country was spent by the UK and overseen by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, or spent by the EDF, which has none of that oversight?”
“I think the hon. Gentleman will find that most European papers are published in English by the House of Commons Library. He has not yet answered the question about where he would draw his line in the sand in respect of what he refers to as micromanagement and material that should be discussed every two months.”
“I entirely agree that we need to sort this out very early on. Indeed, our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said precisely that only a short while ago. Does my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) agree that part of the issue is the unwillingness of some of our interlocutors to engage in meaningful discussion prior to the triggering of article 50? This is surely a matter that can be dealt with early on, but that requires them to engage immediately and not to delay until the triggering of article 50.”
“The White Paper is an impressive document, for which I thank the Secretary of State—the Venn diagram on page 48 is particularly insightful. He will know that the European Union has concluded a pathetically small number of free trade agreements with other countries, but there are some. Will he confirm that there will either be a continuity arrangement with those countries on Brexit or that the agreements will be the basis for an accelerated relationship with those very few countries?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend for his work, and that of his Committee, on producing the report. He is absolutely right about HSIB and the need to underpin it properly. The Government have said that they would cap litigation costs at £100,000. I think my hon. Friend would accept that there will always be litigation, even if we get a more satisfactory means of redressing grievance, in the way he has suggested. Does he think that that cap would be appropriate, particularly since motor costs, for example, are capped at that level? Would that mean that people with grievances would be properly compensated while, sadly, their lawyers would not be?”
“I do not want to get involved in a dispute between two of my hon. Friends, but does my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) agree that, of all the surveys published in recent times, the one that matters most is the monthly service personnel statistics of 19 January this year? They show, sadly, both reservists and regulars voting with their feet.”
“I of course agree with my hon. Friend. Does he agree—I am trying to think of something nice to say about IHAT; I appreciate that that is very difficult— that IHAT has at least the benefit of being relatively contemporaneous, unlike Operation Banner? Under Operation Banner, people are being dragged out of their beds many decades after the event and trying to work out what they were doing three or four or five decades ago. That is very difficult indeed. At least IHAT is investigating within a relatively short space of time from the alleged incidents.”
“Friend’s insightful remarks. Having been ever so nice about the Government, I would just like to reduce my diminishing prospects of preferment by pointing out that we have recently had some fairly bad news about the recruitment and retention figures for regulars and reserves. I am particularly worried about the Army. The figures are really very bad. Of all the surveys we do, this one matters most. People are not daft. They pick up on what is going on around them and vote with their feet. We are at a time of reasonably good, robust employment and people have other options, so we have to work twice as hard as ever to attract people and, much more importantly, to retain them.”
“and gallant Friend the Minister, who approaches this work with dedication and enthusiasm. There are a lot of positive things in the report. I was particularly taken by the fact that 73,000 pupils benefit from the pupil premium, which I feel strongly about as many of my young constituents benefit from it. Some 9,000 personnel are accessing the forces Help to Buy scheme, so that is having a real impact on people. The innovation is entirely compatible with the modern way of living for young people and has much to commend it, notwithstanding the points raised, quite rightly, by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Sir Julian Brazier) about the future accommodation model. I share many of those concerns. I could see that the Minister was listening attentively, and I am sure that he will go away and reflect on my hon.”
“It seems like the covenant has been around for a long time, because, semantically, it has biblical or mid-17th century connotations, but the truth is that it was really only invented in 2000 in a staff paper. In 2007, the then Leader of the Opposition decided that it would be a good idea to create a Military Covenant Commission and appointed Frederick Forsyth as its chairman. People such as Simon Weston served with great distinction on that commission. It informed the thinking of the then Opposition and subsequent Government, and resulted in the inclusion of the military covenant in the Armed Forces Act 2011. That pretty much brings us to where we are today. This report contains some great news. I give credit to the Government for their hard work and commitment, and I particularly thank my hon.”
“It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on securing this debate and on the manner in which she presented it? Her work does her very great credit, particularly that in relation to the Public Accounts Committee. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) for giving us a wonderful plug and for promoting my book, which is available from all good booksellers. In a similar spirit, may I thank him for all his hard work on the armed forces parliamentary scheme—he has done a great job rejuvenating it and giving it a new lease of life—and for his work as chair of the all-party group for armed forces?”
“I am concerned about mental health in the armed forces. I wrote a report a little while ago called “Fighting Fit: a mental health plan for servicemen and veterans”, which the Government, to their great credit, implemented pretty much in full, but what I missed was the level of alcohol abuse in the armed forces. Some would say that that is up to the individual and has nothing to do with combat. I would say that the culture in our armed forces—I have seen this over many years—is one of encouraging the abuse of alcohol. We have a duty under the covenant to ensure that we deal with this, but I fear that we are not doing so at the moment. Some 65% of our military are at higher risk for their excess drinking.”
“] I have been reminded that, of course, we are talking about phase 1 trainees: people who have completed phase 1, but not yet embarked on or completed phase 2. The new employment model, the new recommendations for the service families accommodation and the future accommodation model have been discussed at length. I cannot expand on that in the time available, but I entirely agree with some of the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury. What has been proposed is exciting and forward-looking. It kind of taps into the way society is today. We always have to do that when trying to work out how the covenant will work into the future. However, it seems that this will disadvantage people and remove something valuable in service life. We must be very careful about that.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People simply walk. They do not give a reason; they just get fed up and go. That will not be reflected in any statistics. Those people are a wasted asset. I think that a lot of men and women who consider joining the reserve forces simply go and do something else. The figures would have been even worse had we not changed the way in which we count people. We have now included phase 2 trainees in our trained strength. The logic behind that is perfectly sound in that phase 2 trainees can be used in the UK to do all sorts of exciting things do to with resilience and all the rest of it. Nevertheless, one is left—being a cynical politician—with the sense that this is, in fact, improving the figures. We have to compare like with like, but if we do that, we end up in an even more unhappy place— [ Interruption.”
“However, there is no denying the conclusion in the extremely good report from the Public Accounts Committee, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed contributed, that the “performance of CarillionAmey has been totally unacceptable and it is right that the Department is considering terminating the contract.” Those are strong words from a highly respected Committee of this House, and I would be interested to hear what the Minister is doing to rein in the worst excesses of a company that, frankly, has let the men and women of our armed forces and their families down.”
“Will that also apply to Northern Ireland veterans—Operation Banner veterans —who have been issued with letters from the Ministry of Defence inviting them to unburden themselves? Many of these gentlemen are in their 60s or 70s, and it is a troubling experience for them. My advice to them, quite frankly, would be, “If you receive one of these, you should seek the advice of a solicitor.” It would be nice to know that the MOD agrees with that advice and that it will undertake to fund it. Finally, I would like to give my observations on accommodation in relation to CarillionAmey. My sense is that, in recent months, things have improved. As somebody who represents a garrison town, I of course get correspondence on this issue regularly from my military constituents, and it has tailed off recently.”
“I wrote to the Prime Minister in October and received a very satisfactory response, in which she made it clear that she takes this matter extremely seriously. I am pleased to note that we have an intention to derogate from the European convention on human rights in respect of future conflicts. Of course, had we done so several years ago, we would not be running into some of the difficulties that have been alluded to this afternoon. The Iraq Historic Allegations Team must conclude its work by the end of 2019. I am pleased that the Government have committed to making sure that that happens, in so far as they are able to do so. I am also pleased that they will be giving support to those veterans who find themselves having their collar felt; it is entirely appropriate that we should do that.”
“Yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right. If we accept that we have a culture in the armed forces that encourages the use of alcohol—possibly with some benefits, actually—we have a duty of care to people to ensure that we try to tackle it. We were told that we were going to have an alcohol working group and that it would report shortly. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister where we are with that group and when we can have its report and the action points arising from it. I suspect that the advent of lawfare will be discussed at length by one of my hon. Friends in a moment. However, I would like to weigh in, because the issue has already been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson), and I agree with his remarks. I am deeply concerned about this issue.”
“Now is the time for Britain to rediscover its historical engagement with global markets, and I hope that in the years ahead Ministers will do just that. We have seen the bizarre spectacle of Germany making more money from exporting coffee than the developing countries that grow coffee—”
“My point is that we must seek to engage with Europe post-Brexit wherever it is expedient to do so. I urge Ministers, representing as they do Europe’s principal military and naval power, to continue engaging, in particular, on the CSDP whenever that is to our mutual benefit. Yesterday, TheCityUK reversed its previously held Euroscepticism and announced that in its view the EU was a “straitjacket” and that Brexit presented “an unprecedented opportunity”. I agree absolutely. It spoke of achieving a global Brexit. That reminds us that in all those years, the only trade deals concluded by the EU were with South Korea, Mexico and South Africa. Britain pooled its ability to do deals with the EU in the mistaken belief that Brussels would undertake the task on its behalf. Clearly, it was asleep on watch.”
“Members who have expressed their positions forthrightly, even if I disagree with them. This is the House at its very best. This is the House listening to the public we serve. Last week, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence, in an interview for the engagingly titled Civil Service Weekly , said that the EU was “operationally irrelevant” to defence and security. He was wrong. The EU is relevant to our defence and security. I am fully supportive of the Petersberg tasks—the use of assets for humanitarian and peacekeeping operations—under the EU’s common security and defence policy. I admire Operation Atalanta, which is run from our own fleet headquarters at Northwood, and I accept that the European Defence Agency, a body whose budget I tried to contain as a Minister, runs a number of projects from which Britain benefits.”
“Brexit Britain must of course broker the best possible deal it can with the EU, but our future long term will depend just as much on our ability to operate freely and globally. Meanwhile in Europe, Mr Tusk this week told us that “assertive and spectacular steps” were needed to “revive the aspiration to raise European integration to the next level”. Whose aspirations? They are plainly not those of the British public. Mr Tusk, however, has done moderates like me—people who admit the risks as well as the benefits from Brexit—a real service. His remarkable candour and his false prescription have explained more eloquently than I ever could why it was that the British public voted to leave on 23 June. We have had some truly excellent contributions today and yesterday, and I pay tribute to hon.”
“It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), who expressed herself with clarity and passion, and though I will not be in the Lobby with her this evening, I very much share many of the sentiments she has expressed. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived in the new world, and the first thing he did was to burn the ships that had brought him there. Pointing up the beach, he told his astonished crew that since retreat to Europe was no longer an option, the only way forward was up the beach, to the opportunities he saw in the new world. Britain now stands on the brink of its Cortés moment. When article 50 is triggered, there will be no way back.”
“I agree with much of what my hon. Friend has had to say. Does he agree that TheCityUK’s analysis has, it would appear, changed dramatically? Like him, it can see the advantages that might come from Brexit, having once been of the opinion that Brexit would be the worst possible thing for this country’s financial sector.”
“The Ministry of Defence’s permanent secretary has said that the European Union is “operationally irrelevant” to defence, but does my right hon. Friend agree with me that there are many areas where there is room for continued collaboration, particularly on a project-by-project basis, through the European Defence Agency?”
“I very much support what the Secretary of State is trying to do, since Wiltshire is one of the worst-funded education authorities in the country. However, will she look again at the sparsity factor, because school governors are currently crunching the figures, and some of them are saying that they worry about the viability of small schools in rural locations being undermined, which clearly will not be the intention of the Secretary of State?”
“I hope that Ministers will consider the suggestion made by Sir Bruce Keogh that petitioners might complain to the Care Quality Commission at an intermediary stage, thus relieving some of the burden that falls on the PHSO. Over the years, that burden has been responsible for some of the backlog of cases, and the office has recognised that as a major block in the way of its work and the responsiveness that it is able to offer people who complain to it. In conclusion, I commend Dame Julie for her work during the past four years. In particular, I congratulate her on doing more with less as she has found that her resources have necessarily been curbed.”
“I have no way of telling whether that is realistic, but it is important for Dame Julie’s successor to understand such criticisms, and I hope he will seek to work closely with organisations such as the Patients Association in the years ahead. It is also reasonable to point out failings such as the Morecambe Bay catastrophe. The ombudsman did not handle that terribly well in my view and the view of many people who take an interest in these matters. For the future, I very much hope that Mr Behrens will repeat the review process that his predecessor undertook in 2012 to ensure that the office he holds is maximising its effectiveness—that is a worthwhile undertaking—and that he will consider it carefully.”
“I very much welcome Mr Behrens to his important new appointment. The PHSO is a vital backstop for complaints about the national health service. Its function is clearly vital to our constituents, and I am sure that Mr Behrens is seized of the importance of his new duties. It seems to me, anecdotally, that the service has become more responsive since 2012. A great deal of credit is due to Dame Julie Mellor for improving the service, but it is only right to record that the Patients Association does not necessarily share that opinion, and has rightly highlighted its shortcomings as it sees them. In particular, it has highlighted the perceived lack of responsiveness of the ombudsman service, and the perception that the PHSO is on the side of organisations, rather than of individuals.”