Chris Murray
MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh · Labour · United Kingdom
“I suspect that many of them would be happy to do so. However, let us be clear that those refugees are not responsible for the extraordinary costs of the asylum system.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), who was the author of the mess that we are discussing clearing up; I am sure she will look forward to sharing her comments with Count Binface soon enough.”
“No, it is not. It is because the right hon. and learned Lady passed the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, which allowed the backlog to soar. It is because the right hon.”
“The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and I were in northern France together. Does she share my impression from that trip that the scale and complexity of the operations the French Government were undertaking was quite astonishing? Will she join me in welcoming the new iteration of the Sandhurst treaty?”
“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There is some scepticism among the public about refugees, but despite the fact that twice as many people came to this country from Ukraine as crossed in small boats, there has been no public outcry and there is no public unrest.”
“Are the Government certain that they do not need further powers to sort out these contracts and recoup the costs that have already been wasted? If not, why is that not included in the Bill? Second Reading is about principles.”
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“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There is some scepticism among the public about refugees, but despite the fact that twice as many people came to this country from Ukraine as crossed in small boats, there has been no public outcry and there is no public unrest. Does the Minister agree that this is because the British public recognise and welcome refugees who come here fairly, in a legal way, and with proper support? What conclusions are the Government drawing from that as they create their new scheme around safe routes?”
“We always forget that people lose their lives in the channel—including last year, tragically, a young girl of four and a young man of 16 who had just tried to phone his parents. Does the Home Secretary agree that anyone with any humanitarian beliefs at all should be doing everything they can to stop cross-channel boats, and that it is incumbent on everyone that we do everything we can about that?”
“The Home Secretary is being very generous. The purpose of the Bill is to make the system more swift, but I am surprised to see that there is no component of mandatory reconsideration included in it. As we have seen in the Department for Work and Pensions, that has really made the system faster. We had a broadly similar system in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which was replaced, and that did not make the system quicker. How will this situation be different from what we have had before?”
“The Chair of the Home Affairs Committee and I were in northern France together. Does she share my impression from that trip that the scale and complexity of the operations the French Government were undertaking was quite astonishing? Will she join me in welcoming the new iteration of the Sandhurst treaty? This may be stretching the bounds of bipartisanship too much, but does she agree that it is good to reset the relationship with our European friends and neighbours? In cross-border channels, when difficult issues arise, it is only through those joint working operations—now that we have left the European Union—that we can collectively tackle the small boats, which are as much of an issue for France as for the UK.”
“I recognise that this Government inherited those contracts from the right hon. and learned Member and are roped into them for the foreseeable future. I support asking successful refugees to contribute, but that is a peripheral issue.”
“I suspect that many of them would be happy to do so. However, let us be clear that those refugees are not responsible for the extraordinary costs of the asylum system. Since entering Parliament, I have been on a one-man mission to highlight the biggest public procurement scandal in Britain—a system causing untold damage but costing the taxpayer £15 billion. The real problem lies with the asylum contracts, signed by the previous Government and overseen by the right hon. and learned Member, with three private providers. The contracts generated eye-watering profits; a founder of one of the companies entered The Sunday Times rich list at taxpayer expense. When these companies come before the Home Affairs Committee, they refuse to answer even the most basic questions, while serious concerns about misconduct in their supply chains remain.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), who was the author of the mess that we are discussing clearing up; I am sure she will look forward to sharing her comments with Count Binface soon enough. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Government are absolutely right to be tackling the appeals process—as a supporter of humanitarian protection, I accept that it needs reform if it is to be resilient—but I will focus on part 4, which creates powers to recover the costs of asylum support. I am pleased that the Bill discusses the cost of asylum system, and I support the principle that refugees who go on to earn a lot should contribute back what they received from this country.”
“Are the Government certain that they do not need further powers to sort out these contracts and recoup the costs that have already been wasted? If not, why is that not included in the Bill? Second Reading is about principles. I believe that this Bill identifies the right areas for reform—appeals, protection and costs—and, for that reason, I will support it tonight. I look forward to seeing concerns about the detail, implementation and asylum contracts being addressed as it progresses.”
“No, it is not. It is because the right hon. and learned Lady passed the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024, which allowed the backlog to soar. It is because the right hon. and learned Lady signed off on putting asylum seekers in hotels, which cost £34,000 per asylum seeker, as opposed to £14,000 per asylum seeker when she came into office. It is because the right hon. and learned Lady failed to get the Department to grip the use in public procurement of taxpayers’ money, which she wasted then tried to instrumentalise to sow division in the country. These outsourcing contracts have allowed extortionate profit at taxpayers’ expense. They have damaged communities, failed the vulnerable and exposed serious weaknesses in Home Office procurement.”
“Our constituents are consumers, and in a free market, they rely on the Government to ensure that trade rules are observed and that their purchases are not making terrorism and instability profitable.”
“The Government’s recent sanctions against a limited number of settlers are a welcome step, but they are insufficient, given the scale of expansion we see. Be in no doubt: the objective of establishing these illegal settlements is to render an independent Palestinian state unviable. The method is terrorism, expropriation, violence and intimidation, and the outcome will be that the two-state solution that this House has long called for will be impossible. I will make two final points. First, trade is important, and bans should not be undertaken lightly or as a gesture. We all recognise the value of deep and complex trade relationships with other countries, both for our economy and prosperity, and so that our societies engage with and understand each other. However, trade relies on rules that are respected—on a system that is rules-based.”
“More than 750,000 Israeli settlers now live in settlements on the west bank and in East Jerusalem, and there is continued expansion every week, supported by the Israeli Government. That means the demolition of Palestinian homes, the forced displacement of communities, restrictions on movement and the annexation of territory. Save the Children, a charity I worked for before being elected, warns that settler violence has reached “unprecedented” levels, with 1,600 attacks on Palestinians in 2025, attacks on schools, and children facing physical violence on their way to and from school. I remember visiting Palestinian refugee camps and meeting children displaced by Israeli settlers. Those children are the victims of terrorism.”
“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing today’s debate, and thank Members from all parties for the powerful speeches we have heard. There is clearly cross-party support for the proposition we are debating. I recognise the work that the Government have done, supporting the Palestinians, whether it is targeted sanctions, aid, or recognition of the state of Palestine. However, we must be clear that the UK already recognises that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal under international law. We would oppose the illegal occupation by force of any country, and we must do so in Palestine, too. As in Russian-occupied Ukraine, so too here.”
“I completely agree with the hon. Lady. It is not just in the UK that people are recognising that Israel is crossing multiple lines; it is across the world, so we must act. As others have said, countries such as Ireland and Spain are taking the decision to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements. We must too, and now is the time to do so. Secondly, it would be impossible for me to overstate the importance of this issue to my constituents in Edinburgh East and Musselburgh. In my two years as an MP, I have never been asked by constituents to speak in a debate as many times as I have been asked to speak in today’s debate, so I make this speech in their name. The time is long overdue for a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.”
“What does “actively considering” mean? Is there anything active about it? Can the Minister refer to meetings, instructions or deadlines that would manifest as active consideration?”
“Last week I visited the port of Dover with the Home Affairs Committee, to see those operations in action. Given that this is an EU entry-exit system, we must face the fact that this is an inevitable consequence of Brexit, and we have to make it work. The best solution to the challenges facing our constituents this summer is sustained engagement— [ Interruption. ]”
“The best solution to managing those challenges this summer is sustained engagement with the French, at leader level, Cabinet level, ministerial level, and working official level, so that the police aux frontières have a delegated responsibility to let flows through. What discussion will we be having at every level with the French, using the better relationship we have struck, so that our constituents and British holidaymakers trying to get a holiday abroad this summer, do not face the consequences of Brexit, which will be missed flights and long queues?”
“It is apposite that I should intervene at this point, because I believe I might have been the author of that IPPR report from 12 years ago. One of the things about contribution is that it needs to be managed. We need to be able to check whether people are contributing, obeying the rules and interacting with the labour market correctly. Only two months ago, the Government created the Fair Work Agency, under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Does my hon. Friend agree that it will be critical in ensuring that we can measure the contribution to the labour market of those in the immigration system?”
“I commend my hon. Friend for her work in this field. She, like me, is a serious animal lover who has always stood up for animals. Many constituents have contacted me about this debate; their primary reason for doing so is the unnecessary suffering caused to animals in testing, with force-feeding and injections right up to the end of their lives. Does she agree that new technologies offer a way to achieve the goal that people want to see, which is more research, while also avoiding the unnecessary suffering that causes such concern to our constituents?”
“Our energy security is so exposed to events in the middle east because we have relied on oil and gas for too long. Not only do fossil fuels cause climate change, but we buy them on the open market, so no further drilling in the North sea would help to mitigate prices. The only true path to energy security is through renewables and nuclear, so can the Secretary of State set out how this country will do that, so that in future energy crises our country’s security is less exposed?”
“The way to deal with any asylum seeker—or, indeed, any migrant—who commits a crime, is to remove them from the country. That is why it is good to see that removals of foreign national offenders have gone up 40% from what was left under the previous Government. The way we deal with crime in communities is by reinvigorating neighbourhood policing and supporting our police. Does the Home Secretary agree that those are two areas where this Home Office is clearing up the mess left behind by the previous Government?”
“Craigmillar is a brilliant area, but it is blighted by fly-tipping. One site just off the high street beside Craigmillar library, owned by Keyworkers Living Ltd, lies waste to litter and abandoned cars, and is a fly-tipping hotspot. In England, the Labour Government are cracking down on fly-tipping, but the SNP Scottish Government have cut the budget for Edinburgh city council so much that it is the lowest funded per head local authority in Scotland. Can we have a debate in Government time about how we can tackle fly-tipping in Craigmillar and get the Scottish Government to fund our council properly?”
“While we are on the issue of immigration statistics, when the previous Conservative Government signed the contracts that led to those hotels opening, the average cost per asylum seeker was £17,000 a year. By the time of the election, that cost had risen to almost £50,000 per asylum seeker per year. This Government have been locked into the contracts signed by the previous Government. What is the Minister doing to drive down this appalling waste of public money? What is his view on the break clause that created these hotels in the first place?”
“I strongly welcome the Minister’s statement, which I found quite emotional. I know that many of her friends are pleased to see her making it today. She said that cancer mortality is higher and survival is lower in Britain compared with other European countries. What that means is that cancer patients such as Charlotte Montague have to go abroad to seek treatment themselves and then come back and advocate for that treatment to be incorporated in the NHS. What will the plan do to bring Britain more in line with European countries, so that people do not need to go abroad to seek treatment?”
“We are here to discuss genocide. As my hon. Friend says, 20,000 children have been killed, 95% of hospitals have been destroyed, and food has been blocked to the point of famine. Does she agree that the House of Commons—and, indeed, the world—cannot stand by and let that happen?”
“Seen from that perspective, the difficulties of the past decade are no more than bumps in the road, but they were real bumps, and it matters that we now mark their passing and recognise that the relationship is moving forward with purpose. Let me begin with defence and security. The UK and France are Europe’s two nuclear powers and its two permanent members of the UN Security Council. Together, we account for roughly 40% of Europe’s defence spending and around half the continent’s military research and technology investment. Six months on from the state visit, Lancaster House 2.0 and the entente industrielle, our defence sectors—both public and private—are more deeply intertwined than ever. Our armed forces, our intelligence services and our defence industries operate not just in parallel but in partnership.”
“This relationship matters, not just for diplomatic niceties, but because so many of this Government’s core objectives depend on it: our security, our borders, our energy system, our economic growth and our standing in the world. The UK-France relationship is not new; it is one of the longest continuous diplomatic relationships in the world. This year marks 1,000 years since the birth of William the Conqueror, and as a Scot I note with pride that last year was the 730th anniversary of the auld alliance, which Charles de Gaulle called “the oldest alliance in the world”, and which I was pleased to celebrate at St Giles’ cathedral in my constituency, along with the French community in Edinburgh.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered UK relations with France. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I have called this debate because we are at an important and promising moment in the UK-France relationship. It has been a bumpy few years. Brexit and its fallout placed the relationship under real strain. A couple of years ago, we had a Prime Minister unclear on whether the French President was friend or foe. But those days are behind us, and six months on from an extremely successful state visit and UK-France summit, the relationship is back on track. This, therefore, is the right moment for Parliament to recognise that fact and to take stock of how the relationship can serve both countries better.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right that, strategically, our interests are aligned, even when there are key issues. I will come on to migration in just a second.”
“I agree entirely with the point my hon. Friend makes. Like him, I have worked a lot with the Franco-British Council, and he is right that Europe’s strategic autonomy and ability to act collectively and in coalitions of the willing—an issue I will come to in a second—is important, given the changing geopolitical situation we clearly face.”
“At the UK-France summit last year, the Prime Minister and President Macron reaffirmed in the Northwood declaration the declaration from 1995 about our nuclear posture and our shared nuclear weapons objectives. They said: “we do not see situations arising in which the vital interests of either France or the United Kingdom could be threatened without the vital interests of the other also being threatened.” There are not many countries in the world that we could say that so baldly and so clearly about. In other words, we are saying that British security is French security, and French security is British security. Despite all the bumps in the road, that strategic truth endures.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The UK and France have substantial military technology sectors, which are critical for not only our security but the rules-based international order that the relationship between the two countries props up. When it comes to new technologies, whether it is AI or military hardware and kit, the rules-based international order needs—the liberals in the world need—the UK and France at the forefront. They need our technology and defence industries to work with our political objectives to achieve that. I think that is the point my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) was about to make. That takes me to exactly the point I was about to make in my speech.”
“The UK and France have been at the heart of the coalition of the willing, convening 35 countries to support Ukraine’s security. That includes last week’s incredibly significant announcement that both countries are prepared to contribute ground forces in support of a future peace settlement. At a time when we are seeing a change in strategic posture in the United States—if I can put it like that—Russian aggression in Europe, the rise of China, and crises in the middle east and South America, it is no small thing that Britain and France stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of the rules-based international order.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for sharing the history of his constituency on this important issue. SAFE is an issue that the Government and other actors in both France and the UK are working quite deeply on. Obviously, we are not in SAFE now, but we can still hope for the future. The point about UK-France relations is not just that they are good for British or French security, but that they are good for world security, and nowhere is that clearer than in Ukraine. For example, the Storm Shadow long-range missile developed by MBDA, a joint Franco-British company, has been one of the most effective weapons supplied to Ukraine in terms of repelling Russia’s invasion. However, this is not just about kit; it is also about political leadership.”
“I will first declare an interest: I worked at the UK embassy in Paris—the quality has improved a lot since I left. I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman: the UK staff in France, both in Paris and in the consulates, and the French staff here in the UK, both in the embassy in London and in the consulates—including the consulate in Edinburgh, in my constituency —do fantastic work to smooth the relationship and stop crises erupting, which is so important. Of course, they also support nationals in the two countries, which is important, because tourism and business relationships, as well as political relationships, are what make this relationship so important to the country.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Speaking as an MP whose constituency is a tourist centre—we welcome people from across the world, and particularly from France—I know that such organisations contribute so much. Many businesses in my constituency are dependent on tourism from France but find it difficult to navigate, so organisations that have helped to mitigate bumps in the road are the backbone of the economy in places such as Edinburgh and Harrogate, and I pay tribute to them.”
“I did not know that the Festival Interceltique de Lorient was focusing on Cornwall this year, but I have another interest to declare, because I remember going to that festival as a schoolboy; it is one of the things that inculcated in this Scottish person a love of French and Celtic culture. I absolutely know the importance of what my hon. Friend is talking about, and I thank him for raising it.”
“When I visited northern France with the Home Affairs Committee last month, I saw the scale and seriousness of the effort underway by French police, soldiers and reservists in order to disrupt the organised crime gangs, work on maritime interceptions, work on the one in, one out pilot, reach out to migrants and change the calculus of their decision making, and create new safer routes for the future. None of those objectives can succeed without work with the French, and none would be sustained without a genuine partnership between our law enforcement agencies, border forces and political leaders. Every Labour MP knows that we were elected on a promise to clean up the mess left on immigration. The public will not forgive us if we fail. The UK-France relationship is critical to meeting that public expectation, and woe betide us if we do not.”
“The UK-France relationship is central not just culturally and to communities, as those interventions have suggested, or to security and geopolitics, as I outlined earlier, but to some of the Government’s domestic political priorities, including restoring control to our migration system. As we all know, illegal immigration is, by definition, a transnational problem, and thus requires a transnational solution and international co-operation. After Brexit, we left instruments such as the Dublin regulation, Schengen information system II, the Prüm treaty and others. That makes bilateral co-operation with the French so important.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have had the entente cordiale, the entente industrielle, which I referred to earlier, and the entente amicale. Bilingual schools have a huge role in allowing children not only to understand one another’s cultures, but to live both sides of their identity. In the 21st century, that is really important. The French model is something we should be looking at to allow people in wider communities in the UK to be more comfortable in their identities. I will of course cry, “Vive les écoles bilingues de Fulham!” If there are no further inventions on those issues, let me turn to how other components of the UK-France relationship are critical to the Government’s objectives.”
“Some of them are outside singing in Parliament Square, but nostalgia is a poor basis for foreign policy. Hankering for a golden past that never really existed is not the way to move forward. I would argue that that was one of the fundamental problems behind Brexit. What matters is not the architecture of the institutions but the reality of the co-operation, so I strongly welcome the Government’s progress in resetting relationships with the EU, particularly on dynamic alignment on food and energy; working together on shared objectives such as migration, Ukraine and the geopolitical challenges that we face; and building the relationships between people, which several Members have raised.”
“French engineering, finance and expertise will be indispensable to achieving this Government’s clean energy mission, so the relationship is critical, but it actually goes further than that. It is not just commercial or economic; it is radical. Britain and France were among the first countries to industrialise. We were also major colonial powers, and our global footprint still shapes the world today with the Francophonie and the Commonwealth. That gives us a shared responsibility to lead on climate change, not only to decarbonise our economies, but to show that a prosperous net-zero society is possible. I have something else to say about the future of the relationship. There are those of us who will want to look back nostalgically to the days that we sat together in the European Union, and many people lament the Brexit vote.”
“The French relationship is also critical in some of the Government’s economic objectives, not just because France is our fifth biggest trading partner and our third largest services-sector market, or because more than £100 billion of trade is done with France every year or even because London is the fourth biggest French city—and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) must be one of the Frenchiest—but even thinking about just our energy sector illustrates a vignette of our relationship with France. The transition to clean energy is the defining economic public policy challenge of our age. France is one of the biggest investors in Britain’s nuclear sector. EDF Energy is central to the delivery of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C.”
“Our relationship with France will be critical in managing the public’s expectations on immigration, but it goes even further than that because, beyond the domestic political imperative of getting a grip on immigration, both our countries face a bigger challenge—a dysfunctional immigration system fuels anger and distrust, and that fuels the populist right, both in Britain and in France. As two countries facing that challenge, it is important that we work together to tackle it to make sure we deal with the rise of populism.”
“My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The immigration system needs reform and needs to meet the public’s expectations, but that must happen in a way that works for the economy and works for families and individuals, taking cognisance of the fact that these are people’s lives. I believe that is possible within the parameters that the Home Secretary has set out, but we will need to see the detail of that policy. Like my hon. Friend, I will be watching closely to see whether it meets the objective she has just set.”
“Later this year, as a result of the state visit, we will have a huge cultural Franco-British moment when the Bayeux tapestry comes to the British Museum—it will probably be its exhibition of the decade. This relationship is not abstract; it is human, cultural, strategic and economic all at once. It is one of the country’s closest relationships—”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that relationships between political leaders are critical to developing relationships between nations, and I look forward to the work we will be doing on the APPG in that regard. I welcome the return of the Erasmus+ and youth experience schemes. I studied in France under Erasmus and it changed my life. It has been heartbreaking that my own young constituents have not had that opportunity, and I am really pleased that the Government are now restoring that. As my hon. Friends mentioned, programmes such as the Franco-British Young Leaders—whose cohort I am part of this year—do vital work in building networks of trust across politics, business and civil society.”
“We are no longer indulging in symbolism but focusing on something fundamental: that, in an unstable world, we are closer together than we are separate, and our future security, prosperity and global influence depends on that.”
“Thank you, Mr Dowd. I was on the point of winding up there, do not worry. My hon. Friend made an excellent point; he and I could spend hours discussing the Government architecture distinctions between the UK, France and, I would argue, Scotland—Scotland makes different mistakes in its Government structures in comparison with the French. The key point is that, given there are such similarities in our challenges and objectives, we can learn a lot from each other about the kind of architecture that does and does not work in each situation. The compare and contrast between cultures and structures is how we drive change forward; there are a lot of things that the UK could learn from France and vice versa. I will sum up by saying that the UK’s relationship with France is finally back on track.”
“I wish everyone a very Murray Christmas. The communities of Niddrie, Bingham, Magdalene and The Christians are fantastic places full of hard-working people who take pride in their community. Sadly, they have been let down by austerity in recent decades. Will the Leader of the House join me in strongly welcoming the £20 million that has been allocated to the area by the UK Government, and can we have a debate about how we will put local people in the driving seat to make sure that the money is spent in the best interests of the community?”