UK Military Base Protection

Andrew Murrison Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

As there is an ongoing counter-terrorism inquiry into the activities of Palestine Action, which conducted a direct attack on UK military assets at a time of heightened tensions, it would be inappropriate for me to go into the full details. I will say to my hon. Friend, though, that the proscription of Palestine Action has been considered for a long time by my colleagues in the Home Office. It is a decision that they have taken after considering the facts—those in the public domain and those, perhaps, held privately. We are certain that this is the right course of action to keep our country safe in these difficult times.

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

My constituents in military establishments around Salisbury plain will not see this as an act of vandalism. They will see it as criminal damage. They will see it as sabotage. They will see it as terrorism. The Minister, who I respect, does himself no good by trying to downplay its seriousness.

There are 2,900 Ministry of Defence policemen in the country. In recent years, they have been employed largely in investigating relatively low-level fraud within the Ministry of Defence and in military establishments across the country, with a relatively low conviction rate. Does the Minister agree that they would be much better employed looking after our critical national infrastructure and military bases up and down the land, including those in my constituency, and will he consider ensuring that warranted officers are able to do a job of work for the MOD that cannot be done by regional forces? I am very confident that they would welcome the challenge.

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the right hon. Member, who I also have a lot of time for. At no point have I sought to downplay the activities of Palestine Action. Indeed, today the Government have taken the strong step of proscribing Palestine Action, precisely because its activities are a threat to our national security. It is for that reason that the Home Secretary has made her decision.

In relation to the military bases near the right hon. Member’s constituency in Salisbury plain, and indeed to those in the constituency that I represent in Plymouth, the review of our security arrangements covers all military bases. From the Defence Secretary to the Chief of the Defence Staff and others in the Ministry of Defence, we are looking carefully at what lessons can be learned, what improvements can be put in place and—noting the conclusion of the strategic defence review that we need to invest more in this area—how we can implement the findings of the SDR as quickly as we can.

In relation to the right hon. Member’s points about policing, I would be very happy to discuss them further with him, because I know he is an expert in this area.