Ukraine

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

Sanctions have been placed on 1,500 people and 120 entities in connection with this conflict, including the Wagner Group and Yevgeny Progozhin.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I think the Minister was slightly unfair to the shadow Secretary of State in saying that he welcomed and understood his attacking: my hon. Friend was not attacking but doing his proper and constitutional job, as a spokesperson for His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, of holding the Government to account. If this war is to drag on for some time, as it seems it will, maintaining the focus of the British Government will be essential. What can the Minister say to us about ensuring that that focus is not lost in Government as we move forward?

[Dr Murrison]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that it is not lost. I probably would not trust a member of the Government to make that assertion, but President Zelensky himself has made it plain in his remarks that the UK has played a formidable leadership role in ensuring that his country can repel Putin’s barbarism and the atrocity committed upon the state of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia.

Afghanistan: Independent Inquiry

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I will not get into that. Lord Justice Haddon-Cave will investigate the matter fully and report in due course.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Just over a century ago, my father’s house—my father was a child of about the same age as some of the children who were shot during some of the incidents under investigation—was raided by British auxiliaries in the west of Ireland in a quite violent incident. I shall never forget that my grandmother, relating that story to me as a child, was eternally grateful to the British Army officer who intervened and stopped violence being perpetrated. It has always struck me that culture and leadership within our armed forces is key to our standing and reputation in the world. Does the Minister agree that principal among the outcomes from this inquiry should be clear co-operation from the leadership of our armed forces in making sure that it gets to the truth?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. There is that commitment right at the very top of our armed forces that we should get this right and that we should learn any lessons that need to be learned. I can give him that commitment. I entirely understand the point that he has made and the experience that he relates.

Future of the National Trust

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Andrew Murrison

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of the National Trust.

Congratulations on your appointment, Ms Bardell; I am sure that we will give you no trouble.

This year is the National Trust’s 125th anniversary year. I start by paying tribute to the founding visionaries, benefactors, members, volunteers and staff who have made it the great mediating institution that it certainly is.

For the entire eight years of planning and execution, I was the Prime Minister’s point man for the United Kingdom’s commemoration of the centenary of the great war. I was immersed in the sensitive handling and portrayal of history and narrative. I think we did well, and I take particular satisfaction in helping to shed light on the part played by people whose contributions had been overlooked for 100 years.

Today is Armistice Day, so I shall recall particularly a truly remarkable exemplar whom we ensured played a big part in the commemorations: Lieutenant Walter Tull. As it happens, his likely last resting place in a plot near Arras has recently been discovered. I mention him in the context of some of the difficult things that I want to touch upon in this short debate. I do not want to be either misconstrued or misrepresented.

In my constituency, we have one of the trust’s principal possessions. Stourhead is about a mile from my home and we are frequent visitors, alongside tens of thousands, every normal year. Indeed, pre-covid, the trust had a membership that was gusting 6 million. It has eye-watering financial resources that would be the envy of most charities at this difficult time. It has international standing and an international reputation, and several countries actively seek to emulate it. So what is the problem?

The trust mission is clearly laid out in statute: to be clerk of works to a large wedge of our national treasures. There is evidence, however, that in recent years the trust—frustrated no doubt with that simple custodial function—has been interpreting its remit much more broadly. I submit that that requires scrutiny.

The key to the unhappiness expressed in recent times is contained within a collection of documents of varying status, some leaked, some published. The material, entitled “Towards a 10-year vision for place and experience”, is a blueprint for a different National Trust from that envisaged in statute in 1907 and in subsequent National Trust Acts.

That document might have been convincingly dismissed as a think piece had it not been followed by a series of supporting “Reset” documents. Taken together with the recently announced round of redundancies and reduction in access to small sites, it amounts to a dramatic change in direction—one that has alarmed the trust’s members, volunteers and workforce, and provoked a storm in the media.

Of particular concern is the proposed closure of smaller houses, I would say under the cover of covid-19. Those rather crudely referred to by the trust as treasure houses, including Stourhead, have always cross-subsidised those smaller properties. That has been the business model, which is commendable. We now find the properties that have been sustained by that model—for example, George Stephenson’s house in Northumberland—are being closed. It could be that they are closed permanently.

We also find that it is not receipts, per se, that are the problem, because the outdoorsy attractions appear not to be in the crosshairs. Rather, the issue is with buildings, particularly what are referred to as mansions. The trust says it does not want to close or repurpose its sites, but has to cut its cloth because of covid-19. But look at its reserves, as well as its access to a huge volunteer workforce, together with furlough and other assistance given by Government during this crisis, and ask whether the trust, faced with the inflexibility of covenants and reserves, has approached either the Charity Commission or the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to see what statutory or non-statutory mechanisms there might be to assist in freeing up funds in these difficult times, in order to support its charitable purposes.

On top of that, we have a hobnailed boot of a document called, “Addressing our histories of colonialism and historic slavery”, which is considered sufficiently off-piste to attract the interest of the Charity Commission as regulator.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on securing this important debate on the National Trust. On his point about the report, what is wrong with the National Trust researching the history of the buildings it looks after? Historic Royal Palaces has just advertised for a curator to uncover its links to the slave trade. Is he suggesting that that organisation should also be subject to this kind of witch hunt by the Charity Commission?

[Dr Murrison]

The hon. Gentleman ought also to look at English Heritage’s 2013 publication on broadly the same subject. He may wish to compare the quality of that report with the National Trust’s report and form his view as to whether it is appropriate to associate some of our national figures with slavery, as the title of this particular contribution does.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it is legitimate for organisations to explore history and present material in a balanced, measured and considered way. The judgment we all have to make is whether the National Trust has achieved that. I suggest to him that, against the standards of other organisations, such as English Heritage, the National Trust in that respect has fallen well short. Indeed, any reasonable appraisal of the material would suggest to me and many others a corporate culture at odds with its membership. I would argue that it is also at odds in important respects with statute that underpins the National Trust.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Andrew Murrison

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are of course a large number of projects and initiatives, many of them funded by the United Kingdom, that are aimed at promoting peace. He will be aware that we are one of the major contributors to the humanitarian situation—we hope, of course, pro tem—before we get a definitive political process that enables a viable Palestinian state to live alongside the state of Israel.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

In relation to de-escalating tensions, may I thank the Minister for having met my constituent Mr Robert Cummings, the grandfather of Luke Symons, who is being held by Houthis in Sana’a? May I convey, through him, a request for an opportunity to meet the Foreign Secretary himself to discuss the case further?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. We have discussed the case of Luke Symons at some length, and of course my door always remains open. We continue to do what we can in a very difficult and challenging situation with our interlocutors and partners to secure the outcome that I know the hon. Gentleman wants for Mr Cummings.