Speeches by Murray.

“Thank you, Secretary of State. I want to move on to the funding of the Northern Ireland Executive. Something that troubled me a lot before I came to this House and joined the Committee was the funding of public services in Northern Ireland. My background is in health service trade unionism. We are perpetually in a stat…”

“There are two points on that. First, going back to the comments from the Northern Ireland Fiscal Council, it has said that routine interventions, such as the recent reserve claim to mitigate Executive overspend, are reducing the incentive to deal with the root causes of historical issues. I understand the need, certain…”

“Last summer, along with the other North Lanarkshire MPs, I participated in North Lanarkshire council’s school placement scheme. Two young people, Scott and Shanna, joined my office. At the time, they were 17 and 16 respectively. They began by doing a six-week summer placement, but they now regularly contribute to our t…”

“T8. Cumbernauld will get its first direct service to London in the spring, when Lumo’s new Stirling to London Euston service starts stopping at Greenfaulds station. How will the Department ensure that rail reform allows communities such as mine to continue to benefit from open access services?”

“There have been plenty of times when the standards of behaviour of holders of political office at all levels have fallen below what is acceptable. None of us has the moral high ground on this, as every party has had issues—some dealt with quietly and some in the court reports. While my question is to the Minister, I wa…”

“As we have been talking about, it is a bit of a cluttered landscape out there with the Department for Business and Trade, InterTradeIreland, Invest NI and yourselves. How will you manage to make that more easily understood, particularly by SMEs?”

“Thank you for spending time with us today, Baroness Foster. You have probably already touched on some of the things that I am going to ask in your responses to Mr Jogee and Mr Swann. One of the things we are very aware of is that the Northern Ireland economy is a lot more SME-based than GB, so in addition to having to …”

“As we have been talking about, it is a bit of a cluttered landscape out there with the Department for Business and Trade, InterTradeIreland, Invest NI and yourselves. How will you manage to make that more easily understood, particularly by SMEs?”

“Thank you for spending time with us today, Baroness Foster. You have probably already touched on some of the things that I am going to ask in your responses to Mr Jogee and Mr Swann. One of the things we are very aware of is that the Northern Ireland economy is a lot more SME-based than GB, so in addition to having to …”

“When I applied to the Backbench Business Committee for this debate, I said, with bravado, that there was a lot of interest, even though I had some concerns that the subject might be a little bit niche. I am therefore very glad to have seen the debate this afternoon. It has been a debate of the mothers and the grandmoth…”

“I very much commend my hon. Friend’s suggestion. What is clear is how important it is to have intergenerational towns and accessible housing. Another local legend was Danny McGowan, who taught generations of Cumbernauld’s children to swim. He founded Cumbernauld swimming club and built it into a competitive force, driv…”

“I am seeking advice from the Secretary of State. What advice would she give to my local cultural organisations in Cumbernauld, including new and emerging arts and music spaces and the local theatre, which are excited by the prospect of the town of culture competition? How can they engage with and benefit from the compe…”

“2. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that the new town of culture and UK city of culture 2029 competitions support communities.”

“The hon. Gentleman must have read the other parts of my speech, as I will come to that point. As I was about to say, new towns were never meant to just be housing schemes. They were meant to be places: planned communities, where jobs, homes and services developed together, so people could build stable lives close to wh…”

“I am very aware of the time, but on you go.”

“The fact that you could not go anywhere in the ’80s without seeing that statement meant that people across the country knew about Cumbernauld. I remember seeing that wording on the tube on my first trips to London. Other new towns tried to get in on the act. “Living in Livingston” did not quite hit as well, but those i…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered new towns. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this important debate. As we reach the 80th anniversary of the New Towns Act 1946, it feels like exactly the right moment for the House to pause and reflect on what was, at the time, a bold an…”

“Just picking up on that point, it is absolutely critical to the success of the proposed legacy commission. Any work on legacy going forward needs confidence across the entirety of Northern Ireland that we have actually dealt with things—that we have the answers as far as we need. What is your assessment of MI5’s approa…”

“Thank you both for coming back. I want to look at information sharing and the various protocols. Like you, I have spent my entire working life in public services, so I understand the practicalities of how information gets siloed. I worked in medical records in the ’80s, so I also know the challenges of paper-based reco…”

“Picking up on the MI5 references, former PSNI Chief Constable Sir George Hamilton recently suggested that there should be an independent judicial review of the sharing of MI5’s intelligence with Kenova investigators. Do you agree with that?”