Andrew Murrison

Andrew William Murrison (born 24 April 1961) is a British doctor, naval officer and politician.

Having been awarded a Royal Navy scholarship, Murrison qualified as a doctor from the University of Bristol's medical school in 1984.

He holds the degrees of MD and MB ChB.

Before entering full-time politics, Murrison was a member of the Bow Group, an assistant to Sir Peter Lloyd (the MP for his home constituency of Fareham), and then from 1999 to 2000 an assistant to Lord Freeman, whose role at Conservative Central Office was screening potential parliamentary candidates.

Until 2000, Murrison served in the Royal Navy as a medical officer based at Fareham and retired with the rank of Surgeon-Commander.

During his naval career he served as an Honorary Research Registrar at Southampton General Hospital and spent one year as a postgraduate student at Hughes Hall, Cambridge, obtaining a Diploma in Public Health.

From 2000, he worked as a general practitioner locum in Wiltshire and as a consultant in occupational health at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

In September 2000, Murrison was selected as the prospective Conservative candidate for the West Wiltshire constituency of Westbury and in June 2001 he was elected as Member of Parliament for the constituency.

He was then appointed to the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee and was also a member of the Standing Committee on the NHS Reform Bill.

A member of the Conservative Party, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Wiltshire, previously Westbury, since the 2001 general election.

He has been serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence People and Families since October 2022.

Murrison has held a variety of positions within the British government, including Minister for International Security Strategy, and Minister of State for Northern Ireland.

Most recently he served as the Minister of State for International Development and the Middle East.

In the 2001 Conservative leadership election, Murrison supported Michael Portillo.

In 2003, as a naval reserve officer, Murrison was recalled to serve in Iraq for a six-month tour of duty.

In November 2003, Murrison was appointed as a Shadow Minister for Health, while also taking an active interest in defence policy.

In 2004, in a free vote, he voted against the bill to ban foxhunting and hare coursing which became the Hunting Act 2004.

He was returned to Parliament at the General Election in May 2005, and was appointed as shadow defence minister.

In 2005, he spoke in parliament against European military union, saying "The threat that the proposed Euro force might pose to one of the most successful post-war organisations, NATO, and to our symbiotic relationship with the United States, has surely not been adequately explored".

In Commons divisions in 2007 on a number of House of Lords reform options, Murrison voted for options 7 and 8, proposing a 100% elected House of Lords, including the removal of all remaining hereditary peers, and against options 4 and 5, which proposed a partly elected and partly appointed upper chamber.

In the debate on a Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill in May 2008, he supported amendments to the bill aimed at reducing the maximum gestational age for an abortion from twenty-four to twenty weeks, commenting: "The shock of the abortion list twenty-five years ago is still clear in my mind. Since then, societal attitudes have changed, in part because of improved imaging of the unborn child. I'm sure the law needs updating and twenty weeks appears to strike the right balance".

He is the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Clinical Leadership and Management, and is a member of the "Cardiac Risk in the Young All Party Parliamentary Group".

Murrison's Westbury constituency was abolished at the end of the Parliament of 2005 to 2010, but he was the Conservative party candidate for the new South West Wiltshire constituency, which includes most of his former constituency, and was elected on 6 May 2010.

Murrison is married to Jennifer (Jenny) Munden, a physiotherapist.

They have five daughters and live near Mere in Wiltshire.

In Parliament, he chaired the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee from July 2017 to May 2019.

The son of William Gordon Murrison RD and Marion Murrison, Murrison was born in Colchester and grew up in Harwich, Essex, where he attended the local Harwich High School (now Harwich and Dovercourt High School), and the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.