Abtisam Mohamed MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Sept 2026 · Water Sector: Public Ownership · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. Water is a basic natural resource, essential for public health and hygiene, but it is trapped in one of the largest ever private monopolies: we cannot choose water from a less polluted waterway or stop paying bills that rise faster than inflation, and we cannot even change suppliers. As others have said, under Thatcher, our water and sewerage system was sold off with a clean slate: £5 billion in debt was wiped and companies were given a cash boost to the tune of £1.5 billion. Yorkshire Water has paid shareholders £7.6 billion in dividends since 1989, and it has £6.2 billion in debt. That is unacceptable. Resident bill payers have paid the price. Every promise of a better system has completely collapsed under the weight of this monopoly. On Addy Street in Upperthorpe in my constituency, residents are no strangers to jets of water coming out of the ground. The most recent instance was not the first, second or even third time that they had seen a burst main, but the fourth. These are no longer unique occurrences; they are endemic to a system that is at breaking point. We have to be transparent: mounting corporate greed across England will not be wished away by making it easier to sack failing chief executives or imposing greater fines on companies. The personnel are not the problem. The problem is the system of deriving massive profit from life’s essential needs. Although I welcome the Government’s planned reforms, I urge them to go further than public control and regulation, and work to bring the system back in house. Four hundred and thirty-four of my constituents have signed the petition that we are discussing today, and 440 more in Walkley have signed local activist Hannah Cawley’s petition calling for water to be brought into public ownership. They are calling for an end to stakeholder payouts, and for cleaner rivers, lower bills and real accountability. That is the least that they deserve. Sheffield, like the rest of the country, has paid enough for this failure. It is time to bring water back into public ownership, and it is time to put the people who depend on it first.

• 8 Sept 2026 · Israel and Palestine · Hansard source

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  In July I led a debate on settlement expansion. I argued for international law to be respected and for the status quo to end. For far too long, we were told that a trade ban was too difficult—even impossible. For far too long, Palestinian lives have not carried the same weight as Israeli lives in British foreign policy. Palestinians deserve to have the exact same freedoms as Israelis. They deserve to live free from checkpoints, free from settler violence, free from occupation, and free from oppression. I thank the Foreign Secretary for his words, his action and, more importantly, the change of direction, and for showing that Britain can lead with a clear moral compass once again. Today is one of those rare moments when foreign policy can genuinely make a difference. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that international law can and must mean something once again? Will he confirm that the ICC arrest warrants still stand and that Britain will respect that policy?

• 1 Sept 2026 · Direction of Government · Hansard source

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  I warmly welcome the Prime Minister to his place and commend him for the direction and spirit of his statement. Small and independent businesses are the lifeblood of my constituency. I hear regularly from owners such as Colin and Jack, who own two Feast coffee shops in Sheffield, that they are facing an onslaught of financial pressure. On my way here this morning, Jack told me how rising VAT and electricity prices have meant that there is very little left at the end of the month to pay himself. I know that this is the case for many other owners, and that it goes beyond the normal ups and downs of businesses. I welcome the Prime Minister’s decision to cut VAT on energy bills from October, but is he willing to explore how else we might be able to help small and independent businesses?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I will be as brief as possible, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank everybody for their excellent contributions: those who are here with us now in the Chamber and those who were not able to make a contribution—I know many colleagues have left now but wanted to make interventions. I thank the Minister for his action and the work that will be taken forward. If he is willing, while he is still in position, to meet the many of us who are really keen to ensure that we do have tangible action, it would be greatly appreciated. I say to the shadow Minister that I think he may have misunderstood. This issue is about the west bank. The west bank is occupied territory. That is recognised. Governments of all shades in the past have recognised that it is occupied territory. The debate is specifically about banning trade in that particular area, so I am not sure whether there was confusion about what we are actually proposing or indeed debating today. I thank the Minister for his contribution, and please let us arrange a meeting so that we can take this forward. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the potential merits of a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I will, and it will be my final intervention.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend; he makes a powerful point. Some time ago, the Palestinian ambassador, Dr Husam Zomlot, reminded parliamentarians that Gaza, East Jerusalem and the west bank are not separate issues, but all parts of the same national story. They may be separated, occupied and besieged, but they are all connected by the same struggle for freedom. Together, they are the beating heart of one state of Palestine—a state that the UK, our Government, has quite rightly taken a historic step to recognise. Yet, although we have recognised Palestine in its entirety, we have failed to make that recognition a meaningful reality through any follow-up action. The expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the west bank has seen almost 500,000 acres of Palestinian land appropriated since 1967. In the last year alone, more than 120 checkpoints and obstacles have been installed to control Palestinian movement. More recently, the E1 settlement plan, which was approved by the Israeli Government, includes just short of 3,500 housing units. It includes the construction of a new neighbourhood, a new employment and commercial zone, and a new bypass road, which is for Palestinians only.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, the Government for allocating time for it, Members from across the House for supporting the application, and 32,000 constituents for writing to their MPs and asking them to attend and speak on this important issue. Two embattled generations have grown up in the ashes of the collapse of the Oslo accords. What little hope was cultivated then—the promise of two states, of dignity and of democratic rights for all—has been replaced with abject misery. This is how injustice survives: not through one dramatic moment, but through gradual acceptance, the lowering of expectations and the repetition of the same statements while the reality on the ground continues to change. For years, successive British Governments have said that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal under international law, that settlements undermine peace and that they threaten the viability of a two-state solution, yet the settlements continue to expand. I pose to the Government the simple question that sits at the heart of this debate: if settlements are illegal, why have we not banned trade with them outright? What exactly is it that we are waiting for? Why do we continue to maintain a status quo that has rewarded Israeli expansionism while punishing Palestinian aspiration—a status quo that has expected Palestinians to quietly accept that their humanity, rights and self-determination must always play second fiddle?

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes an excellent point. The first act should be that we seek to stem trade from the settlements; the other points are valid ones that must be explored. Let us imagine two children born in the same land: one is born in an Israeli settlement; the other is born in a Palestinian community—perhaps one of the 58 refugee camps scattered across the nearby region. They may be separated by only a few miles, but they will grow up under entirely different systems. One will enjoy unrestricted freedom of movement, infrastructure investment, dependable access to healthcare, free-flowing water, the right to be educated, legal protections and state support. The other may face military restrictions, checkpoints, demolitions, land seizures and profound uncertainty about their future. They will both have the same dreams, the same hopes, the same potential, yet one will grow up benefiting from a system of privilege while the other experiences the consequences of occupation. These two children will be governed by two different sets of laws, one civilian and one military. I am sure everyone will be able to guess which child is which. These waves of injustice will keep flowing, over families, over communities, over generations. How is it possible that two children in the west bank can have such different experiences, yet still there is denial that it is apartheid? Across Europe, action is starting to take shape. Ireland has moved forward towards a ban on settlement goods. Spain has already implemented a ban. The Belgian Council of Ministers is expected to agree the detail of a ban tomorrow and for it to be in place by the end of this year. Belgium has also asked the European Commission to bring proposals to the Foreign Ministers meeting on 13 July. The Netherlands has begun moving beyond a policy of simple discouragement and has tabled a legal instrument to ban settlement trade. These countries have looked at the same legal questions and the same settlement expansions. They have the same international obligations as we do, but they have concluded that words alone are not enough. The UK remains hesitant, which should concern us all because our Government do have the tools to act. The issue is not capability, but political will. Some will argue that it is too complex to enforce a ban and that our system of not allowing tariff preferences for settlement goods works perfectly well. It does not work, and it puts us on a collision course with our international legal obligations. Ministers cannot in good faith say that it is impossible to ban settlement trade, not when the UK’s current trade agreement with Israel already depends on identifying whether goods qualify as being of Israeli origin. Complexity is not an excuse to hide from our international obligations. In fact, the complexity is why a ban is needed. Settlement goods are routinely mislabelled, mixed into supply chains and rerouted to obscure their origin. According to a major Global Echo study, 17% of Israeli goods that are either sold, supplied or advertised in the UK are actually from illegal settlements. In the last week alone, my office has identified products from 12 different companies based in the occupied territories being sold online or physically in our shops and markets. Most of them are marked as Israeli products, so the differentiation system we depend on does not stop the goods entering this country; it only allows us to slap a tariff charge on them. Those tariff charges actually mean nothing because the Israeli Government offer incentives to settlers. They give out millions in grants to companies to cover the costs of doing business from an illegal settlement. I remind the Minister of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of July 2024. It includes an obligation not to aid or assist the illegal occupation, and to take steps to prevent trade and investment relations that sustain it. When I have written to companies such as Barclays and JCB about their links to Israeli settlements, they offer very little concern, but if our Government were to take stronger action to compel them not to do business in illegal settlements, we would see that action. We would see them sever their links with illegal settlements. Others say that European countries find it difficult to enforce their bans, and that may make our job even more difficult. However, the question is not about new enforcement powers, but about utilising existing ones. There are enough instruments already to seriously disrupt illegal activity wherever it is happening. I need only point to the successes of legislation such as the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, through which much more complex sanctions have been applied in much tougher circumstances. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the UK did not say that sanctions were too complicated; we relished identifying Russian-linked assets. We did not say that economic pressure was pointless because Russia would just ignore it; we acted because we rightly believed in the principles at stake. What answer does the Minister have to the accusations of double standards that we constantly hear? If the Government believe that international law has meaning, it should be applied consistently. In years to come, will we have the words to explain that we saw the warning signs, we recognised the damage being done, and still we chose to hesitate? Will we really be able to look back and say that we did enough? There are only so many times that Members can hear the same holding responses repeated at the Dispatch Box by Ministers. The Government say that they support international law, that settlements are illegal and that they support a viable Palestinian state, so what does it mean if we can identify the problem and yet we refuse to take the necessary steps, and refuse to move beyond discouragement and expressions of concern? The time to legislate for a ban on trade with illegal settlements was decades ago, and now it may be too late to do anything. We must demonstrate that Britain’s commitment to international law is measured not only in what we say, but in what we do, because if settlements are illegal, Britain should not be trading with them.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The new bypass road, which is for Palestinians only, will reroute Palestinians and seal off the E1 corridor permanently. This is a state-wide strategy that uses every civilian and military means to appropriate land, isolate Palestinians and make a Palestinian state impossible to realise.

• 9 Jul 2026 · Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is why it is essential that we are having this debate and that there must be a ban on trade. I will not take further interventions now because I have to make progress. The annexation has accelerated so fast that today 750,000 settlers are believed to be living on occupied Palestinian land. Their presence each year robs the Palestinian economy, which is largely agricultural, of over £38 billion. Water in the west bank is extracted disproportionately to sustain Israel and Israeli settlers. Seventy per cent of grazing land in the occupied territories is systematically denied to Palestinians. Olive orchards are regularly set on fire. Toxic waste is dumped on their crops to destroy their economic future—I could go on. Between 2009 and 2020, Israeli settlers in area C received 22,000 building permits; for Palestinians, the figure was just 66. When Palestinians build their homes, their presence is rendered illegal and they are often slapped with demolition orders. Settlers, however, can have their illegal outposts given full legal status by the Israeli Government. In the last two years alone, 3,500 Palestinians have been displaced in the west bank. That is over 80 communities. This is an Israeli Government-backed policy reaching far and wide across the west bank.