Ayoub Khan MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 11 Feb 2026 · Supported Exempt Accommodation: Birmingham · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered supported exempt accommodation in Birmingham. It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I declare my interest as a landlord. It is fair to say that most people up and down the country will not know much, if anything, about supported exempt accommodation, but in Birmingham it is something that almost everyone has become all too familiar with. In just eight years, the number of people housed in supported exempt accommodation in our city has tripled to more than 32,000 across 11,200 properties. My Birmingham Perry Barr constituency alone hosts 20% of the city’s total units. That means thousands of vulnerable individuals placed in a small number of neighbourhoods. This is not a marginal issue for us; it is shaping daily life. With the city containing more supported exempt accommodation than anywhere else, Brummies face a completely different reality on the ground from every other community in the country. Of most immediate concern to my constituents is the antisocial behaviour, criminal activity and fly-tipping that come with a high number of these properties in such close proximity. Let me be absolutely clear from the outset that this debate must not be about stigmatising vulnerable people. Many of those housed in supported accommodation are there because they have experienced trauma, addiction, serious mental health issues, abuse, time in care or even time in custody. They deserve compassion, dignity and meaningful support. But compassion must be matched with realism. Some of the individuals placed in ordinary residential streets have needs so acute that they require intensive, structured and often 24-hour care. When someone is in such crisis that they are unable to manage basic personal safety, hygiene, or addiction issues in public spaces, that person is not being supported adequately. They are not “bad neighbours”. They are people who require structured, possibly clinical support environments—not standard terraced housing or residential streets. The same applies to certain ex-offenders, particularly those leaving custody with complex behavioural, psychological or substance misuse issues. Reintegration is vital, but it is a delicate process that needs close management and the right resources. The issues that are being caused in my constituency are a matter not of law and order, but of care. I have had reports of individuals experiencing severe mental health breakdowns defecating in public spaces. Residents have described open drug use on streets where parents are walking their children to school. There are cases of individuals injecting themselves in broad daylight, in full view of families. For many of my constituents, everywhere they look they see visible manifestations of profound vulnerability and unmet need.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Supported Exempt Accommodation: Birmingham · Hansard source

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  I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. Often this comes down to adequate resourcing. As I described, we have a situation in which individuals who need intensive support are not being provided that support. They are being placed in neighbourhoods, which in itself is very challenging; someone might have an addiction to alcohol and be placed in a community where there is very little infrastructural support. It is vital not only that there is suitable accommodation but, more fundamentally, that we have the right level of support in and around particular areas. When we have large saturation without the support, the problems faced by many of my constituents and people in Birmingham more broadly are inevitable. That brings me nicely to the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023, which was passed to resolve some of the issues that we are facing in Birmingham. It promised to introduce compulsory national minimum standards for exempt accommodation, including on referrals, care and support, and quality of housing. It promised to grant local councils the powers and resources needed to enforce such standards, and greater control over the licensing and planning permission given to providers. Since the Act received Royal Assent, however, it has been stuck in the consultation stage, with disagreements over how to implement it on the ground. While the Act shows no sign of taking effect, the expansion of exempt accommodation in Birmingham continues unabated. The Government seem intent on painting the situation in Birmingham as simply a local matter that is nothing of their making, and the council’s call for powers to regulate the concentration of these properties as some kind of nimbyism, and yet the city’s importing vulnerable individuals from other local authorities against the council’s will is what caused the explosion in the first place. While supported exempt accommodation plays an important role in housing vulnerable people, the concentration and volume of provision in Birmingham far exceeds local need. This is not something that the Government have not known about; in written evidence it submitted to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee in 2022, Birmingham city council confirmed that only 42% of properties were needed to meet local need, with much of the remaining 58% being used to house people referred through local authorities or national bodies outside the Birmingham area. In all too many cases, people are being put in exempt accommodation in Birmingham simply because it is available, with no afterthought for the relative level of support that tenants can be provided or for the impact on the local area. Worst of all, Birmingham city council knows that is happening, but the Government still have not given it the licensing powers to stop it. Inaction on the Government’s part has been glaring, but I am pleased that the same cannot be said of activists in my constituency. During my time as Member of Parliament for Birmingham Perry Barr, I have been encouraged by the tireless efforts of local groups to raise the issue, including the HMO Action Group, the Handsworth Triangle Action Group, the Soho Road business improvement district and Handsworth Helping Hands. I must also thank Birmingham city council and West Midlands police for mobilising in the way they have to try to tackle the crisis. A particular bright spot has been the council’s in-house SEA pilot, which we can safely say has punched well above its weight and made Birmingham better for it. With minimal Government funding, the pilot has recovered £8.8 million in overpaid housing benefit, while also completing 2,600 antisocial behaviour investigations. That is with only 21 people covering the entire Birmingham city area. We must think of what more can be done to reduce fraud and waste in Government spending by giving the council the means to expand that operation. The SEA pilot and groups of committed activists have done an incredible job to improve care standards for vulnerable people in supported exempt accommodation, where such action is needed, but they simply cannot fill the gap that the Government have allowed to grow. To make matters worse, rather than supporting them, the Government are refusing to fund the SEA pilot—its funding runs out next month. As a result, the bankrupt Birmingham city council has been left in an impossible position. It must either scrounge the money together to fund the initiative itself, or lose what little grip it had left on the situation. That point is worth repeating. After depriving the council of the powers to regulate the market for three years, the Government are now refusing to give it the means to provide even a band-aid solution to a problem that they are compounding. While assurances were given that the Government would respond to the consultation as soon as possible, we have been hearing that for a long time. This is not just about some additional antisocial behaviour taking place on the streets; it is about the vulnerable individuals who are being let down by the system, and it is about the residents who have paid the price for Government inaction and seen the character of their streets tainted. Residents feel that their neighbourhoods have been lost and, worst of all, they feel as though no one in Whitehall cares enough to solve the problem. This is not to say that there is no place for supported exempt accommodation in Birmingham, because it plays a pivotal role. When it works well, it changes lives. I have been to neighbourhood forums in my constituency and spoken to people who have turned their lives around because of the support they receive from their registered providers—people rebuilding their lives after serving prison sentences, suffering domestic abuse, leaving care, or combating debilitating addictions or mental health conditions. But without the efficient, effective and meaningful licensing scheme for supported housing that the council was promised three years ago, Birmingham is simply unable to cope. We are asking neighbourhoods to absorb extremely high numbers of people with complex needs, but we are not providing the council with the tools required to support those individuals or reassure residents, and inevitably it is only the vulnerable individuals and the residents around them who stand to lose. The problem of over-concentration is exacerbated by the inefficient support infrastructure that comes with it. The SEA pilot shows that when Birmingham is given tools, it delivers, but the city has more supported exempt accommodation than anywhere else in the country, and yet it does not have the corresponding level of funding, enforcement capacity, clinical provision or community-safety staffing required to manage the consequences. If someone requires 24-hour wraparound care, addiction services, psychiatric input and structured supervision, they need a properly funded care facility, not a standard residential property with light-touch oversight. We must distinguish individuals who are stabilised and ready for supported community living from those in acute crisis who require secure, high-support environments before they can safely transition into neighbourhoods. At present, that distinction is not being properly resourced and the result is unfair on everyone. It is unfair on residents who see behaviour that is deeply distressing and feel that their concerns are dismissed, it is unfair on vulnerable individuals who are placed in environments that do not meet the scale of their needs, and it is unfair on Birmingham city council, which is expected to manage the situation without adequate funding or authority. The council’s supported exempt accommodation pilot has demonstrated what can be achieved when resources are provided, but pilots and short-term funding are not enough. What Birmingham needs is sustained funding for community safety, including more community safety officers and a greater neighbourhood policing presence in areas with a high concentration of supported housing. I would be incredibly appreciative if the Minister could make the necessary representations to his colleagues in the Home Office on that front. The council needs the ability to manage concentration and set boundaries on the number of people from outside the city that it must house, because no neighbourhood should be asked to shoulder a disproportionate share of highly complex placements without the consultation, infrastructure and services to match it. When it comes to managing such complex matters, having an ineffective, watered-down licensing scheme is worse than having nothing altogether, because we end up with the same outcome at a higher cost to the taxpayer. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s reflections on what can be done to ensure that the 2023 Act is implemented in a way that reflects the impact that exempt accommodation can have on neighbourhoods and community harmony. I would also be grateful to hear what is being done to increase the speed with which the Act is implemented, and clarification on when the Government will respond in full to the most recent consultation. Finally, the council needs the necessary powers to ensure that vulnerable individuals receive the best care possible. That means clarifying the extent of providers’ duty of care to their tenants, with tailored and specialist plans that not only provide personal support to the individual, but outline their obligations to ensure harmony with neighbours and the local community. To conclude, I have a couple of final questions for the Minister. What financial support do the Government intend to provide to Birmingham city council in its efforts to contain the local crisis that the Government’s prolonged inactivity has exacerbated? The SEA pilot, in particular, is of great value to my constituents, and it would be a real shame if it disappeared. Will he agree to meet with me and local groups so that they can convey to him the true scale of the impact that the oversaturation of SEAs is having on their neighbourhoods and communities? At the end of the day, this is about vulnerable people who need structured care, communities that need reassurance, and a local authority that cannot continue to carry a national burden without national support. Birmingham is not asking to step away from its responsibilities; it is asking for the means to fulfil them properly. It is my sincere hope that the Government will escalate their efforts to deliver exactly that.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Supported Exempt Accommodation: Birmingham · Hansard source

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  Of course.

• 11 Feb 2026 · Supported Exempt Accommodation: Birmingham · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) for her efforts in this debate—not just her contribution today, but her work in Parliament previously. I also thank the hon. Member for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali) for his interventions. The hon. Member for Birmingham Erdington (Paulette Hamilton) is not here, but we have had lengthy conversations and it seems that she is equally concerned, as are the other parliamentarians who represent Birmingham, about the sheer saturation of exempt accommodation. We all recognise the vulnerabilities of the individuals we all come across on a daily basis in our local shopping centres and hospitals, and the pressure on the West Midlands police when there are incidents. An enormous knock-on burden in Birmingham is being felt by local residents. Historically, many of the vulnerable individuals we now come across would not have been walking the streets. They would have been in care homes receiving the right level of care, but we do not see that now. I thank the Lib Dem spokesman and the shadow Minister for their contributions. As the Minister said, we are all essentially singing off the same hymn sheet. We all understand the importance of supported accommodation for those who can live with minimal support, integrate into society and contribute to local neighbourhoods. But unfortunately we are not getting that. Licensing and enabling the council to regulate the sector is so important. I hear the Minister, but I am afraid the phrase “as soon as possible” will not be well received by local residents who have to deal with the challenges on a daily basis. I accept that consultation with providers—especially those that do amazing work to provide support for vulnerable individuals who live in local neighbourhoods—is an important part of the process, but if there is going to be a delay because of the consultation, I would like the Minister to reconsider the SEA grant that is given to Birmingham city council. If licensing kicks in, let us say towards the end of the year, or even next year—whenever that may happen—the fact is that we do not have the capacity to deal with the problems that communities currently face. Will the Minister take that point away? I can see that I have gone over my allotted time, Ms Lewell. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered supported exempt accommodation in Birmingham.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Place-based Employment Support Programmes · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I thank the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) for securing this important debate. In my constituency, the scale of youth unemployment is stark and deeply concerning. We are among the worst-affected areas in the country, with one in every six eligible adults—16.1%—currently not working. Those are not just statistics; they represent thousands of young people whose talents are being wasted and whose futures are being put on hold. Across the west midlands, around 29,000 young people are classed as unemployed, with youth unemployment rates in parts of Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Walsall running at double the national average. The sheer scale of the challenge facing our region underlines the urgent need for growth and genuine job creation. Young people are not short of ambition or willingness to work; what they are short of is real opportunities, secure jobs, quality training, and pathways into employment that offer dignity and progression. Too many are stuck in a cycle of rejection or short-term work, or being shut out altogether. I hope the Minister will detail how young people are being actively supported into large infrastructure projects such as HS2 and the large housing programmes. As the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), said: “To get Britain growing, we need to get Britain working again.” I wholly agree with that sentiment, but I cannot agree with the Government’s approach of removing universal credit from young people if they do not take up a job—there could be a whole host of reasons why they cannot do so. Punitive policies do not create jobs or address the structural barriers that young people face, and they risk pushing already vulnerable people into further hardship. Young people are struggling to get jobs, a struggle intensified by wider changes in the economy. New research suggests that the UK is now losing more jobs than it is creating because of artificial intelligence, and that Britain is being hit harder than any other major economy. According to a recent study by Morgan Stanley, British companies reported that AI had resulted in net job losses over the past 12 months, with employment down by 8%—the worst performance among comparable economies, including the United States, Japan, Germany and Australia. That performance matters, because it means that young people are entering a labour market that is shrinking, not expanding. Getting Britain working again does not require sanctions; we need investment, collaboration with local employers, properly funded skills programmes and an economy that works for every region, not just a few. I commend the excellent work of the West Midlands combined authority under Mayor Richard Parker, which is building up skills and training our young people in areas such as construction, the arts, tech, life sciences and clean energy. However, I urge more support from central Government to ensure this is happening across the midlands and the wider economy. If we are truly serious about growth, we must be serious about our young people. That means backing them, not blaming them; it means opportunity, not punishment; and it means ensuring that places such as Birmingham Perry Barr are not left behind, but are at the heart of our national recovery.

• 9 Feb 2026 · UK-India Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  We all want a trade deal—a symbiotic relationship through which not just our country succeeds, but any other country that we trade with also succeeds—but that must not and cannot be a compromise that undermines the core British value of upholding the law, as well as ethical and moral values. However, when it comes to this agreement, that is exactly what we have done. Our commitment to human rights, climate change and justice have been sidelined for obvious commercial gain, and this kind of moral weakness has become a defining feature of pretty much everything that this Government have done on the world stage, discarding human rights at the first sign of pushback and branding cowardice as pragmatism. Time and again we have seen the same story. We all know that when the Prime Minister went to China, the Uyghurs—who we all know face forced assimilation, abuse and genocide in Xinjiang—were the last item on his agenda, if not left out entirely. Today, British Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for defending democracy in Hong Kong, so it is clear that any attempts to move the dial on that front have failed miserably. Without doubt, the same can be said of the Prime Minister’s trip to India. He promised to raise the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, who many hon. Members have mentioned—a British Sikh who has been imprisoned for eight years without conviction, all because he stood up for the most basic human rights for Sikhs in India. Environmental and labour standards have been neglected too. The Government refused even to complete an independent human rights risk assessment that would have highlighted the violations that British money was at risk of perpetuating. That refusal speaks volumes. Nowhere is this Government’s moral abrogation more glaring than in their silence on Kashmir. A region born out of the catastrophic failure of partition in 1947, Kashmir has endured decades of broken promises and betrayed commitments, yet the Prime Minister did not even pretend to raise its plight with Prime Minister Modi. For a people long accustomed to British indifference, this was simply the latest insult. The region is not only occupied partly by India, but had its constitutional autonomy removed in 2019. For decades, the people of Kashmir have seen their most fundamental rights trampled upon; we have military occupation, political repression, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings, and restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly. The suffering endured by the Kashmiri people at the hands of India is nothing short of horrifying, and yet it is in that context of systemic and unashamed oppression that Kashmiri people’s fight for self-determination continues to be ignored, overlooked by nations that are more interested in kowtowing to an occupying power for economic gain. For more than 75 years, successive British Governments have washed their hands of a crisis they helped to create, hiding behind the fiction that it is merely a matter for India and Pakistan. Even now, when we have presidency of the United Nations Security Council, we are silenced by our political objectives and paralysed when it comes to addressing injustice around the world. This Government are always talking about their non-tolerance of affronts to justice, but when the time comes to act on those promises, they falter. It is not just about priorities—it is a sign of the discrimination that this Government are willing to tolerate on our own shores, when it suits their interest. It speaks to the responsibilities they are willing to flout when sorting out the mess that our empire left behind. Wherever there are human rights violations, we cannot neglect our moral and legal obligations abroad for quick wins at home. Just as there should be with any trade deal struck by this nation, the free trade agreement with India should have included a clause that made the benefits of trade conditional upon the protection of human rights, the release of political prisoners, the enforcement of labour standards and the liberation of the oppressed. I heard the Minister mention the fact that we have such a clause, but it is not enforceable; unfortunately, that might as well not have been included in the documentation, because it has no bite. If there are no meaningful sanctions to deter nations from committing such atrocities, how can we expect them to change? I gently request that the Government reflect on how committed they truly are to upholding international law and on their willingness to have tough conversations with our allies. In a world where, I am afraid to say, we are losing international law and the values aligned to it, Britain must be a binding force that holds it together no matter what. I echo what the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) has said repeatedly in this Chamber: we must uphold our moral and legal obligations. Wherever there is injustice, we must be the force that stands up to it.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Standards in Public Life · Hansard source

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  We all know that the Prime Minister is a lawyer, and lawyers must understand and test the veracity of information that is being provided. The Prime Minister has said from the Dispatch Box that he took a risk, and that he had known that Mandelson had kept up his relationship with Epstein. I suspect that the risk was of the public finding out, and the public do now know about this. Is it not simply time for the Prime Minister to go?

• 5 Feb 2026 · National Cancer Plan · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Minister and thank her for presenting this national cancer plan. Her conviction, enthusiasm and passion for the subject are clearly seen from the Dispatch Box. She talks about regional disparity, but we also have disparity within constituencies. My constituency of Birmingham Perry Barr operates 20% below the national average, so I am pleased that the Minister will be addressing that. It has been reported that 64 radiotherapy machines are running over their 10-year lifespan, which has cost the NHS 87,000 appointments. We know that we have 28 new machines. What will the Government do to get more new machines?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Late last week, it was with great sadness that Brummies learned of the passing away of Councillor Waseem Zaffar MBE. He was only 44 years of age and served the people of Lozells and the wider Birmingham area for 15 years. During our time together—both within and beyond the council chamber—we had our political differences, but what was never in question was my admiration for his tireless efforts to champion our city and its residents. Given the immense contribution made by Councillor Waseem Zaffar to local democracy, will the Leader of the House agree to make time for a debate on local councillors and activists, so that we can find more ways of recognising their contribution?

• 5 Feb 2026 · Sudan · Hansard source

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  I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement today and commend her on her leadership, particularly in travelling out to Sudan to see at first hand the atrocities that are being committed. We all know that in conflict innocent civilians will always get caught up in crossfire, but the distinction in this case is that children are specifically being targeted—children being raped as a weapon of war and young boys being kidnapped and forced to bear arms. I am sure the whole House welcomes the additional support we are giving in the form of financial aid, but it is a drop in the ocean given the challenges faced in Sudan, so what more are we doing with our allies to ensure we can maximise the aid that gets into Sudan? Also, given that we are now in pole position as president of the United Nations Security Council, is there any prospect that we can get UN troops to protect the civilian population, and children in particular?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Armed Conflict: Children · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) for securing this important debate. There is no period of greater importance than childhood. Every child deserves dignity, protection and the support needed to give them the best possible start in life. Yet today, more than 500 million children are living in active conflict zones around the world. Every day, we are confronted with the human cost of war on children: the 20,000 Ukrainian children abducted and taken to Belarus and Russia, many of whom may never see their families again; the 10.8 million children in Yemen denied food, clean water, healthcare and education; and the millions of girls in Sudan facing displacement, starvation and the constant threat of abduction, exploitation and enslavement. The scale of trauma being inflicted on children worldwide is both incomprehensible and intolerable. Ending this suffering requires two things from a Government such as ours—adequate humanitarian and development assistance to meet children’s immediate needs, and the political courage to prioritise human rights and the prevention of harm over political expediency. On both counts, unfortunately, this Government have failed, in my view. At a time when children’s suffering has never been more widespread, the Government chose to halve the overseas aid budget. That was not an unavoidable necessity, but a political choice, and one that has stripped millions of children of access to food, healthcare, education and protection. Now is not the time for retreat; it is a time for leadership. Instead, the Government have turned away from their responsibility to uphold the most basic human dignities. However, this failure goes beyond aid. The Government have also failed to take the political action necessary to prevent and halt the conflicts that devastate children’s lives in the first place. Nowhere—nowhere—is that more evident than in Gaza. For over a year, this Labour Government stood by as Palestinian children were bombed, shot and starved, and as their schools, hospitals and homes were destroyed. Through their inaction, the Government have been complicit in the destruction of the conditions children need to live, learn and grow. They stood by as their lives were reduced to bare survival, or taken away altogether. We cannot soften the reality of the physical, emotional and psychological trauma inflicted on these children. A recent study led by the University of Cambridge found that constant bombardment and starvation have left children in Gaza “too weak to learn or play”, and convinced that they will be “killed for being Gazans”. These children have lost not only their homes and health, but their hope and their faith that the international system will protect them. Children in Gaza will have lost the equivalent of five years of education since 2020. Rebuilding education across Palestine is going to cost billions. As a result, children will depend on foreign aid for decades, not because this was inevitable, but because the Government failed to stand up for international law when it mattered most. We must be honest about our role in this devastation. The suffering did not occur in a vacuum, and our silence and inaction were not neutral. Lives were destroyed because it was politically convenient to look away.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I represent a constituency that is proud of its diversity, and I see at first hand how welcoming talented, hard-working people from around the world enriches our society. That is why the Government’s proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain hit so close to home and threaten to up-end the lives of many in my area. Few in this Chamber will truly understand the insecurity that comes with moving to another country—of building a life while your future, family plans and financial stability rest on political decisions that are beyond your control. It is no surprise that so many who contribute enormously to our communities and economy feel frustrated as the goalposts are moved yet again.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  I totally agree. These changes are simply unfair—not just unfair, but economically short-sighted. They risk driving away the very people our country depends on—highly skilled professionals who make up a small group of fewer than 70 specialist occupations, yet who are critical to productivity, innovation and competitiveness. Employers already struggle to recruit domestically, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Raising the salary threshold to £50,000 ignores the labour market reality and places further strain on businesses that are already paying visa fees, skills charges and the immigration health surcharge. The hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) mentioned how much people pay, but there is an added cost: that of legal fees, which can run into thousands of pounds. These workers are not burdens on the state: they pay tax, national insurance and over £1,000 per adult each year through the health surcharge. Many have partners who are also highly skilled and work full-time, yet whose contributions are simply overlooked. Most concerning of all is the proposal to extend the settlement route from five years to 10, potentially applied retrospectively. People—doctors, carers, engineers and teachers—came here in good faith, having been recruited during shortages and given a clear promise of settlement after five years. Changing that promise years later breaks that trust and undermines confidence in an already punitive system. If the Government truly want a controlled and effective system, they must value contribution over political expediency. I urge Ministers to rethink this proposal, protect existing routes and ensure that the UK remains a country that keeps its word.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  The Minister talks about what potentially might happen, but, with respect, that is almost scaremongering. Most of those people are hard-working citizens. Does the Minister not believe that that kind of language raises this spectre, which is precisely why we are having the debate? That kind of language does no justice to what is really happening in our migrant communities.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Military Independence from US · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister and the Secretary of State consider diverting defence spending away from programmes that do not truly protect the British people? Our nuclear deterrent now consumes nearly a third of the defence budget through Trident, a system that cannot be launched without US approval. In pursuing nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction, we have drained funding from conventional forces and neglected the diplomacy and development that actually prevents conflicts. Does the Minister believe that prioritising nuclear defence over reducing tensions, ending conflicts and promoting peace genuinely delivers security for our people, and if so, can he explain why?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Military Independence from US · Hansard source

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  5. Whether he is taking steps to increase the UK’s level of military independence from the US.

• 21 Jan 2026 · Warm Homes Plan · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I especially welcome the fact that the plan will now ensure a degree of localisation and devolution when it comes to decision making, and hopefully it will get rid of the problems we saw with the previous Government’s scheme. Thousands of residents in my constituency have fallen victim to substandard work. The Secretary of State mentioned that there will be remediation. Will that remediation allow them to apply for the new scheme?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Waste Collection: Birmingham and the West Midlands · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Member agree that the issue is not just the lack of green and recyclable waste collections, but that communities who live in inner-city areas, where more individuals live in a particular home and that home is terraced, suffer most?

• 21 Jan 2026 · Waste Collection: Birmingham and the West Midlands · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), who is an ardent and extremely consistent advocate for Birmingham despite not being a Member of Parliament for the city. Her constituency borders Birmingham, and she has highlighted the devastating impact that the bin strikes have been having on her constituents. Earlier this month marked one year since the bin strikes began, yet the council walked out of negotiations in the summer. It has made absolutely no effort to secure a negotiated settlement to the dispute. For more than a year, Birmingham city council has continued in its pursuit to cut the pay of essential workers. After bankrupting the city, it is diverting what little taxpayer money it has available and using it, not to reverse some of the budget cuts it installed, but to prolong a process that has caused rubbish to pile up in our streets. At no point has the council leadership—or this Government–– done the one thing it should have all along and admitted who is truly at fault for stalling negotiations, inflicting misery upon residents and prolonging this saga. It was a Labour-run council whose incompetence bankrupted the city before passing a budget that slashed public services by £300 million, raised council tax bills by 18% and made the cuts to the waste management service that triggered the dispute. It was a Labour-run council that stood idly by while the deal put forward by its own managing director was vetoed by the Government-appointed commissioners, and it is a Labour-run council that has refused to re-enter negotiations for six months, even as the agency staff it hired to replace the striking workers have joined the picket line in droves. Reports due before Birmingham city council show that attempts to break the bin strikes have already cost more than £33 million. That figure includes lost income from waste services, emergency street cleansing, security and temporary facilities. Even that figure is likely to underestimate the true cost once spending on agency staff and contractors is fully accounted for. While that is happening, nearly £20 million of those costs are being met by cutting spending elsewhere, placing further strain on already underfunded services and raising a fundamental question about value for money. A dispute that could have been resolved at a fraction of the cost has been allowed to spiral into a financial and service delivery disaster. While the council drags its feet on reaching a deal that it has spent inordinate amounts of money to avoid, it is the residents who are harmed the most. It is the residents who are being asked to tolerate collapsing services while tens of millions of pounds are burned on band-aid solutions. Across the city, most have gone weeks —sometimes even months—without a single bin collection. Piles of waste have become the new normal. As the streets grow dirtier, fly-tipping has surged, unchecked and unchallenged. On many occasions, I have been out late at night, side by side with local community organisations, collecting rubbish from the streets of Birmingham. For more than a year now, my constituents have filled in where the council is nowhere to be seen, doing the job it has failed to do. The situation has got so bad that some feel it is right to blame local residents for not taking it on themselves. Let me be clear: the people of Birmingham take pride in their communities. They care about their streets, their neighbours and their city just as much as anyone else. They do not deserve to be scapegoated for a mess that is not of their making. The blame lies squarely with the Labour-run council, which has broken the social contract between itself and Birmingham’s 1.2 million residents. It took taxpayer’s money to deliver essential services and failed to uphold its end of the bargain. It did not need to come to this. A proactive council would have sat down, found a solution and put residents first. Instead, it has let things deteriorate to the point that the Army has had to be called in to clean our streets. This situation exposes the limits of pretending that this is purely a local matter. The Government have repeatedly shirked responsibility by claiming that this is a matter for the local authorities, but Birmingham city council is under a statutory intervention. Government-appointed commissioners are involved in improving outcomes, yet Ministers have repeatedly sought to distance themselves from responsibility. If the Government have a role in overseeing decisions, they also have a responsibility to ensure that those decisions are not prolonging misery or unnecessarily inflating costs. Ultimately, Birmingham’s residents want two things: to have their bins collected safely and reliably, and to be confident that their money is not being squandered through mismanagement at a local and national level. If the council and Government cannot manage even to consider a negotiated settlement, it will be the residents who are forced to pay for their mistakes. As I have repeatedly asked in the main Chamber, I ask the Minister whether the Government will now ask Birmingham city council leaders to sit at the table with Unite the union and come to a resolution, so that residents can have a proper bin service?

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  This is truly a sad day for British politics. Despite all the rhetoric in this House, Brummies know the truth: this is nothing but a witch hunt and the chief constable is being thrown under the bus. The Home Secretary knows all too well that West Midlands police have a reputation for working with all communities; it has never caved in to community pressure. We all know this because we regularly have far right protests and marches in our city. The police could have done a better job in terms of procedure, yes, but their reason for banning Maccabi fans was the same from day one. We all know about the unashamed racism and violence, and that is the reason they were banned, because that would have been brought to the streets of Birmingham—

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  The police did their job and now they are being punished for it, so I ask the Home Secretary: is it worth throwing our chief constable under the bus just to show that the words of the right-wing media and Dutch officials, under pressure from Amsterdam city hall, matter more than our British police?

• 12 Jan 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Birmingham residents have just marked the first anniversary of the bin strikes. We have spent more than £15 million on agency staff. Will the Minister personally intervene to help broker a deal between the trade unions and Birmingham city council?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Lady give way?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a persuasive point about modelling and impact assessments. Having practised at the criminal Bar for the last two decades, I can tell the House that there will still be opening speeches by defence counsel and prosecution counsel, and there will still be cross-examination of witnesses. Most importantly, there is the questioning of the defendant. Judges understand the procedure, but defendants must also understand the procedure and closing speeches. I cannot see where there will be savings. That is why the modelling is so important. Does the hon. Member agree?

• 7 Jan 2026 · Jury Trials · Hansard source

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  A very valid point was raised earlier about triaging whether a case should have a jury trial. If a judge decides that the sentence would be less than three years, but after a trial in the absence of a jury it is decided that the defendant should get five or six years, do they have a right to appeal the decision and have a jury trial?