Ayoub Khan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 22 Jun 2026 · UK Politics: Pro-Israel Influence · Hansard source

  More

  May I start with a preamble? It is important to say that this is not about the Jewish community; it is about the state of Israel. We must be careful in our words and ensure that we do not conflate the two. It is always said that the strength of a nation’s alliance is measured by how much it can endure. For two years, this Government have supported the state of Israel through the unimaginable: genocide in Gaza, illegal settlement building in the occupied west bank, and even war in Iran. It is also said that the power of a lobby group is measured by how far a Government can be pushed beyond the limits of policy making. I think it is fair to say that for millions up and down this country, the Government’s approach to Israel has defied the most basic logic, justice and humanity. Continued arms sales amid mass extermination, the weaponisation of terrorism law to silence dissent, the welcoming of wanted war criminals on the steps of 10 Downing Street—with every decision this Government have made, it is not only reasonable to ask questions about political influence in Britain, but necessary. This is not about Jewish communities or Jewish identity, and it is not about denying anyone the right to advocate for Israel, Palestine or any other state. Lobbying is part of our democracy, but when such practices are shrouded in secrecy while shifting huge sums of money, we must ask, “Are this Government truly committed to cleansing our politics of foreign influence, or are they just concerned with blocking the foreign donations they do not get?” This is about more than simply election funds. It is about access and influence. Anyone who claims that these donors receive nothing in return is being naïve. The transactional nature of donations applies no less to those in the highest echelons of our democracy. Just this year, Labour Friends of Israel, which funded many Cabinet members, was reported to the Electoral Commission over concerns about opaque funding arrangements. Ministers in this Government publicly identify themselves as members of that organisation, yet it is not registered as a Members’ association, and therefore avoids the further disclosure requirements that accompany that status. That cannot be right. More troubling still is the question of direct support from the Israeli state. Electoral records show that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has provided financial support to UK parliamentarians. That must be transparent.

• 17 Jun 2026 · Engagements · Hansard source

  More

  Q8. I echo the tributes to Jo Cox, Roy Hattersley and the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. There are approximately 400,000 private hire and black cab drivers in the United Kingdom, and we rely on each and every one of them to keep our economy moving. It is concerning to hear that this Government are letting Uber deploy robotic minicabs across London, with the potential of them being rolled out across the country. Our drivers already face unsafe working conditions, discrimination and low pay, and now they are becoming casualties of this AI drive. At the last general election, British people were promised jobs and better workers’ rights, so I ask the Deputy Prime Minister: why are the Government pushing an agenda that will drive tens of thousands out of work, and will he arrange for a meeting so that we can have a discussion about this matter?

• 28 Apr 2026 · Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges · Hansard source

  More

  May I first extend my thoughts and prayers to the victims of Epstein? I commend the bold and courageous contributions of Labour Members who will be voting for the motion. I was elected as an independent Member of Parliament to represent the people of Birmingham Perry Barr without fear and without favour. I was sent here without a party Whip—without shackles or controls, or indeed hidden notes given to me behind closed doors. I was sent here to exercise my judgment, my discretion and my conscience at the behest of my constituents, and that is exactly what I do each and every day. The truth is that the British public feel deeply, profoundly disenfranchised. Too many people no longer trust politicians. Too many believe that we say one thing and do another. Too many feel that there is one rule for those in power and another for everyone else. We cannot simply dismiss that sentiment; we must confront it. Honesty matters. Integrity matters. Credibility matters. Above all, transparency matters. Without those fundamental elements, public confidence does not just weaken; it disappears. And once it is gone, it is incredibly difficult to rebuild. I therefore ask colleagues across the House—especially Labour colleagues—what message do we send today if we refuse even to allow a Committee to examine the facts? What are we saying to the public if we block scrutiny before it has even begun? The motion is not a verdict, a judgment or a declaration of guilt; it is a fair, established parliamentary process to examine evidence, to determine the facts and to allow the truth to emerge. Yet we are told that Labour Members are under a three-line Whip. For those outside the Chamber who may not know, that means they are being instructed and compelled to vote against the motion—to vote against even allowing the question to be examined. Let us be honest about what that looks like. If an individual votes to prevent the investigation, they are not defending due process, but denying it; they are not upholding transparency, but obstructing it; they are not strengthening public trust, but further eroding it. To the British people, it will look like they are shielding, blocking and protecting the powerful from scrutiny. That is precisely the perception that we should all be fighting against, not reinforcing. If we expect the public to follow the rules, to respect the law and to have faith in our institutions, we must hold ourselves to the same, if not higher, standards. We cannot ask for trust while refusing accountability, we cannot demand integrity while avoiding scrutiny and we cannot rebuild confidence by closing ranks. This is a moment that calls for courage—not partisan courage, but moral courage; the courage to say, “Let the process take its course”; the courage to say that no one is above scrutiny; and the courage to put principle above party. As an independent Member, I answer only to my constituents and to my conscience. I am confident that every Labour Member will listen to their conscience. My conscience tells me that supporting this motion is the right thing to do, not because of politics, but because of principles, and not because of personalities, but because of the standards that we owe to the British public. I urge colleagues across this House, particularly those under instructions today, to reflect carefully on the message that their vote will send. Will it be a message of openness or a message of obstruction? Will it be a message of accountability or a message of avoidance? The public are watching and they will draw their own conclusions. If we are serious about restoring trust in politics, we must be serious about transparency. If we are serious about integrity, we must be serious about scrutiny. If we are serious about public confidence, we must allow the truth to be examined, wherever that truth leads. For that reason, I support the motion. The Prime Minister is willing to put each and every Labour Member of Parliament at risk at the next general election, but he will not risk going in front of the Privileges Committee.

• 25 Mar 2026 · Foreign Financial Influence and Interference: UK Politics · Hansard source

  More

  A former high-ranking member of Reform UK was convicted and sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison for accepting bribes to promote pro-Russian narratives, while some Members across the House have had direct foreign interference in their work in Parliament. Given that the Rycroft report highlights the fact that foreign interference in our politics is real and persistent, what additional steps can be taken to strengthen our democracy against foreign interference in political parties?

• 3 Mar 2026 · Small Charity Sector · Hansard source

  More

  It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing the debate. From my short time as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Perry Barr, and having spent over a decade as a local councillor, I know how small charities form the very lifeblood of our area. Although larger organisations no doubt do incredible amounts of good, I have found that it is the smaller groups that can only be found at the grassroots level that can reach out to the people who are most in need. I have had the privilege of meeting and working with many small-scale local charities in my time, and I am always encouraged by the hard work and decency of those looking to make our community a better place. Let me give three quick examples. The George Coller Memorial Fund is a local charity that has punched well above its weight over the years, campaigning successfully to enable schools to store and administer emergency inhalers—vital treatments—and recently campaigning to make a dose counter mandatory in emergency inhalers, which we are working on. I want to recognise and pay tribute to the work of Faizan Global Relief Foundation UK, which mobilised at the peak of the bin strikes, when there were piles and piles of rubbish across the city of Birmingham, to help the local community. The foundation also does enormous work with our youth, trying to address knife crime, substance abuse and so much more. I also want to raise the plight of Kevin, a retiree who volunteers day and night to run the Bethany food bank in my constituency. The charity feeds over 1,000 people a month, but receives its donations largely in the form of food rather than cash. With Birmingham city council applying only limited relief on business rates, Bethany food bank is at risk of shutting down permanently amid a cost of living crisis. Those sorts of small organisations do enormous work in constituencies up and down the country. When they are being squeezed at the same time as the cost of living is spiralling out of control and families are so desperate, we must support organisations that do not require an enormous amount of financial support but actually deliver so much. Will the Minister indicate what additional grants the Government can make available to smaller charities, because they are the charities that have the greatest impact?

• 3 Mar 2026 · Funeral Premises: Environmental Health Inspections · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. I know that he is deeply passionate about our shared work in the all-party parliamentary group for funerals, coroners and bereavement, where we have learnt about the cases he described. Does he agree that the Minister would benefit from meeting our APPG to discuss the funeral sector and how it can develop the clear standards, robust oversight and proper enforcement it so desperately requires?

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

  More

  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

  More

  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.

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

  More

  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

  More

  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 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  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?

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

  More

  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?

• 22 Oct 2025 · Points of Order · Hansard source

  More

  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On Monday the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport told the House, in relation to the Maccabi Tel Aviv match, that the risk assessment was based “in no small part on the risk posed to fans attending to support Maccabi Tel Aviv because they are Israeli and because they are Jewish.” —[ Official Report , 20 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 646.] However, reports last night revealed that the decision to ban away fans was due to intelligence suggesting that the main threat came from extremist Maccabi Tel Aviv fans themselves, and that they were the likely perpetrators of trouble in Amsterdam last year. The Ministerial Code requires Ministers to give accurate and truthful information to Parliament. If the Secretary of State had that information before her statement, she must correct the record. Can you ask her to clarify the position, Mr Speaker, and to return to the House immediately if she has breached the code that governs all parliamentarians?

• 21 Jul 2025 · Independent Water Commission · Hansard source

  More

  Citizens and families in my city of Birmingham are currently paying an average of £400 a year for their water bills—increasing to £800 by the end of this Parliament term. We know that the cost of living is spiralling out of control, and while families struggle with the cost of living, big bonuses are being taken by chief executives and shareholders. Will the Secretary of State consider bringing water back into public ownership, given that more than 60% of the British public are asking for that?