Ayoub Khan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  Worse still, just a year ago, when this Labour Government came to power, the people were promised change. The Prime Minister said on the campaign trail that those with the broadest shoulders should pay their fair share, yet only one year in this Government are stripping income from those who are most in need by telling disabled people that they are not impaired enough to earn state support.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  I say to the Ministers and hon. Members who claim that these changes are needed to preserve the welfare state that the welfare state was built on the idea that everyone would receive state support for things that were out of their control, no matter what. Passing this Bill will not preserve the welfare state but dismantle it, and I urge every Member of this House to reject it. We can and must do better than this. The people we represent deserve far better.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  This is nothing short of shameful, and if the Bill passes, it will be a national disgrace. The welfare state was built on the principles of solidarity, dignity and security, and this Bill tramples on those values. It will strip away independence, force people into deeper hardship and leave many with no safety net at all.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill · Hansard source

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  This Government’s Bill is not just flawed, but morally indefensible. From the outset, we need to be honest about what this Bill represents. It is not a reform; it is a calculated assault on some of the most marginalised people in our society—people with disabilities, people with complex mental health conditions and people already struggling under the weight of austerity and neglect. This Bill continues a pattern we have seen too many times, with cuts dressed up as reform and cruelty wrapped in the language of efficiency. The Department’s own assessment confirms the truth: 150,000 people will be pushed into poverty, approximately 20,000 of them children, if the Bill passes. That is not a side effect but the outcome, and the Government know it. This Bill targets those with fluctuating, invisible or mental health conditions—the very people who already face systemic injustice. It imposes narrow functional descriptors that do not reflect the real-world barriers people face. It punishes people not for being unwilling to work, but for not fitting neatly into bureaucratic tick boxes. Worse still, there has been no meaningful consultation with disabled people or carers, and no engagement with those who live this reality every single day. The Government are making policy about disabled people without disabled people. That is not just neglect; it is offensive. The evidence is clear: the Government are looking to make savings by depriving thousands of their means to live while telling them that the planned changes will empower them. According to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, one in five people in receipt of PIP are already in paid employment and working to the limits that their condition allows. Of those, 60% will lose their PIP. These people are already in work. What more do the Government want? Why are they punishing them? In my constituency of Birmingham Perry Barr, 9,000 people rely on this vital payment, but nearly 4,000 are set to lose out entirely, including 630 people currently in work. What do the Government say to my constituents who will lose the income required to live with their condition? What do they say to the millions of families who will have to tighten their purse strings so they can pay for the basic needs of loved ones?

• 7 May 2025 · Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I extend my extreme gratitude to the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for bringing forward this debate. Thousands in my constituency will be affected by the proposed cuts to PIP and to wider benefits. That is about not just numbers on a balance sheet, but the daily lives of real people. PIP is a vital lifeline for those living with disabilities and long-term health conditions. It helps to cover the extra costs that many of us never have to think about: mobility aids, transport and specialist care. Cutting that support does not just tighten budgets; it strips away independence and, more importantly, dignity. We must ask ourselves what kind of society we want to be: one that turns away from its most vulnerable, or one that lifts them up, ensuring that disability does not mean poverty, isolation or fear. Behind every efficiency saving is a person: a mother skipping meals so her disabled son can get to an appointment; a veteran left waiting months for a reassessment; or a young woman terrified of losing the support she needs to work part time and stay independent. This is about not just fairness but justice, compassion and basic human rights. I ask the Minister to halt these proposed cuts, to review PIP with empathy and not austerity, and to build a system that supports not punishes the most needy in our society.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q7. This Labour Government have failed the British public at every turn: they have abandoned the WASPI women, leaving them without the compensation they deserve; they have turned their backs on pensioners by failing to support the winter fuel allowance; they have let down children by keeping the two-child benefit cap in place; and they will inflict further hardship on the most vulnerable by slashing £5 billion from benefits. Perhaps the most immediate and visible failure, which poses an immediate and direct health risk to the people of Birmingham, is the appalling financial mismanagement of Labour-run Birmingham city council. After more than a decade of Labour control, that council’s incompetence has led to mountains of uncollected rubbish piling up on every street, so large that they can be seen by satellites orbiting in space. It is nothing short of a disgrace and a damning indictment of Labour’s inability to govern. Will the Prime Minister take urgent action to protect public health and the people of Birmingham by immediately deploying the—

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for giving way. He makes a very eloquent and persuasive statement. The current Government use compensation as an excuse, saying it is too expensive, but we have seen, for example, train drivers being given an additional £600 a day. We have seen Government intervene on the Post Office scandal. Does the right hon. Member agree that the argument can be easily disabused by looking at the track record on assistance for those who have found themselves at the forefront of injustice?

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) for securing this important debate. I will not repeat what so many Members have already said—repetition never makes any argument more persuasive—but the stark fact raised by the right hon. Member is that a WASPI woman dies every 12 minutes, so we will have lost five or six by the time the debate finishes. As politicians, we have a responsibility and an obligation to act urgently to establish a comprehensive compensation scheme that can be tailored over time. We do not have to raise hundreds of millions of pounds straightaway; that could be done over the lifetime of this Parliament. Such a scheme would recognise the important contribution made by women born in the 1950s, and support the impartial, independent role of the ombudsman, thereby giving it the credence it deserves. As representatives of the public, we must ensure the principles of transparency, accountability and fair treatment that underpin our democracy. It is time we stood up for this deserving group of women across the country and specifically the hundreds and hundreds from Birmingham Perry Barr who have written to me.

• 15 Jan 2025 · Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation · Hansard source

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  In spite of what the ombudsman has recommended, it is clear that the current Prime Minister recognised and advocated throughout the country that WASPI women were dealt an enormous injustice. It is a principle of democracy where we advocate for something when we want power, we ought to deliver once we get power to maintain trust and confidence. In spite of what the ombudsman recommends, does the Minister agree that the Prime Minister should honour what he advocated?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Budget Resolutions · Hansard source

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  I congratulate those hon. Members who made their maiden speech in this debate. Their speeches were touching and very inspirational. The Chancellor promised us that by making the necessary tough choices, the autumn Budget would provide the blueprint for unlocking growth and prosperity, yet I struggle to see the substantive improvement that my constituents will experience to their lives—and for good reason. Many people in Birmingham Perry Barr have never felt as poor, as disheartened and as ignored as they do at this moment, and it does not take much soul-searching to see why. The Budget did not deliver for the 73.7% of pensioners in my constituency who are no longer eligible for the winter fuel payment, many of whom are now forced to choose between keeping warm, feeding themselves or incurring an inordinate amount of debt. The Budget did not hear the pleas of families in low-income households. Some 48.9% of children in Birmingham Perry Barr live in poverty, and 5,930 children in my constituency alone live in households directly impacted by the two-child benefit cap, yet despite the child poverty crisis unfolding nationally, this Government’s refusal to remove that cruel measure has limited their ability to tackle the issue head-on. In the wake of the Budget, the safety net for our nation’s most vulnerable stakeholders is unable to support the weight of living; the protections are brittle and hollowed out. This Budget did not serve my constituents in Birmingham Perry Barr, nor did it ease the burden for Birmingham’s 1.2 million residents, who continue to face indiscriminate cuts to local government spending. Following mismanagement, Birmingham city council, which, incidentally, is Labour-run, is essentially bankrupt. Necessary services such as transport for schoolchildren with special needs, adult social care, youth centres and libraries are being cut and closed—the list is endless. What was once a far-reaching local government authority has been reduced to a minimalist, bare-bones, skeleton service. While I welcome the Government’s slight increase in local government finances, Birmingham city council needs a significant amount of funding. I urge the Government to consider increasing local government finance.

• 12 Sept 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. Water bills in the west midlands are set to increase by some 37% by the end of the decade. Many of my constituents are already struggling with the cost of living. What steps will the Secretary of State take to stop private water companies ripping off consumers in the west midlands and to keep bills at an affordable level?