David Pinto-Duschinsky MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Dozens of people from my Hendon constituency have been stranded in Israel and Iran. I thank the Foreign Secretary for his hard work on this issue, and it is good news that the first flight has already occurred. Can he say more about the timeframes for potential future flights and what is being done to support those looking to leave Israel over land borders or by sea?

• 1 Apr 2025 · Royal British Legion · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. It is our sacred duty to make sure that we never forget the brave men and women who served and gave their lives for our freedom. For over 100 years, the Royal British Legion has done fantastic work not just to continue bearing the torch of remembrance, but to ensure that our veterans and their families are given the support they need. The RBL is the beating heart of the network that looks after our armed forces community. We all have contact with the Royal British Legion each year when we buy and proudly wear our poppies, but many people might not realise that this is just a fraction of the services it provides. It is the UK’s largest armed forces charity, with 180,000 members, 110,000 volunteers and a network of partners and charities. It provides recovery and rehabilitation services, and expert advice and guidance, to service personnel and their families, as well as campaigning day in, day out to improve the lives of everyone in the armed forces community and make sure that their voice is heard. In my community, I have repeatedly had the great honour of joining the volunteers from the Edgware branch of the Royal British Legion. All visitors to the Broadwalk shopping centre know about the hard work that such volunteers do when they give up their free time to support our servicemen and women. These volunteers represent the spirit of selflessness to which we should all aspire, and which the Royal British Legion embodies. We all share an obligation to members of our armed forces, who sacrifice so much for us. The work that the RBL does to support veterans and their families in my constituency cannot be underestimated. There are so many amazing local volunteers who deserve our recognition—unfortunately, too many to name today—but I want to recognise one person: our local branch chair, Maxine Webber, who does so much for our community. She is the living embodiment of the sense of duty, community spirit, energy and pride that the Royal British Legion stands for. It is right that we have taken time in our parliamentary schedule to give our thanks to the Royal British Legion and everyone who volunteers for it. In fact, it is especially fitting that we are doing so on a warm spring afternoon, when the prospect of buying our poppies in November and joining the Remembrance Day commemorations on a cold winter’s morning feel so far away, because the Royal British Legion works hard all year round. It represents all that is great about our armed forces and Britain. Its work neither stops nor ends on 11 November, so it is right that we should think about the RBL, pay our thanks and support it as best we can all year round.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her statement and on her action to end austerity by investing £26 billion in the NHS and £3 billion in education, raising defence budgets, and unleashing over £100 billion of additional capital investment to build the foundations of our economy. On the day after this Government voted through a pay rise for 3 million working people by raising the minimum wage, does she agree that it is only by making the tough decisions to restore stability and push ahead with our bold plans for reform that the Government can repair the terrible damage done by the Conservative party, deliver strong public services and get more money in people’s pockets?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  Each year, Holocaust Memorial Day serves as a powerful reminder of the horrors that humanity is capable of inflicting, and of where antisemitism can lead. For me, this day is not just a time to remember the 6 million Jews murdered across Europe, but an opportunity to reflect on their personal stories, including my own family’s. Critically, this day is also a chance to renew our solemn pledge, “Never again,” which has particular meaning for me and my family. My father is a Holocaust survivor. He was born in Budapest in 1943. In spring 1944, after Nazi Germany invaded Hungary, he was herded, along with tens of thousands of other Jews, into the ghetto in Munkács, his mother’s hometown. Over just two months, more than 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz, the vast majority of whom were murdered. Many members of my family counted among their number and did not survive, but my father did and so did my grandmother, thanks to the extraordinary bravery of a woman named Maria. In a last desperate throw of the dice, my family entrusted my infant father to her care. She risked everything to smuggle him, and a short time later my grandmother, out of the ghetto just days before it was liquidated. Maria’s courage was extraordinary. Her willingness to risk her own freedom, and maybe even her own life, for a stranger and her child is a testament to the power of human decency even in the darkest of times. I often think of what the last tearful meeting, where my great-grandparents bade farewell to my father, barely 10 months old, knowing that they would never see him again, must have been like. I think of my grandmother, forced to live under a false identity for the remainder of the war, not knowing what happened to her family. And I think of Maria, whom I never met and who I know little about, but to whom I owe so much. In these moments, the enormity of what happened hits me hardest. A few years ago, I took my family to the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem. There, in its files of those who perished, I looked up my family on my father’s father’s side. Now, my name is pretty unusual, but among the names of those who were murdered I found literally hundreds of Duschinskys. I know I am not alone in that; my family’s story is far from unique. There are millions of Jewish families with stories like mine: stories of loss, trauma and persecution, but also of survival. And not just Jewish families; there are so many others—other victims of Nazi persecution, as well as survivors of the Rwandan genocide, and those in Bosnia, Darfur and Cambodia, who have similar stories to tell. Victims of hatred, victims of persecution, they are bound together by a common experience and a common humanity. Holocaust Memorial Day is particularly important this year. It comes at a moment of dawning hope after 15 months of darkness, with the release of three hostages, including Emily Damari, and a ceasefire in Gaza. I pray for the safe release of all the hostages, for the ceasefire to be sustained, and for us to take the first steps towards a sustained peace. But 27 January is also critically important this year because it marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It is a hugely significant milestone. For those of us who know survivors, it will be the last major anniversary when we have them with us. In Hendon, we are enormously proud of the work of our local survivors, including Manfred Goldberg, Renee Salt, Vera Schaufeld, Peter and Marianne Summerfield, and my good friend Rabbi Bernd Koschland, all of whom have done so much work to raise awareness. Yet with each anniversary, the Holocaust slowly but surely slips from living memory. As the generation of survivors passes on, so the responsibility falls upon us to ensure that their stories endure. The torch of remembrance is being passed and it is down to us, the people here today, to safeguard the memory of the Holocaust: to spread understanding, tell its stories and keep them alive for our children and grandchildren. This is not just about the numbers and statistics; we must remember the people, the families, the communities. We must speak for them and, where we can, make sure their stories and voices are heard, especially in an age when misinformation proliferates. When truth competes with a blizzard of distortions and lies, and when conspiratorial thinking and shrill rhetoric numbs us to true horror, we cannot rely on the facts of the Holocaust alone to speak for themselves. We must tell its stories insistently and repeatedly, and make sure they reach every ear. That is why the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in running Holocaust Memorial Day is so important, and why the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Association of Jewish Refugees and so many other charities is so vital. It is why the Government’s pledge to ensure that the Holocaust will be at the core of a national curriculum that is taught in every school is so welcome, as is the extra £2 million in funding for the HET. It is also why the deep personal commitment of the Prime Minister, seen in his strong advocacy and his recent trip to Auschwitz, is so critical. This anniversary is not just about remembering. It is about reaffirming our collective commitment to the values that ensure such atrocities can never happen again. That is why the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day cannot be overstated. It is not only a time of reflection, but a time of vigilance and a time when we renew our vow to act, because, as history often reminds us, prejudice and bigotry are light sleepers. At a time when antisemitic incidents are up over 1,500%, we can see that hatred, particularly the world’s oldest hatred, is never fully vanquished. It must be fought and defeated anew with every generation. In Britain, we take pride in our pluralistic society, a society where people are free to practice their religion, express their identity and live without fear of persecution, but we must always remember that those freedoms must never be taken for granted. They are the product of a long history of struggle and sacrifice, and they are something we must constantly protect and defend in our politics, our rhetoric and our daily lives. We can all play our part. This coming Monday, at 7 pm, I urge everyone who can to tune in to BBC One for the national ceremony of commemoration. At 8pm, I ask everyone to light a candle and put it in their window— a light in the darkness to keep memory alive. The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “For a better future.” The path to a better future, one where tolerance and mutual respect trumps division and bigotry, lies in a steadfast defence of our values and a willingness to confront hate. The foundation of this determination in turn rests on our collective remembrance of the Holocaust and our determination to tell its stories and echo its truth down the generations. I know something about that, because that is the path my family trod. It seems unlikely that a baby boy in a ghetto leaving his family in the arms of a stranger might be on a path to a better future, but because of their decency and bravery he found his way to a place of safety. He travelled to a new country that was a bastion of those values, a country in which his son was able to carry his family name, a name that was on the verge of extinction, into Parliament and sit surrounded by so many colleagues whose own family stories are marked by hardship and oppression. That is why I am so proud to sit here and to be a co-sponsor of this debate. The lesson this journey teaches us is that a path to a better future is possible if we work together to build it. On this Holocaust Memorial Day, we should renew our determination to strive to build it every day.

• 23 Oct 2024 · Sanctions: Iran · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his statement, which I welcome both for its steadfast support of Ukraine and for its action on Iran. As we have heard from everyone in the debate, Iran poses a threat to both regional and global stability. The Iranian regime is not just exporting weapons to support Russia’s despicable illegal war in Ukraine; it is exporting terror—we have heard mention of the Houthis and various other groups. It is—and I thank the hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) for mentioning this—committing savage repression against its own people. Over 230 people have been executed in Iran in the past few months alone, and I know that the Iranian community in Hendon is incredibly worried about the horrific repression that the Iranian people face. We know that Iran poses a threat, and we know that that threat is growing, so I welcome the cross-party consensus that the measures make real sense. I thank the Minister for introducing the regulations, and I ask that the FCDO keep a close eye on the threat that Iran poses so that we can take further measures if needed, to back up the Government’s strong action to confront the threat of Iran head on.

• 14 Oct 2024 · UK Defences · Hansard source

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  It was a huge pleasure to welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the Nepalese community centre in Burnt Oak this summer to talk to Gurkha veterans about the issues they face. Does the Minister agree that the Gurkha Regiment has an important role to play in the future of the UK’s defence? Will he outline what steps the Ministry of Defence is taking to address the failures of the previous Government in supporting Gurkha veterans, and will he meet me to discuss these issues?