Yasmin Qureshi MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 20 Jan 2025 · Obesity: Food and Diet · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this debate. Some 21.7% of five-year-old children starting school in Bolton are classified as overweight or obese, and the figure rises to 37.8% by the time they leave primary school. Across the country, children in the poorest areas are twice as likely to be living with obesity as those in the richest areas. When we walk around our constituencies, we can see why. We all know that the poorest parts of the areas we represent are invariably overwhelmed with fast food outlets selling cheap junk food with minimal nutritional value. They are plastered with adverts for food that harms people’s health. They are often devoid of safe green spaces for exercise and of routes to travel safely to work. That is the impact of the places where people live. When we add the price and convenience of unhealthy food and the relentless and predatory marketing that pressures people into eating more junk food, we can see why the UK now has the third highest obesity rate in Europe. The burden of this preventable illness is falling on our poorest citizens. It cannot continue. As the Minister will be aware, it is in the poorest communities that we see the worst cases of heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and other preventable diseases. There will always be those who claim that people just need to make better choices. I would ask them, “Are our poorest citizens making choices that are twice as bad? Are they less informed? Do they care less about their children’s health?” Of course not. They face structural barriers that richer people do not. We must break down the barriers. Many of the interventions recommended in the House of Lords report could make a real difference, including improving baby food, increasing access to Healthy Start vouchers and building on the success of the soft drinks industry levy. All those interventions are worth making, but I will talk specifically about marketing. It is very welcome that the Government have committed to deliver regulations on TV and online advertising in October this year and to end the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children. I note that the latter policy was one of the most popular ideas in our manifesto, because people are worried about what their children are eating and drinking and they want the Government to do something about it. Both policies should have come into effect under the last Government, but unfortunately they did not. I urge Ministers not to make the mistake of listening to the same lobbying that took place last time and prevented the regulations from coming in. The 2018 regulations on TV and online advertising were modest and will not come into effect until the end of this year. That is not good enough. We must go further and faster to deliver the changes that we need to really turn the tide. The House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee recommended going further and ending the advertising of foods high in fat, salt and sugar, on all formats, by the end of this Parliament. There is a clear blueprint for this. Tobacco advertising on TV was ended in the mid-1990s, but the Blair Government realised that more action was needed and introduced the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002. That legislation could almost be copied verbatim to protect children from predatory advertising or products that harm their health. A particular focus should be on outdoor advertising. Four out of five billboard adverts in this country are in the poorest areas, and they are overwhelmingly for unhealthy products. It is overtly preying on our citizens, and we have the power to stop it. Eleven metro Mayors, including my own Mayor in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, have stepped up to end such adverts on the outdoor spaces that they control, but they can only do so much. We need the Government to extend the regulations to cover privately held outdoor advertising, to ensure that children in my constituency and across the country are protected from these adverts. Obesity and poor diet constitute the leading preventable health crisis of our time, one that is driving horrific and preventable harms to people’s health and is driving inequalities in health outcomes. Our poorest citizens are paying the price for these harmful foods with their health. The House of Lords inquiry echoes the recommendations of many other experts, including the Henry Dimbleby national food strategy, multiple leading think-tanks, such as the Health Foundation and the Institute for Public Policy Research, and the 60 leading health charities and medical royal colleges represented by the Obesity Health Alliance. All the experts agree on the action that needs to be taken. The Minister has a blueprint for what needs to be done. I implore him to implement it.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  I welcome the ceasefire, after 15 months of relentless bombing of hospitals, schools, refugee camps, and women and children. For the ceasefire to last, it is important that Israel is compelled to recognise that Palestinians have a right to freedom, justice and self-determination. What steps are being taken to thicken the thin layer of ice on which this ceasefire agreement is skating? Will the Foreign Secretary tell us what steps are being taken to negotiate a two-state solution, which goes to the heart and root cause of this problem, and to ensure that East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency · Hansard source

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  My interest in this matter arises as I chair the APPG on Primodos, and it is a campaign that I and many other MPs have been working on for the past 12 years. On one occasion, after a big debate, the Minister ordered an expert working group to be set up. The MHRA was supposed to examine the evidence. We the campaigners and Members of Parliament thought that all the documents we had would be looked at by the MHRA, but clearly it did not look at them. The MHRA was supposed to engage with the victims and their families, but they were not spoken to or dealt with properly, and there was no thorough examination. In fact, some of the members of the expert working group, which was set up by the Commission on Human Medicines, had connections with pharmaceutical companies. We wanted the MHRA to look at the documents, which showed very clearly that in the 1970s it was accepted by the then Committee on Safety of Medicines that this drug was causing deformities. However, the chief medical officer at the time colluded with the manufacturer, destroyed the evidence and refused to help. We have documents that show that the manufacturer knew there was a cover-up, and yet the MHRA refused to look at them. Subsequently, Professor Carl Heneghan from Oxford University looked at the same material the EWG had looked at and came to a completely different conclusion: he said the evidence showed that there was a connection. The EWG was asked to look at whether there was a causal connection, and it changed its recommendation again. The former Prime Minister, Mrs May, was also not convinced by the expert working group. We persuaded her to set up a review chaired by Baroness Cumberlege, who said there was avoidable harm and that the victims should be compensated. Throughout all those years, the Government of the day did not want to communicate with us, and they have not been dealing with this issue properly. They have always relied on the expert working group’s report, which has held the victims back and held us back from pursuing a possible legal claim. We say to the Government now that the EWG report needs to be relooked at, and Professor Carl Heneghan’s study of it should also be looked at. Scientific evidence has been produced using an experiment on zebrafish which shows that there is a link with this drug, and we have sent this to the Commission on Human Medicines for the Department to look at. We must remember that this drug is 40 times the strength of the morning after pill. Women were given this pill and told it had no effect other than to see whether they were pregnant, and it then caused this damage. I ask the Minister today, with the new Government now in place, to please relook at this; the report by the EWG, which was set up by the MHRA, has been discredited, so please stop listening to it.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse · Hansard source

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  As a barrister and a former Crown prosecutor for 14 years who dealt with sexual abuse and rape cases, I can tell this House that sexual abuse and assault occur throughout the United Kingdom and are not specific to any gender, race or religion—we just have to look at the Pelicot case in France. However, there is one group of victims who are often not spoken about, which is young boys and young men. The level of sexual abuse that relates to them is completely under-reported. I think it is a cultural thing: the idea that boys must man up and must not show their feelings. Can I therefore ask the Home Secretary that, when she is looking at these things, she ensures that those undertaking such inquiries look into facts about the abuse of young boys?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Northern Gaza · Hansard source

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  Aid access is non-existent for Palestinians in north Gaza. Over the past two months, the UN has made over 160 attempts to reach the civilians in north Gaza, with almost zero access, and we have heard that babies have frozen to death. In October, the Prime Minister said that “the world will not tolerate any more excuses on humanitarian assistance”, so what further action have we taken to ensure that the assistance gets to the people who need it?

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. Petitions in our Parliament have often been used to discuss a particular issue of concern to people in the country; they are not normally used as a mechanism to hijack and play party politics. In the last 14 years, we saw crisis after crisis caused by the ill-thought-out policies, plans and rank cronyism of the previous Government, but we engaged in the process and had debates. We did not commandeer a public petition to demand a new election; we opposed the Government and worked within the parliamentary ambit to do what was right. This petition has grown partly because of a lot of misinformation and partly because of foreign interference— [ Laughter. ] Members may laugh, but that happens to be correct. When Labour formed the Government—

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Ms Harris. At no time did I say that the individual constituent was being influenced by a foreign— [ Interruption. ] No, I did not say that. I said that the petition on its own, as it was sold, has been motivated by a number of factors. At no time did I attribute anything to the individual constituent of the hon. Gentleman.

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  I want to make some points and then I will take interventions. When Labour got elected, the first thing we found was a £20 billion deficit—a big black hole that no one knew about. We therefore had to take the decision— [ Interruption. ] Members can try to shout and whatever else, but I am not giving up. Will whoever is making the noise let me speak, please? There was a £20 billion black hole, so the Government obviously had to make some policy in order to plug it. That meant raising winter fuel bills, introducing inheritance tax and raising national insurance contributions—things mentioned in the petition. We must recognise that if we are going to provide services and bring changes in the country, that requires financial expenditure, and no one knew about the £20 billion deficit. When we took over, we found that our prisons were incredibly overcrowded. The previous Government said that they would find 20,000 prison places by the mid-2020s, but they created only 50. In our criminal justice system, victims have been waiting for trials to be heard in the Crown court—at least 73,000 trials—including serious cases. When the Conservatives were in power, we had about eight different Secretaries of State for Justice. It is therefore not surprising that our judicial system and prison system are in a complete mess at the moment. In relation to the NHS, I remember that in 2010, when we left power, the time that people spent waiting in accident and emergency at a hospital was maybe a few hours; now, that time is eight or 10 hours. Getting an operation or seeing a doctor now takes years, as opposed to six months. Again, that is because the previous Government did nothing to deal with the issue, so we have had to deal with it. We have heard today’s statement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and there will be a debate later about all the things that we want to bring into play to make our NHS work better, because people need that. We are the party that came in and solved the doctors’ dispute, which had been going on for years and years. Why does that matter? Because it means that our health service will have good, decent provision and that some of the delays hopefully will be taken away. The Prime Minister today mentioned that we have plans to reduce waiting lists massively. These are the things that we are doing; the previous Government, which had 14 years, did nothing and left us with what we have. We are the Government who have paid our teachers more, so that our children can be educated properly. We are the Government who have dealt with the issue of public transport and our drivers being on strikes. That is important, because we need to get the country going. Public transport is very important for the proper running of any country, and we need to have that. Just before Christmas, we also announced over £1 billion for people who are homeless and £1 billion or so for potholes. The issue of regenerating the economy has been touched on. All these things will solve the problems of bad roads and help people who are homeless to be able to sleep warmly, but building roads also creates jobs and regenerates the economy. We have said that we will build more than 1.5 million houses. What will that do? It will regenerate our economy as well. Everybody is talking about how we can regenerate the economy, and the stuff that we are doing on green energy and renewables will also create loads of jobs and regenerate our economy— [ Interruption. ] I hear some Opposition Members sniggering and laughing. Well, do you know what, Mrs Harris? Some of them have been MPs for the last 14 years, as I have been, and they know the failures of their Government. I can talk about only a few things in six minutes, but the Labour Government have been doing enough to ensure not only that our economy is regenerated but that many institutions are properly financed, especially our health service, which everyone uses. It is so important that we look after it. The Labour party created the NHS, and it is the party that will always look after and save the NHS.

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  What I said was that it was misinformation, as well as foreign interference and politicising. I mentioned those three things, not just one.

• 6 Jan 2025 · General Election · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?