Yasmin Qureshi MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 3 Dec 2025 · Fireworks (Noise Control etc) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the maximum noise levels of fireworks which may be sold to the public; to require that specified information about noise levels is included on labelling and in sales information for fireworks; to require the Secretary of State to review the impact of firework noise on the welfare of veterans, neurodivergent people, people with certain medical conditions, and animals; to provide local authorities with power to regulate the use of fireworks in certain circumstances, and to enforce such regulation; and for connected purposes. Fireworks bring joy to many people and are an important part of celebrations, but every year I hear the same concerns from residents about the impact of loud, unpredictable fireworks going off late at night. They are not talking about organised displays; they mean sudden explosions in residential streets at 11 o’clock, midnight or later. These bangs startle children, frighten older people, distress pets and livestock, and overwhelm people managing health conditions or trauma. The same groups feel it most: children with sensory needs; older residents living alone; people with anxiety or heart conditions; and animals. At the moment, there is very little anyone can do about it. Councils receive complaints but have no power to act, and the police understandably focus on more urgent priorities. Fireworks are often sold without clear information on how loud they are. This Bill would close those gaps in a simple, fair and proportionate way. The public are ahead of us on this. Polling shows that 85% of people want stronger rules on fireworks, almost half want private backyard displays banned and a further third want tighter restrictions. This is not a new concern: over the years, Parliament’s petition system has received hundreds of thousands of signatures calling for action. One family told me that their autistic son becomes extremely distressed by unexpected fireworks. He screams, hides and cannot settle for hours. They want him to enjoy celebrations like any other child, but unpredictable late-night fireworks make evenings frightening, rather than joyful. Another constituent—a lady in her seventies who lives alone—said that loud fireworks at night make her feel as though she is in a war zone. She asks, quite reasonably, why something cannot be done about the loud ones. Research shows what our residents want. The problem is not organised displays that people can prepare for; the problem is unpredictable fireworks set off in neighbourhoods. The impact on veterans is also well documented. The BBC reported on Pete White, an RAF veteran with PTSD for whom sudden loud fireworks triggered panic attacks, taking him straight back to the sounds of conflict. He described it as an “uncontrollable sense of terror”. Organised displays with clear timings help him to prepare, but unexpected fireworks made life difficult for him. At one point, his anxiety became so severe that he struggled for weeks. Combat Stress reports a 25% increase in calls at this time of year. It wants a review of current rules, clearer safety information and limits on when fireworks can be sold and used. Help for Heroes and Combat Stress also found that 74% of veterans want stricter rules on fireworks, while 67% want fewer days of sale. The effect on animals is significant. Since 2010, more than a thousand incidents involving horses have been recorded during fireworks season, including tragic fatalities. Many owners receive no notice before displays and cannot protect their animals in time. Farm animals are affected, too: stress can cause ewes to abort during lambing and can separate mothers from their young. Wildlife also suffers, with studies showing sharp increases in heart rates among birds and disruption to roosting. This distress is real and avoidable. Fireworks also have a public health impact. Air pollution can rise several times higher than normal when fireworks are widely used, especially on still winter nights, and people with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other respiratory conditions are particularly affected. Health professionals have raised concerns about the pressure this places on vulnerable groups and on our NHS. The Bill proposes to do five things. First, it would introduce a maximum noise limit. Some fireworks reach 120 decibels, which is far louder than necessary for home use. Research shows that reducing the noise down to between 90 dB and 97 dB is achievable and supported by health and welfare experts. The Bill sets a reasonable maximum noise level for fireworks sold to the public, but louder fireworks would still be available for licensed displays where there is notice and supervision. Secondly, most fireworks provide little information about how loud they are. The Bill would require clear labelling so that people know what they are buying. It would also support councils and trading standards teams when responding to complaints. Thirdly, councils say the current rules are almost impossible to enforce; fireworks are a transient nuisance and are gone by the time anyone arrives. The Bill would give councils the ability to introduce targeted, time-limited rules in areas with repeated problems. It would not be a blanket ban. It would build on tools councils already use for noise and antisocial behaviour, letting councils respond directly to their communities. Fourthly, civil enforcement rules currently rely on the police, which is unrealistic and ineffective. The Bill would give councils the power to issue civil penalties similar to how they deal with littering, fly-tipping and environmental noise. It is practical, proportionate and fair. Fifthly, the Bill would also require the Secretary of State to review the impact of firework noise on veterans, neurodivergent people, people with certain medical conditions and animals, ensuring that future policy is based on proper evidence. Colleagues have brought forward important proposals before. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), one of the Deputy Speakers, has focused on noise limits, while my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) has focused on sales and licensing. This Bill is a bit different: it focuses on community impact, late-night misuse, unpredictability and, more importantly, council powers. These approaches complement each other. This Bill fills the missing part. In conclusion, I am not a party pooper. I do not want to ban fireworks; I want the celebrations to continue. We want the loudest fireworks to be used safely, predictably and with respect for neighbours. People want their families, pets and vulnerable neighbours to feel safe in their homes. They want councils to have the ability to act, and they want fireworks to be sold responsibly and clearly labelled. This Bill offers a balanced and practical way forward. I commend it to the House. Question put and agreed to. Ordered, That Yasmin Qureshi, Jim McMahon, Sarah Champion, Debbie Abrahams, Liz Saville Roberts, Emma Lewell, Jamie Stone, Nadia Whittome, Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Chris Law, Imran Hussain and Alex Sobel present the Bill. Yasmin Qureshi accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Monday 26 January and to be printed (Bill 343).

• 5 Nov 2025 · Fresh and Nutritious Food: Inequality of Access · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is rightly talking about access to proper food. In my constituency, FareShare helps to redistribute more than 325,000 meals a year to 11 local charities. That is a lifeline for families struggling to afford fresh food. Nationally, however, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of edible food still go to waste. Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to commit to supporting food redistribution as part of a fairer food system?

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Mundell. The hon. Gentleman just mentioned that—

• 5 Nov 2025 · Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The European convention gives us the right not to be tortured, not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law, to have a fair trial, to have privacy and to have freedom of expression. I ask all the people who are against it: what rights do they think the British people should not have?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Video Games: Consumer Law · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is making a great speech. On amending the law, what is required is a simple amendment to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, to ensure that when a game requires online support, developers must allow the purchaser to continue receiving that support.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Video Games: Consumer Law · Hansard source

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  It is simply a matter of justice that if someone has paid for a product, either physical or digital, they should be able to use it for as long as they like. The fact that a company goes bust should not make any difference to that.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am proud to support this important Bill and to pay tribute to the Hillsborough families, whose courage and determination have brought us to this moment. Their decades of struggle have changed our country and created a chance to ensure that no family ever again has to fight for truth alone. The Bill is about truth, fairness and accountability. It is about ending the culture of cover-ups that has marked too many national scandals, from Hillsborough to contaminated blood, and from Post Office Horizon to Primodos, whose families I have been honoured to represent and campaign for in this House for the past 13 years. I have stood here many times to raise that issue and to lead debates, because it is not a new story. The Primodos scandal has been known about for decades. What has been missing is not information, but honesty. Primodos was a hormone pregnancy test given to 1.5 million women in Britain until the late 1970s. It was linked to miscarriages, stillbirths and babies born with life-changing disabilities, yet the families were met not with transparency, but with denial. In 1967, Dr Isabel Gal published research in Nature showing a possible link between hormone pregnancy tests and birth defects. Rather than being supported, she was dismissed and discredited. Both the manufacturer, Schering, and the Committee on Safety of Medicines knew of the risks. The committee issued a notice in 1975 warning of a possible link, and another in 1977 confirming that the link had been established, yet Primodos was not withdrawn until 1978 and the women who had already taken it were never told the truth. That was not candour. It was concealment. Decades later, the pattern repeated. In 2017 the Government’s own Commission on Human Medicines established an expert working group, which concluded that there was “no causal association” between Primodos and harm—wording that was added later after pressure from senior officials. Families were shut out, evidence was excluded and regulators defended themselves instead of admitting failure. Then, in 2023, the same families were forced into court against Bayer and the Government. Despite the independent Cumberlege review, which occurred after the 2017 expert working group, confirming that avoidable harm had occurred, their case still collapsed before trial when the families were threatened with £11 million in legal costs if they refused to withdraw. It was a David versus Goliath battle, with ordinary families facing the full legal force of the state and a global corporation. This Bill could hope to change that. It establishes a duty of candour, a duty to assist investigation and the principle of parity of arms, which seeks to ensure that families are not denied justice because they lack resources. However, the duty of candour must apply fully to all investigations, including independent panels, and not just statutory inquiries. Command responsibility must rest personally with those in charge and not with the institutions. The offence of misleading the public must not be weakened by the need to prove individual harm. The Bill is really important. I hope it is not diluted. I hope that people like those who suffered because of Primodos will get due justice.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister is being very generous in taking all our questions. I congratulate him on introducing this Bill, but can the duty of candour be applied fully to all investigations, including independent panels, and not just statutory inquiries? Does he agree that the command responsibility must rest personally with those in charge, not simply with the institution?

• 15 Oct 2025 · Healthcare: Bolton · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) for securing this important debate. As she said, our other hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) has a prior commitment, so he is not able to attend this debate. I mention that because the three of us work well together in campaigning on many issues of concern to our constituents. One of the things we do is have a regular meeting with the chief executive of our hospital, as we did only last week, to raise those issues. Healthcare in Bolton is really important for us and one of the most serious concerns raised by our constituents. When people in Bolton talk about the NHS, they are full of respect for the doctors, nurses and frontline staff. Their frustration is directed not at individuals, but at a system that leaves them waiting for months without answers or support. One constituent with a serious heart condition told me that she had waited more than a year to see her cardiologist at the Royal Bolton hospital. At one point she was informed that the waiting list had actually been closed. She paid to be seen privately, but then her appointment finally arrived, one year after she had last inquired about it. She said: “I do not expect luxury. I just do not want to be forgotten.” Ahead of this debate, I invited constituents to share their own experiences of healthcare in Bolton. What I received were not statistics, but stories of worry, delay and a sense of being left behind. Parents spoke about their children waiting for assessment. Women described living in pain while waiting for treatment. Older residents asked whether their names still even existed on any list at all. People said that it was almost impossible to get a GP appointment unless they were online at 8 am. Others described the long phone queue, with no certainty of being able to secure an appointment, and being told that they would need to call back the following day or try again. Many spoke about digital systems that shut people out, especially those who are elderly, disabled or unwell. I received accounts of hospital letters arriving late, or of appointments missed because no update had been received. Parents of children with mental health needs said that they were given information sheets instead of meaningful support. I hear their concerns, and they must be addressed. I recognise that secondary care is outside of the Minister’s direct brief, but obviously we cannot separate primary and secondary care when patients are stuck between them. When referrals disappear and no update follows, it is the GPs who are left to manage their patients’ anxiety, without any information to reassure or support them. Communication must be treated as part of care, not an afterthought. In general practice there are concerns about not only access, but continuity. Constituents tell me that they never see the same doctor twice; they repeat their story at every appointment with no sense of follow-up or a clear plan. When ongoing conditions rely on repeated re-telling rather than joined-up care, confidence in the system is lost. Primary care needs support to provide consistency, not just capacity. Mental health is another deeply worrying area. In Greater Manchester, the number of adults waiting for ADHD assessments has risen sharply; some of my constituents have been waiting eight months or more without being allocated a clinician. Parents spoke to me about their experience with child and adolescent mental health services, where children in real distress are waiting months and months for assessment and intervention. Without early support, families are being left alone to cope. Another area is women’s health, where the disparities are clear. Girls born in the north-west can expect fewer healthy years than those born in other regions. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, which serves parts of Bolton, has the highest gynaecology waiting list in England. Women describe missing work, living in pain and caring for families while waiting for basic investigations. I therefore welcome the Government’s women’s health strategy and the development of women’s health hubs. Liverpool has hubs that bring together contraception, screening and menopause care in one place, and Bolton should receive the same opportunity to deliver accessible women’s care in community settings. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dentistry and oral health, I know that NHS dentistry faces an existential threat. Almost 14 million people were unable to access dental care in the early part of 2025. From 2010 to 2024, expenditure on dentistry went down from 3% of the NHS budget to 1.5%. Although we welcome the 700,000 new appointments, we actually need 2.2 million of them, as the Government have accepted. Morale among NHS dentistry practitioners is at an all-time low, and many are leaving. The Health and Social Care Committee said in 2023 that the current dental contract is “not fit for purpose”. It needs reform. Another issue is that, while there are qualified dentists, the process by which they have to register to practise seems to be taking a very long time. It is an administrative process, not a process for assessing professional, clinical requirements. That needs to be addressed. Many residents tell me that they cannot get dental appointments and are living in pain, with untreated problems. I have personally had to ring dentists to get appointments for a number of constituents. I know that the Government have a 10-year plan for the NHS, but dentistry cannot wait 10 years for the situation to be resolved. Finally, we cannot discuss healthcare in Bolton without confronting inequality. One in four children in the north-west grow up in poverty. Delayed treatment, poor health and limited support are not separate issues; they are experienced by the same families. The 10-year health plan must deliver not only nationally, but locally, in towns such as Bolton where the need is greatest. My constituents are not asking for perfection; they are asking not to be forgotten. They want to know that if they seek help, the system will acknowledge them, guide them and not let them fall between services. If we are to restore confidence, we must ensure that patients are not lost between primary and secondary care, and that dignity and fairness remain at the heart of healthcare delivery. With focus, co-ordination and commitment, we can deliver the timely, compassionate care that the people of Bolton deserve.

• 14 Oct 2025 · Criminal Courts: Independent Review · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) for securing this debate. It is right that this House examines Sir Brian Leveson’s review with care before any legislation is brought forward. I spent many years at the Bar, as a prosecutor as well as a criminal defence lawyer, before becoming an MP. While an MP, I have served on the Justice Committee and for a number of years was shadow Minister for justice, prisons, probation and courts. During that time, I challenged Ministers at the Dispatch Box many times about the record delays to cases in the Crown court. When the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently asked the public which rights should be protected in a Bill of Rights, two things topped the list: the right to NHS care and the right to trial by jury—a constitutional safeguard rooted in public trust. Sir Brian’s report exposes the scale of the crisis: record delays, cases listed years into the future and justice slipping beyond reach. Yet in Bolton South and Walkden, as a result of the current Government’s expansion of court sitting days, we have been able to reduce some of the backlog. Capacity is not just about buildings, however—it is about people. Not only juniors, but senior barristers are leaving criminal practice because the fee structure cannot sustain a career. Judicial shortages mean that we lack the judges, recorders and district judges we need to run additional courts. That has not happened by accident. It is the result of 14 years of Conservative Government political decisions on court closures, cuts to sitting days and erosion of legal aid. Before contemplating such constitutional changes as limiting jury trials, we should act on the most basic recommendations in the review—for example, increasing sitting days now and using courts to their full capacity. If we want earlier guilty pleas, the defendant must have access to timely legal advice, which also means that the fee structure for payment must be re-examined. There are many sensible proposals in the review, including support for criminal pupillages and improved case preparation, but they honestly cannot justify removing the right to a jury trial or curtailing the right to appeal, particularly when more than 40% of appeals from magistrates courts to the Crown court currently succeed. We cannot resolve delay by reducing scrutiny or by getting rid of jury trial, one of the foundations of our civilised society. I know that some changes have already been made, but jury trial is fundamental to our system. We need reform, but it must be to strengthen trust, not to weaken it. When justice fails, not only do individuals suffer, but confidence in our entire system is lost.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  Sorry. I am sure that many hon. Members have been to their local schools and been told that, since covid, the number of children with SEND has gone up, so the White Paper and the consultation are really important, and I know the Government will listen to everything we have been saying.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  That point was made by the parents, and I was going to come to it in my speech. Children are being placed in classrooms that do not meet their needs, and some of them are being forced out of school—others attend for just a few hours. Often, teaching assistants are given just one afternoon of generic training; they are not even experienced in these matters. Quite often, they have not even seen the plan, so implementation is inconsistent or absent. Schools, particularly academies, are very difficult to hold accountable. And one of the big frustrations that parents talked about is that there are no systems in place to deal with complaints, and that they often had to navigate the system and work very hard to try to get provision for their children. I know that, since last year, the Labour Government have invested £1 billion in high-needs budgets and supporting children with complex needs, and that £740 million has been committed to adapt school rooms and build specialist facilities, even in mainstream schools. Great progress is being made, but I am sure that many of you find, when you go to your local junior schools, that headteachers are saying that since covid—

• 15 Sept 2025 · Children with SEND: Assessments and Support · Hansard source

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  In anticipation of the White Paper, I held a roundtable with parents and children with SEND in my constituency of Bolton South and Walkden. They told me that it is still very much a postcode lottery when it comes to SEND provision, and that children with autism and other SEND conditions are being placed in classrooms that do not meet their needs.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Petitions Committee for that helpful intervention. In all honesty, what people are asking for is fairness. That is it—simple fairness.

• 8 Sept 2025 · Indefinite Leave to Remain · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I welcome the Minister to his new Department. I worked with him when he was in the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government; he listened, and I got £20 million for the regeneration of Farnworth in my constituency. I hope he is in a listening mood today and will do what we are asking him to do. It is an absolute privilege to speak in this debate on behalf of many families who have come to the United Kingdom either under the British national overseas visa scheme or on work permits to work in our country, often in areas that are difficult to recruit for—for example, the social care sector. With an ageing population, such jobs are unfilled, as are roles in the IT sector and many other industries. On Friday, I met the Salford Hongkongers group. They explained to us why many of them left Hong Kong, fleeing from persecution. They have been working hard, as my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) mentioned, and they make a great contribution to our economy, as, of course, have others who have come to work in the social care sector, where the jobs are not the nicest and the pay is often not great either. They are all working very hard. What they have in common is that when they made the decision to come to the United Kingdom, they believed in certain fundamental rules, one of which was that after five years they would be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain. Of course, it was not guaranteed that they would get leave, because there are other criteria to satisfy—such as having worked for five years, meeting a certain level of pay and being of good character—but at least they knew what they were working towards. I urge the Government and the Minister to reconsider the proposed changes—we do not yet know exactly what those changes are—for two reasons. It is manifestly unfair to change the rules for people who came on the basis of what they understood the rules to be. Retrospective legislation is always bad legislation. It has been done occasionally, but normally only in a state of immediate national emergency. I do not think this situation falls into that category, by any description,. For me, being British is about knowing the laws, knowing the rules and abiding by them. That is exactly what these people have done.

• 3 Sept 2025 · Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families · Hansard source

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  Meanwhile, the Government have pursued legal strike-out applications to shut down the families’ cases—blunt tools that treat them as vexatious, even while Ministers have accepted in public that there was a failing. I call on the Government to recognise Primodos as a case study of breach of candour, to implement the Cumberlege review in full, including redress, to legislate for candour across public authorities, to guarantee legal parity, and to support the Hillsborough law now.

• 3 Sept 2025 · Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this debate. I speak as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Primodos, which I have led for over a decade alongside affected families in their fight for truth and justice. Primodos is one of the clearest examples of a systematic failure of candour in British medical healthcare. Between 1958 and 1978, around 1.5 million women in the United Kingdom were prescribed the hormone pregnancy test. From the 1960s, doctors and researchers raised concern that it was linked to miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects. Instead of acting, the regulators actively suppressed the evidence and colluded with the pharmaceutical companies. When Dr Isabel Gal published her study in 1967, officials undermined her work rather than investigating it. Later, archives in the UK and Germany showed that they knew of the concerns, but kept patients in the dark, even though other countries had withdrawn the drug from the market. After years of campaigning, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency finally established an expert working group in 2017. Its task was to examine whether there was a possible association. The final report said there was “no causal association”. That was not in the original draft; it was inserted late, under outside instruction, and caused misunderstanding by giving the impression of certainty. Moreover, the families were excluded from the process. We continued to campaign; in 2020 the Cumberlege review was set up and found that there had been avoidable harm, that people should receive redress, and that there should be a duty of candour and cultural change. However, five years later, only one recommendation—a patient safety commission—has been delivered. The impact on the families has been horrendous. I call on our Government to recognise Primodos as a case study— [ Interruption . ]

• 24 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T6. Tulsi Gabbard, the US Director of National Intelligence, said in March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, as did the UN atomic energy agency. However, a day before a conference on recognising Palestine, Israel decided unilaterally that Iran had a nuclear weapon, and that there was an immediate threat of attack; it therefore bombed Iran. Israel’s illegal bombing was a distraction from the shooting and killing of starving Palestinians, and to prevent the recognition of the state of Palestine. Can I ask the Minister—

• 24 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  What steps is the Minister taking to stop the killing of Palestinians, and to recognise the state of Palestine?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Spending Review: Health and Social Care · Hansard source

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  I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dentistry and oral health. Access to NHS dentistry is in crisis, including in my constituency. New analysis by the British Dental Association shows that the share of NHS funding spent on dentistry has more than halved since 2010, from over 3% to just 1.5%. I know how committed the Government are to reforming the dental contract, but the Public Accounts Committee made it clear that reform will work only if it is backed by proper, sustainable funding. Will the Minister ensure that NHS dentistry gets a fair share of the £29 billion announced in the spending review, so that we can end forever the crisis that is affecting millions across the country?

• 12 Jun 2025 · SEND Funding · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing this debate. This is an issue close to my heart. I used to be a school governor as well as a college governor, and I remember setting up—along with other teachers and professionals—a specific learning unit, as well as a general learning difficulty unit. Of course, having been a constituency MP for the past 15 years, this is an issue that I have dealt with many a time, and when I have been trying to assist families, I have noticed that they feel utterly exhausted, not only by their caring responsibility, but by a system that seems to place obstacles in their way. My council, Bolton, has made real progress. Its “Belonging in Bolton” strategy is helping to create more local SEND places, and it was rightly praised in its most recent Ofsted and Care Quality Commission inspection. In the area covered by Salford city council, parts of which now come into my constituency—it now covers Walkden—the council has also been working really hard to improve provision for children with SEND, but of course, all these councils have limited resources. In Bolton alone, over 9,000 children have a SEND issue, an increase of 27% since 2015. One headteacher in my constituency recently told me that their school spends £333,000 a year on teaching assistants to support children with special needs, but it receives only £155,000 in education, health and care plan funding. That leaves a gap of £178,000 every single year, around 7% of the school’s total budget, which they have to find somewhere. That is before we factor in the costs of behaviour support, speech and language therapy, or educational psychologists. We need a proper plan that would increase the outdated £6,000 top-up threshold; invest in local authority teams to ensure that EHC plans are issued on time, giving families the certainty they need; and target capital funding at where demand is greatest, including in Bolton South and Walkden, to make sure that children can get support closer to home. Children in Bolton South and Walkden need support, and that must not be like winning a lottery.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Engagements · Hansard source

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  Q6. In the words of the former Israeli Prime Minister, what we are witnessing in Gaza is the“indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.” More than 50,000 people have been killed, and children have been shot while queuing for bread. A growing number of genocide scholars, including leading Israeli academics, believe that a genocide is taking place. Under international law, we have a duty to prevent genocide. I served on the UN mission in Kosovo. We acted to stop mass killing there. What is the difference now? Will the Prime Minister please intervene immediately to alleviate human suffering, and take steps to recognise the state of Palestine?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chancellor for all her commitments to spending on education, health and transport, but I thank her particularly for the £39 billion that she has committed to housing. In my constituency, thousands of families are still waiting for social homes, and about 20,000 people are now on Bolton’s housing waiting list. May I ask whether some of that money could be used to build more social housing in areas like mine, so that we can meet the needs of our constituents?

• 9 Jun 2025 · Non-stun Slaughter of Animals · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend and thank him for making that observation. Jewish and Islamic traditions around slaughter are grounded in clear rules designed to minimise suffering. These are not casual practices. The animal must be healthy. It must not witness another animal being slaughtered; the slaughter must be done individually, with animals away from one another. The process must be swift and carried out by someone who is trained and accountable. It is not a mechanical process; it is solemn and Islamic. As I am sure those who can talk more about kosher practice would agree, this is about recognising that we are taking the life of a living being, so it must be done with respect. In fact, in Islamic slaughter—I think it is the same in the shechita method—the animal is held, or embraced, so that any stress is reduced. In Islam, all animals must, in effect, be vegetarian. Basically, Muslims eat only lambs, cows, sheep and chicken, because they are considered to be grass-eating vegetarian animals that do not eat other animals. So this is about eating healthy meat, but it is also about protecting animals. The way they are slaughtered is important, and it is wrong to say that it is somehow barbaric. However, as I said, when I have looked at social media, GB News and newspapers, the whole debate has been, “Oh, barbaric! Let’s get rid of halal meat, halal meat, halal meat.” That is almost the mantra that everybody has. Yet, 88% of halal meat is pre-stunned. I am grateful the Government have taken a sensible approach to this issue. I believe that halal meat and kosher meat should be available in this country, and I am very happy for it to be labelled; it is very important that there should be clear labelling—I do not think anybody has any problem with that—so that people know what they are getting. Although this has not been mentioned, scientific studies have shown that the Jewish and the Islamic method of slaughter is actually less painful to the animal because it involves a minimum amount of time, whereas gassing animals or putting a bullet through their heads—a lot of times, that actually fails, so it has to be done twice over—is much more painful.

• 9 Jun 2025 · Non-stun Slaughter of Animals · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I rise to oppose the petition and the divided narratives that surround it. Let us be clear: non-stun religious slaughter accounts for just 2.9% of all animals killed in the United Kingdom, and 88% of halal meat is already pre-stunned. The remainder is slaughtered in accordance with strict religious guidelines by trained professionals in a regulated setting, with respect for the animal, yet that small percentage is repeatedly singled out in public debate. We have heard religious slaughter described as “barbaric”. MPs such as myself have received emails referring to “Muslim meat” and “dirty men with beards”. That is not the language of animal welfare; it is prejudice—plain and simple. Although the petition talks about “non-stun slaughter” in general, public focus has almost entirely been on halal. Kosher slaughter uses the same method, but is rarely mentioned. That reveals what many of us have known for some time: this debate is less about animals and more about Muslims.