Zarah Sultana MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 29 Nov 2024 · National bus fare cap · Hansard source

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  I rise to present a petition on behalf of residents of the United Kingdom regarding the Government’s decision to increase the bus fare cap by 50%. More than 105,000 people have signed a related change.org petition. The £2 fare cap introduced in January 2020 has been a lifeline for people, providing access to work, medical appointments and family connections during a period of mounting financial strain. Despite the crisis being far from over, the Government plan to raise the cap to £3 in January 2025, adding hundreds to annual commuter costs and risking isolation of vulnerable individuals. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to reconsider the cap increase, and call for sufficient support to ensure that affordable public transport remains accessible and sustainable through 2025 and beyond. Following is the full text of the petition: [The petition of residents of the constituency of Coventry South, Declares that when the £2 bus fare cap was introduced in January 2020, it became a crucial lifeline for people across the country who rely on buses to get to work, attend medical appointments and visit family; further that this cap was introduced specifically to address the cost-of-living crisis, ensuring that bus travel remained affordable and accessible as households felt financial pressures intensify; further that despite the cost-of-living crisis being far from over, the government now plans to raise the fare cap to £3 from January 2025; further that a £1 increase could add hundreds of pounds to annual costs for daily commuters and may isolate others entirely from essential services and community support; and notes the positive impact of the £2 fare cap on people, especially for those in rural areas, where public transport options are more limited. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to reconsider changes to the £2 bus fare cap, and to provide adequate support through 2025 to ensure that public transport is made easier, cheaper and more accessible. And the petitioners remain, etc. ] [P003021]

• 25 Nov 2024 · Storm Bert · Hansard source

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  I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My thoughts are with all those affected by Storm Bert. As chair of the Fire Brigades Union parliamentary group, I express my solidarity and thanks to all our emergency services, including firefighters on the frontline. Extreme weather events are on the rise and are becoming ever more frequent as a result of climate change, highlighting the urgent need for proper funding and resources. England is the only part of the UK without a statutory duty for flooding, leaving fire services underfunded and under-resourced to respond effectively. That must change. As the FBU has long called for, when will the Government finally provide a statutory duty for fire and rescue authorities to respond to flooding incidents in England? Furthermore, in our election manifesto the Government committed to developing a national structure to inform policy and standards in the fire and rescue service. When will that be implemented? Finally, will the FBU be invited to the floods resilience taskforce to ensure that the voice of firefighters is heard in shaping flood resilience strategies?

• 25 Nov 2024 · Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants · Hansard source

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  Despite what the Minister has said, the Government conceded at the royal courts of justice last week that UK-made F-35 parts could be used in violation of international law in Gaza, and admitted that Israel has shown no commitment to upholding these legal obligations. Despite this, the Government have continued to authorise offensive F-35 arms exports, exposing themselves to criminal liability. It is disappointing that the Foreign Secretary is not here today, but will the Minister let our constituents know whether the Government will end their complicity in genocide, impose sanctions and end all arms sales? Will he confirm that should Netanyahu, who faces an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, enter UK territory, he will be immediately arrested—yes or no?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  The nightmare unfolding in Gaza is a deliberate, unparalleled human catastrophe. This is not merely a crisis; this is genocide and extermination. Those are not just my words but the conclusions of the UN commission of inquiry. In northern Gaza, more than 400,000 Palestinians are trapped under relentless Israeli bombardment. Families fleeing are gunned down and so-called safe zones are turned into death traps. Children are killed on the streets, with five to nine-year-olds the most killed age group in Gaza. Families are burned alive by incendiary weapons. Hospitals, schools and refugee camps are obliterated. Since 1 October, essential aid has been blocked by Israel. Gaza is starving and its health system has collapsed. Diseases such as polio have returned, and the UN describes the situation as “apocalyptic”. The so-called humanitarian zones in southern Gaza offer no refuge. Over 1 million people are crammed into unliveable conditions. They are not evacuations; they are forced transfers and war crimes under international law. Furthermore, escape routes are bombed. People are trapped with nowhere to go. Over 90% of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed, making return impossible. That is ethnic cleansing. Israeli officials brazenly promised it and delivered it. The International Criminal Court and UN experts also confirm it. Targeting civilians, blocking aid and destroying survival infrastructure meet the legal criteria of genocide, despite what the Prime Minister says at Prime Minister’s questions. So what has the UK done? Far from neutral, the UK is an active participant in genocide. British-made components are part of every single F-35 fighter jet raining down death on Gaza. Every single bomb dropped and every single life lost bears the stain of British support. Such complicity is undeniable. Yesterday, in a hearing at the royal courts of justice, the Government admitted two chilling facts. First, there is a clear risk that UK-made F-35 parts could be used in violations of international humanitarian law. Secondly, the Government’s own assessment, made on 24 July 2024, concluded that Israel is not committed to complying with international humanitarian law. Those admissions trigger the UK’s legal obligation under criterion 2c of the strategic export licence criteria, which states that exports cannot be allowed if there is a clear risk of misuse. Despite that, the Government have allowed exports to continue for five weeks, during which over 1,700 Palestinians were killed. The Defence Secretary has defended this carve-out for F-35s, prioritising “US confidence in the UK” over Palestinian lives. How disturbing. The UK Government have a duty to prevent and punish genocide. By refusing to act, they risk not only complicity, but criminal liability.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Occupied Palestinian Territories: Humanitarian Situation · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 18 Nov 2024 · Bus Funding · Hansard source

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  More than 62,000 people have already signed my petition on change.org to protect the £2 bus fare cap. One young person explained how rising fares made it increasingly difficult for them to get to college, while another described public transport as a vital lifeline against loneliness. Affordable public transport is essential not only to alleviating economic hardship, but to addressing the climate crisis. Instead of increasing the fare cap by 50% to £3 and costing ordinary people hundreds of pounds more each year, why do the Government not take a page from the book of Greater Manchester’s Labour Mayor, Andy Burnham, who has committed himself to maintaining the £2 fare cap to ensure that public transport remains accessible to everyone?

• 6 Nov 2024 · Points of Order · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. This concerns the lack of response to my cross-party correspondence addressed to the Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and the Defence Secretary, dated 13 September 2024. In that letter I, along with 36 parliamentary colleagues, requested clarification on the Government’s decision to exempt offensive F-35 fighter jet components from the 30 out of 350 licences that they have suspended for items that could be used in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, as there is a clear risk that they may be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law. Given the significance of the issue and its implications for the UK’s international obligations, it is imperative that MPs receive a comprehensive response. Having to wait two months for a reply raises questions—

• 5 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  The Government have a profound duty to tackle poverty with urgency and ambition. After 14 years of Tory austerity hollowing out our public services and leaving our communities struggling, eradicating poverty must be at the heart of the Government’s agenda. Yet the Budget falls short, and without bold action the most vulnerable in our constituencies will continue to suffer. Ending austerity is not just about stopping cuts; it is about real action to lift people out of poverty. The critical first step must be to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which unfairly punishes families for having more than two children. If it remains, according to the Resolution Foundation an additional 63,000 children will be in poverty by 2025. We must scrap it immediately. We must also reverse the means-testing of winter fuel payments. No pensioner should have to choose between heating and eating in a cost of living crisis. Providing warmth to those at risk should be non-negotiable for a Labour Government. The 50% rise in bus fare cap is equally unacceptable. Affordable public transport is vital for low-income families, students and those without cars. Increasing fares deepens and entrenches inequality, and hinders our climate goals. The Labour Government must ditch Tory welfare reforms that will slash billions from disability benefits, pushing people into more severe hardship. Those reforms must be rejected root and branch, not piecemeal. The more than 330,000 excess deaths in the past decade remind us that austerity costs lives and that politics is a matter of life and death. In one of the world’s wealthiest nations, no family should be in poverty, no child should be left hungry and no pensioner should be unable to heat their home. Our response must be transformative in rebalancing the economy for the many, not the few. We need a fair tax system that places the burden on those who can pay the most. A 2% tax on assets over £10 million could raise £24 billion annually, and equalising capital gains with income rate thresholds would bring in an additional £17 billion. Those funds could truly transform our NHS, schools and communities. Finally, we need a bold economic plan to secure our future, with a worker-led just transition to renewable energy, creating thousands of unionised jobs and ensuring that no one is left behind. My constituents in Coventry South and communities across the UK deserve a Budget that marks the end of austerity with action not just words, and with a true commitment to ending poverty.

• 28 Oct 2024 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Given that the Government have suspended only 30 of the 350 arms export licences, including for components critical to offensive F-35 fighter jets, without which Israel would be unable to conduct its genocidal assaults in Gaza and Lebanon, can the Foreign Secretary tell me how this exemption of offensive weaponry is consistent with the United Kingdom’s international obligations, including under the arms trade treaty? Have the Government engaged in discussions with the United States Government, Lockheed Martin and other F-35 partner countries on implementing the tracking and tracing of UK- manufactured F-35 components or spare parts that are destined for Israel but licensed for export to third countries?

• 28 Oct 2024 · Fiscal Rules · Hansard source

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  New research published this month by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that reversing the two-child benefit cap would lift 540,000 children above the absolute poverty line. There are no fiscal rules, only fiscal choices. While taskforces meet, more and more children in Coventry South and across the country are consigned to avoidable poverty. Will the Government acknowledge that, prioritise ending child poverty and finally scrap the pernicious two-child benefit cap?

• 28 Oct 2024 · China: Human Rights and Sanctions · Hansard source

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  Much like Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, British-Egyptian writer and pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah remains unlawfully detained in Egypt, and still has not been granted access to British consular officials, despite the British Government raising the case at the highest levels. His mother Laila is now on hunger strike against his continued imprisonment. In November 2022, the Foreign Secretary called on the then British Government to take more direct action to bring Alaa home, recognising the UK Government’s responsibility to protect citizens from arbitrary detention and human rights abuses abroad. Since coming to office, what have the Foreign Secretary and the Government done to follow through on what he once promised and to bring Alaa home?

• 28 Oct 2024 · China: Human Rights and Sanctions · Hansard source

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  There is a similarity.

• 21 Oct 2024 · Employment Rights Bill · Hansard source

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  I am a member of Unite the Union and am the parliamentary chair of the Fire Brigades Union. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. After years of Tory attacks on trade unions and workers’ rights, the Bill will begin to reverse decades of Thatcherite anti-union laws, marking a real shift in the balance of power at work. The repeal of minimum service levels for strikes is a major victory: those laws were tools of class warfare that were designed to break the unions and silence workers. Scrapping them restores the right to strike, a win for every worker. Equally important is the removal of the undemocratic ballot thresholds imposed by the Tories in 2016. Those barriers undermined collective action. By removing them, we reclaim the power taken from us. Permitting electronic and workplace balloting is another welcome move that will expand democratic participation, but it is not enough. We must go further and repeal every single anti-trade union law since Thatcher. In its current form, the Bill retains the six-month mandate on strike ballots. Strikes are not battles of a few days or weeks; they are drawn-out struggles for justice and dignity. Workers in Coventry South who are fighting union-busting corporate giants such as Amazon know that these fights can last years. They need mandates that match the reality. We should abolish them entirely and repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 in its entirety, as the Government committed to doing. Sectoral collective bargaining for social care and support staff is a good start, but all workers across all industries deserve that protection. Voluntary agreements on union access are not enough. Union organisers need guaranteed automatic access. We should also guarantee automatic union recognition when a majority of members join. Workers have already waited for a decade under Tory rule while their rights have been stripped away, their wages have stagnated and they have been subjected to rogue operators such as P&O. We cannot afford more delays while powerful interests water down reforms. This legislation is a victory for the trade union movement, but the fight is far from over. We need radical change, and that is what I will keep fighting for.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East · Hansard source

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  F-35 fighter jets.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Anniversary of 7 October Attacks: Middle East · Hansard source

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  On the anniversary of the horrific 7 October attacks, I again repeat the call for the immediate release of all hostages. In light of Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza, the violence in the west bank and the invasion of Lebanon, does the Prime Minister believe that Israel’s right to self-defence justifies a death toll that, according to research by US medical professionals who have worked in Gaza, has now surpassed 118,000, as well as the 2,000 people killed in Lebanon? Will he do what is morally and legally right and end the Government’s complicity in war crimes by banning all arms sales to Israel, including the F-35 fighter jet, and not just 30 licences—yes or no?

• 11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source

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  Does the Minister agree that firefighters and the Fire Brigades Union need to be listened to, and that the Government need to deliver the statutory advisory body to ensure that the lessons of Grenfell are learned?

• 11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Member for Penrith and Solway (Markus Campbell-Savours) and everyone else who has made their maiden speech today and welcome them to their place here. I rise today with a heavy heart as we remember the 72 lives lost in the Grenfell Tower fire—an avoidable tragedy fuelled by systemic neglect, corporate greed and an ideology that prioritised profits over people. I begin by sharing the call of Grenfell United for the removal of flammable cladding from buildings now, for sprinklers, for the Hillsborough law, and for speedy criminal prosecutions of those whose negligence, greed and dishonesty killed 72 people. But there is something more here, which I urge hon. Members to understand. The Grenfell Next of Kin group call this report “10 kg of words on pages” rather than justice. The anger that Grenfell survivors have expressed is an anger that many of us feel—that in Britain today, working class people are treated as expendable. Less than a year before the fire, the Grenfell Action Group warned that their “dangerous living conditions” would cause “a catastrophic event...an incident that results in a serious loss of life.” They predicted their own deaths, because they knew how little anyone in power cared about keeping them alive. That is the inescapable conclusion of this report. Building firms engaged in “systematic dishonesty”—that is what the report says—to profit without ensuring safety. Some of them knew that their insulation was a “raging inferno”, but they kept selling it anyway. After the earlier fires at Knowsley and Lakanal and after large-scale tests warned of the dangers of cladding, neither the British Government nor Kensington and Chelsea council came to help the residents of Grenfell. Then, after the fire, a former Secretary of State responsible for housing, Lord Pickles, loudly told the inquiry to not take up too much of his time. Nobody seriously thinks that the residents of London’s wealthier streets would be so ignored, so derided, treated with such contempt for decades and left to die. Let us tell the truth about the society in which we live: when two billionaires drowned on a submarine voyage to see the Titanic, powerful countries united in a global rescue effort, but when poor people and persecuted people drown in the English channel or burn in Grenfell Tower, we do not mobilise every single resource to save their lives and bring them to safety. That is a kind of class war—a war on exploited and persecuted people wherever in the world they are born. Grenfell Tower was named after Sir Francis Grenfell, a general who carried out colonial violence in Ireland, Sudan and South Africa. When the British ruling class wants cheap labour from places like those, it houses workers in an unsafe building named after a man who may have killed their ancestors, and then ignores their warnings and leaves them to die. That was Grenfell Tower. Residents have spoken up beautifully in recent days of the community in the tower, and of how people stuck together and looked after the weakest among them. They share the working-class values that we all should and they are entirely alien to the values that, unfortunately, rule in this society. The dead and the living deserve safe homes for all. They deserve corporate and state accountability and a different kind of society. Grenfell’s 72 dead are forever in our hearts. Thank you.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for giving way on the point about resilience. Obviously, firefighters and the FBU are key stakeholders in resilience work. I want to ask a question that I asked earlier about the statutory advisory body in response to Grenfell: what is the Government’s timetable for developing that and getting it on board?

• 4 Sept 2024 · Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report · Hansard source

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  I join colleagues in remembering the 72 people who lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy, and I say to their friends and families that I will always fight to deliver justice for their loved ones. As chair of the Fire Brigades Union parliamentary group, I put on record my admiration for the heroic bravery of the firefighters who attended that night. The FBU has long said that deregulation and corporate greed were the reasons for the catastrophe, and the report vindicates that view. Does the Prime Minister agree? When will the Government set up the statutory advisory body on fire policy, in order to give firefighters and control staff a voice in setting national standards, and to ensure lessons are learned? When will the timetable for that be set?

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  I will be voting for it, thank you. It is a move backed by everyone from Gordon Brown to all 11 trade unions affiliated to the Labour party, the TUC, which represents 6 million workers, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Save the Children. With a 1% wealth tax on assets over £10 million, we could raise the funds needed to pay for the policy three times over. Kids should not have to suffer a single day in avoidable poverty. I will vote for the amendment selected by the Speaker to scrap this cruel Tory policy and, at this late stage, I appeal to our new Labour Front-Bench team to deliver the change that the country has called for, and adopt the policy and immediately lift 300,000 children out of poverty. The second area needing urgent action relates to my amendment (c). As we debate here in Westminster, raining down hell on Gaza is Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets—planes described by their manufacturer as the most lethal fighter jet in the world. Israel has armed those jets with 2,000 lb bombs with a lethal radius of 365 m—the equivalent of 58 football pitches. A recent UN report identified the bombs as having been used in emblematic cases of indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Gaza—attacks that clearly violate international law. I raise this because every F-35 fighter jet is made in part here in Britain, in a deal estimated to be worth £368 million. That is just one example of Israel’s use of British-made arms in its assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 38,000 people—disproportionately women and children. The legal threshold for these sales to be banned has clearly been met, so they should be banned. There is a clear risk that British-made weapons might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law, hence why, in February, UN experts called on these sales to end immediately. Other countries—Spain, Canada and the Netherlands to name just a few —have suspended sales. Previous British Governments suspended sales after far fewer Israeli assaults: Margaret Thatcher in 1982, Tony Blair in 2002, Gordon Brown in 2009 and David Cameron in 2014. Today, the Palestinian people face death and destruction on a scale unlike anything they have faced before, but British-made arms are still being licensed to Israel and used to kill innocent people. Again, I say to our new Government: it is time for us to uphold international law and end arms sales to Israel.

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  Let me begin by saying how good it is to see the Conservative party on the Opposition Benches and in such diminished numbers. No doubt some will say that I am being unsporting, but since politics is not a sport, I will say it anyway: I will never forgive Conservative MPs for the 14 years of damage that they have inflicted on our communities. Child poverty has never been higher and NHS waiting lists have never been longer. Life expectancy is falling and food bank queues are rising. Our public services are cut to the bone and our infrastructure is broken. Our trains are permanently in crisis and our rivers are pumped full of sewage. Our teachers, doctors and nurses have been forced to strike. According to one academic study, 330,000 excess deaths between 2012 and 2019 can be attributed to Tory austerity. When I say that politics is not a sport but a matter of life and death, that is what I mean. For some it appears to be a parlour game about the next zone 2 dinner party invite, but this is about people’s lives and their material conditions. While the Conservatives scapegoated minorities and slashed support for the poorest, they helped the rich get richer. Workers’ wages are lower than in 2008, but the wealth of UK billionaires is up threefold since the Tories came to power. The general election results show that people across the country are crying out for change. Our new Labour Government must now deliver it. I am pleased to say for the first time in my parliamentary career that this King’s Speech includes Bills that I look forward to voting for, but I will surprise no one by saying that I want our Government to go further, by introducing the new deal for working people and banning all zero-hours contracts. They must totally end fire and rehire, repeal all anti-trade union legislation, roll out sectoral collective bargaining across the economy, and recognise that the argument that we make for public ownership of rail applies to water, mail and energy too. In the short time I have to speak today, I want to focus on two areas that I believe need urgent action. First, if the Labour party has a moral mission, it must be to eradicate poverty. After 14 years of the Conservatives, a record 4.3 million children are growing up in poverty. They go to bed hungry, they struggle more in school and their physical and mental health takes a hit. Their parents are put through hell to try to make ends meet. I welcome the child poverty taskforce, but everyone in the Chamber has read the briefings, and everyone knows that the evidence is overwhelming. The key driver of rising child poverty is the two-child benefit cap, and the single most effective way of tackling child poverty is immediately to lift 300,000 children out of poverty by scrapping this cruel policy.

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Member give way?