Zubir Ahmed MP: speeches

Speeches

• 15 Sept 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q On the spectrum of complexity in these cases, clearly, many of them are straightforward—like the one I was involved in—but there are others that have elements of complexity that are sometimes apparent, sometimes not. For the benefit of the Committee, could you lay out some of the safeguards that are in place to manage that complexity? Daniel Flury: It is principally the judge’s role to manage the complexity of a case, obviously supported by legal representatives. In terms of the support that HMCTS can offer, we have a programme, which applies to all courts and tribunals, of reasonable adjustments that we offer appellants, claimants, defendants and so on. The rest is primarily provided through legal aid, legal representation and the judge safeguarding them in that case.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  Q Minister, you heard me earlier mentioning my home city of Glasgow and my constituency of Glasgow South West, which has the highest number of asylum seekers. There is real pressure on local infrastructure and housing, compounded by some ill-advised housing policies from the Scottish Government. Can you provide some reflection on why the measures in the Bill are necessary, and what impact it will have, not only on restoring trust and public confidence in the immigration and asylum system, but on social cohesion more widely? Anna Turley: I think you are absolutely right. This is such an important issue to all of our constituents across the country; it is one of the biggest things that comes up on the doorsteps in all the conversations we have. Everything is seen through the prism of fairness in this country, and rightly so. That is what the Bill is aiming for, through a number of measures, such as repayment of support and so on. This is about fairness; if people come here, we want them to integrate and to settle. If they have a genuine right to be here, we will always provide that, but we also have to be conscious that, in a country where our resources are not infinite, we have to have a managed system, where we remove those who have no right to be here and ensure that we support people in a way that is compliant with our international obligations, but does not go over and above them, which perhaps in the past we have done too much. In 2024-25, for example, the entire cost of asylum was £4 billion. At a time when our public purse is under strain, that is a challenge. We are working hard to do everything we can, all the way up to the source, to prevent the illegal movement of people across this country—the people trafficking that we have seen—and to disrupt the industrial network of gangs that exploit desperate people who wish to come to this country. We are doing that through doubling our investment in the National Crime Agency, working with the French to reduce the number of boat crossings, and processing and removing people. The key part of the Bill is the speeding up of appeals. That is one of the most important ways that we can accelerate the process. Nobody should have to wait 72 weeks for an asylum appeal. No one should be able draw things out and exploit the system through last-minute loopholes, using provisions that are designed genuinely to protect people but that are being exploited to draw out cases. This is a matter of fairness and due process, and of making a system that is fair and well managed so that it is fair both on the taxpayer and on those who are here genuinely fleeing persecution.

• 15 Sept 2026 · Immigration and Asylum Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

  More

  I think it was either yourself or Professor Singer— Jacqui McKenzie: Oh, the numbers—sorry. The number that I referred to as being small is the number of cases that the Home Office say will be refused under this new system, which I think is 11,700. Professor Singer: It is 11,700, and the Home Office impact assessment estimates that 55% of those will, in any case, remain in the UK, because it is not possible to remove them back to their home country due to legal or logistical challenges. It is anticipated to have quite minimal impact in practice, so it is quite a significant legislative change to make for quite a limited impact overall. Most of the public attention is focused on the issue of foreign criminals, for example, but the House of Commons Library briefing for the Bill indicates that, at present, only 3% of foreign criminal appeals are allowed on a human rights basis, whether under article 8 or otherwise. Again, the impact is quite minimal. The most significant impact that the changes to article 8 will have is on children and families. We will see more children without their parents and more separated families, and I think in quite unconscionable ways that will actually be quite upsetting for the public. For me, setting out an interpretation of article 8 in domestic legislation does not change the meaning of article 8 as a matter of international law, and it does not change what the UK’s obligations are. Decisions are either in line with the UK’s obligations, in which case the legislation is not necessary, because the courts are already doing article 8 determinations themselves and doing their own balancing exercise on the basis of the existing legislation that we have, or they are more restrictive than the UK’s current legislation, which puts the UK at risk of not complying with its obligations under the European convention on human rights and the convention on the rights of the child. Jacqui McKenzie: I agree with that. I think you are aware that the figure I referred to as being small was not the overall 77,000. What we think of the 77,000 is another matter; some of us might say even that is not a huge number of people, especially when we look at how long some of those families have been settled in the UK, and the reasons why some of them are still in the immigration system, when their parents and grandparents may well have been settled. It is this point about redefining what a family is and breaking families up that concerns me more than anything.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Not at the moment. It is on the foundational principles of the Bill that I primarily want to concentrate today. The first is the idea of a “six months to live” label. “Terminal illness” is a fast-changing medical diagnosis in the modern medical world, and it is becoming an increasingly meaningless term. Only yesterday evening, I was in the company of a professor of respiratory medicine who, with rightful satisfaction, told me that many of his stage 4 lung cancer patients who were designated with six months to live in 2023 are being managed as having a chronic disease in 2026. In my practice, if a patient comes to see me with stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to their liver, the advent of immunotherapy means that I have an equal chance of telling them they have six months to live or six years to live. Under this law, when I meet that kind of patient, it is unclear to me, with the Supreme Court precedents around consent, whether I should be offering them immunotherapy and an assisted death at the same sitting. A six-month prognosis will take a new and unhealthy salience in every clinical conversation. It will be a label some will desire, and others will want at all costs to avoid being placed on their clinical record. It will fundamentally change and undermine the candidness and sanctity of the patient-doctor conversation and relationship.

• 11 Sept 2026 · Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning the Scottish context. We voted down such legislation on Third Reading, when we understood the impacts and the wider societal ramifications. I have to be honest. When I am asked to prognosticate on whether someone has six months to live, I am as often wrong as I am right. It is no longer a good enough marker for the DWP to use in discharging benefits for life-limiting conditions, and I do not see why it should be a good enough marker for prescribing death. There is another paradox in this legislation: someone like me could write a prescription to induce death with less regulatory oversight than is on me when I have to remove a kidney to give life through transplantation. Of course, I sympathise with and endorse the desire of many colleagues who support this Bill to relieve suffering. To be clear, we have many tools to do this, and we must bust some myths today. Clinical discretion, for instance, means that there is no maximum dose of morphine, so I can give my patients whatever they need, in the setting in which they need it. But this Bill is less about relieving suffering and more about bypassing its possibility, and I understand that. The Bill is in many ways advocating for death as prophylaxis. Under the definition in this Bill, death must be induced by medical prescription. It will be the only medical prescription that I will be able to write as a doctor but not administer, because the burden of administration falls to the patient, and the weight of expectation falls on the patient. We must discuss the mechanisms by which death will occur: muscle paralysis, slowing of the heart rate, sedation, and the possibility that paralysis will take hold before sedation does. Death will not be an event; it will still be a process. In 15% of cases, it will be subject to some form of complication, such as vomiting or seizures, and it will not always achieve its goal. I wish I could give hon. Members more information about the complication profile, but despite this procedure being prevalent in other jurisdictions across the world, the data continues to be woefully lacking. Alongside that, the 14-day cooling off period means that the patient must remain lucid in that time. There have been cases elsewhere in the world where patients have denied themselves palliative care and pain relief to remain lucid in order to consent to their death. I am therefore of the opinion that the foundational elements of this Bill will create the allure of choice and control, but not the agency to pursue either. Turning to safeguards, much is made of the provision requiring two doctors to assess eligibility, but the trouble is that neither has to know the patient well, or go to any great lengths to exclude the likelihood of coercion. Doctors are trained to do many things, but assessing and picking up on coercion is not one of them. In fact, consultant psychiatrists with PhDs in coercion, like the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), whom I hope we will hear from soon, have said in written testimony presented in court that they would find it difficult to exclude coercive controlling behaviour. I came into medicine, and into Parliament, to act with compassion, and to provide dignity to those we serve. I believe that is why we are all here. Compassion and kindness is not the preserve of one those on one side of the argument or another, but for me, compassion and kindness also calls to courage—the courage to be honest with patient and constituent alike. We need the compassion and honesty to say that the Bill will not fulfil its aims; it will disappoint many who crave total agency and control, and it will expose and disenfranchise further the vulnerable in our society. We need the compassion and honesty to say that our NHS, while a great institution, is not, in its current form and state, ready. It is not safe for this conversation or for this Bill in this moment.