Brendan O'Hara
MP for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber · Scottish National Party · United Kingdom
“What assessment have the Government made of the threats we face from the IRGC or its proxies, and of the impact of February’s US-Israeli attack? Did that attack strengthen or weaken the regime in Tehran, internally and externally?”
House of Commons13 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituency produces the finest single malt Scotch whisky. From Isla, Jura, Campbeltown, Oban, Mull and Ardnamurchan, centuries of craft have gone into building that hard-earned reputation. This decision to allow lower production standards for English single malt whisky undermines that.”
House of Commons15 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We genuinely welcome this statement. The Foreign Secretary has hinted at this, but let me be clear: it is somewhere between heartbreaking and criminal that it has taken three years and 70,000 Palestinian deaths for the UK Government to finally arrive at this position.”
House of Commons8 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Now it is in power, I fear that it has chosen to tinker rather than shred. We can see for ourselves the levels of frustration that exist on the Labour Benches, because Labour Members know that this Bill was an opportunity to undo great democratic harms that were caused by the 2022 Act and introduce an entirely new system—one that would ha…”
House of Commons2 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“During this Bill’s Second Reading back in March, I said that the SNP generally welcomed its introduction, particularly its extension of the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. We on the SNP Benches still do. Evidence is always helpful; unfortunately, the right hon.”
House of Commons2 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), would tighten up cryptocurrency. He explained in an intervention earlier that the Government’s position in the Bill does not go nearly far enough, and we agree. New clause 35, tabled by the right hon.”
House of Commons2 September 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Although it would be churlish to deny that this Bill is a step forward, it is important to look at what it is a step forward from. I am one of the few Members of the House who sat through the Elections Act 2022 and went through it line by line in Committee. Along with colleagues who now sit on the Government Benches, we were united in saying that that Tory election Bill was an affront to democracy. But now in power, Labour has taken that affront to democracy and, rather than ripping it into a million pieces, is doing what Labour seems to do best: take the very worst of Tory legislation and make it slightly less offensive. Although elements of the Bill will improve existing legislation, and we will therefore support it, this is not what we were promised, and I fear that it will be seen as a huge missed opportunity.”
House of Commons2 March 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The author Andrew Lownie has reported that he has had multiple freedom of information requests rejected, including on the grounds that it would be too time-consuming for Departments to go through the volume of information. One rejection actually said that looking at just one year of Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s time as trade envoy would mean going through 1,927 digital files, each containing multiple pieces of information. Yet until Mr Mountbatten-Windsor’s status changed, we in this House were not allowed to discuss that.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There have been serious concerns about Mr Mountbatten-Windsor for decades, many of them relating to his time as trade envoy. There are reports of him requesting that the public purse cover the cost of his massage services. When one understandably angry and unhappy civil servant complained, he was promptly overruled by his bosses. That now retired civil servant commented recently: “I can’t say it would have stopped him, but we should have flagged that something was wrong.” Of course something was wrong, but what difference would it have made to us in this House? As Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was a member of the royal family at that time, we were not allowed to question or examine what he was doing as a special trade envoy. It was not just civil servants who found getting information on Mr Mountbatten-Windsor all but impossible.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Who vetted him? Was he vetted at all? What role did Peter Mandelson play in making that appointment happen? What in his previous life made him uniquely suitable for the position of UK trade envoy? What warnings were given before and during his stint as trade envoy about his character and behaviour? Who was he responsible to while serving as trade envoy? Who scrutinised his behaviour and spending? What warnings were given during his time as trade envoy and how were those warnings handled? In a normal, functioning democracy, we would not have had to wait until Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had been stripped of his titles and evicted from his royal house, and was facing removal from the line of succession, before being able to discuss this issue.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us not forget that the author Andrew Lownie explains in great detail in his book, “Entitled” about how it was former Trade Secretary Peter Mandelson who assisted Mr Mountbatten-Windsor in landing the role of UK special representative, seemingly against the advice of Mr Mountbatten’s brother, the then Prince Charles. Let me repeat my warning from yesterday that these files must be released and must be released in full, because any attempt to sanitise what is in them and to save face for any Government Ministers, past or present, could have serious long-term consequences for our democracy. That is also the very least that the victims and survivors deserve. We know that there are serious questions about the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as trade envoy back in 2001 that need answers. They include: whose idea was it?”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why I made the point yesterday, and will make it again today, on the Humble Address on the release of the Peter Mandelson files that with trust in the Government at an all-time low, they only have one chance to come clean about everything they know and they hold pertaining, in this case, to the creation of the role of special representative for trade and investment and the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to that post. Of course, unlike the Mandelson files which this House demanded be released, the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor did not happen on the current Government’s watch. But Mr Mandelson leaves a long trail, and there may well be information which relates directly to him and which will cause serious embarrassment to many senior Labour party figures who were in power at the time.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The release of the Epstein files has shone a light where so many people did not want a light to be shone. Even with millions of documents still to be released, it is abundantly clear that for decades, the rich, the politically powerful and the well-connected have colluded to cover up their utterly appalling behaviours. That light which is now being shone does not just illuminate those who are personally responsible for their behaviour; it reveals those who knew what was happening, who enabled it and who chose to turn a blind eye. The people of this country are rightly furious.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In February 2011, the Minister attempted to raise a question about the special representative role and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s links to a notorious convicted Libyan arms smuggler, only to be told by the then Speaker that “references to members of the royal family should be very rare, very sparing and very respectful”. —[ Official Report , 28 February 2011; Vol. 524, c. 35.] These archaic rules make a mockery of our democracy. The situation we face now was always going to occur, particularly as the royal family can and do both have a constitutional role and involve themselves in the political realm.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“649.] He called him a “long-standing success” and said he had been great for British business, but what else could he have said as a Government Minister? We are not allowed to speak the truth about certain individuals in this place. Within three months of the right hon. Member making those comments, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor had resigned in disgrace because of his continued relationship with the convicted paedophile and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It was not just Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with Epstein that caused concern.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The answer is quite simple: nobody can be above the law. Everybody has to be equal in the eyes of the law. As the great Paul Flynn said, we have to remove the bandages from our mouths in this place, and I will return to that point. Fundamentally, regardless of rank or privilege, nobody should be above the law. Many people will be embarrassed by what has happened, not least, as we have heard, the now leader of the Liberal Democrats, who, as Under-Secretary for Business, Innovation and Skills, and, I presume, with his fingers firmly crossed behind his back, was forced to stoutly defend the then Prince Andrew. He said: “I…believe that the Duke of York does an excellent job”. —[ Official Report , 3 May 2011; Vol. 527, c.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is a slight irony here. We call ourselves the mother of Parliaments and the cradle of democracy, yet when it comes to an issue such as this we are bound by archaic rules that mean that we cannot hold the most powerful people to account. Let’s be honest: there may be some very good members and some very bad members of the royal family, but if we believe in the hereditary monarchy, it is pot luck what we get. I have seen the rules that have led us to where we are now and it is surely time to review them. It is beyond ridiculous that someone in a similar position could be appointed to exactly the same job as Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was, but, because they have been lucky in the great genealogical sweepstake and found themselves born into the royal family, be automatically above scrutiny and accountability and therefore beyond reproach.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely; I could not agree more. Isn’t it ridiculous that the King had to strip Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his titles and evict him from his home for us to be able to have this discussion? That is what has to change. In conclusion, I hope the Government not only release everything they hold pertaining to the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor but remove what that great trailblazer, Paul Flynn, the former Member for Newport West, described as the bandages on our mouths so that no one is above the law and no one’s behaviour is beyond scrutiny by Members of this House.”
House of Commons24 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Right now, trust in this chaotic Government has all but evaporated and the Prime Minister’s personal judgment is now on trial. We know that millions of documents are still to come out, so the Government really only have one chance to come clean, and any attempt to sanitise what is made public could have disastrous consequences for our democracy. Can the Government guarantee that the criteria for releasing the information will be exactly what this House demanded, and that the appointment of a new head of the civil service will not alter that one iota?”
House of Commons23 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Despite Israel making its intentions unambiguously clear from the very start—that it was going to ethnically cleanse Gaza, would do so using whatever means necessarily and would do so indiscriminately—it appears that the UK Government made the political choice to deliberately ignore their obligations so that they could continue a business-as-usual relationship with Netanyahu’s Government. I will finish where I began, with that powerful quote from Omar El Akkad: “When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power? What makes moments such as this one so dangerous, so clarifying, is that one way or another everyone is forced to answer.” This UK Government and the Government who preceded them have chosen to side with power over justice, and history will judge them accordingly.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Did that not trigger within the Government the thought that perhaps there was a serious risk of genocide? Finance Minister Smotrich said: “Gaza will be entirely destroyed; civilians will be sent to...the south…and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.” Did that not trigger the thought that, perhaps, there was a potential risk of genocide occurring? The Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, said: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible”. Did that not suggest to the UK Government that perhaps Israel’s response to the atrocities of 7 October was going to be disproportionate, brutal and illegal; and that continuing to sell weapons and maintaining a “business as usual” relationship with Tel Aviv might put us in grave danger of breaching our obligations under the genocide convention?”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“806.] There are so many more examples of the Prime Minister, the former Foreign Secretary and other Ministers admitting from that Dispatch Box that Israel was using food as a weapon of war, that it had manufactured a famine, that it was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, that it was committing war crimes, and that it was stripping Gazans of their human dignity. Yet it remains the official position of the UK Government that none of that—none of it—meets the threshold for there being a serious risk of genocide. I ask the Minister whether we are being asked to believe that, even when the Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said: “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly”.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“And the Prime Minister, when he was Leader of the Opposition in October of 2023, acknowledged that serious risk, saying: “Civilians must not be targeted. Where Palestinians are forced to flee, they must not be permanently displaced… International law is clear. It also means that basic services, including water, electricity and the fuel needed for it, cannot be denied. —[ Official Report , 23 October 2023; Vol. 738, c. 593.] And as Prime Minister he said: “We continue to see mounting evidence of appalling atrocities against civilians and unacceptable restrictions on humanitarian access.” —[ Official Report , 30 October 2024; Vol. 755, c.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“806.] And in May 2024 he said that “aid is reportedly being blocked and northern Gaza is now in full blown famine”. —[ Official Report , 7 May 2024; Vol. 749, c. 443.] A year later, in May of 2025, he openly acknowledged Israeli war crimes against the civilian population when he said: “The whole House should be able to utterly condemn the Israeli Government’s denial of food to hungry children. It is wrong. It is appalling.” —[ Official Report , 20 May 2025; Vol. 767, c. 927.] And then he continued that “what we are seeing is inhumane, it is deadly and it is depriving Gazans of their human dignity. —[ Official Report , 21 July 2025; Vol. 771, c. 662.] It is there in black and white. The Government have acknowledged it.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In their own words, the Government have denied undeniable proof that war crimes are being carried out, that mass atrocities are being carried out, and that civilians are being denied the basics to maintain life. A quick trawl of Hansard will reveal that as far back as January 2024, the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), said that “85% of the population are displaced and millions face the risk of famine.” —[ Official Report , 29 January 2024; Vol. 744, c. 622.] Two months later he said that “famine in Gaza is imminent... but what distinguishes the horror in Gaza from what has come before is that is it not driven by drought or natural disaster; it is man-made.” —[ Official Report , 19 March 2024; Vol. 747, c.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is not as if the Government can say that they did not know or that they were unaware, because, time and again, statements made from that Dispatch Box, including from the former Foreign Secretary and the current Prime Minister, have conceded that they knew exactly what was happening, but they have chosen to do nothing about it. They have accepted and have publicly condemned the siege tactics, the denial of humanitarian assistance, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, the use of evacuation orders, the denial of water, food and electricity, the targeting of journalists, the destruction of healthcare, the astronomical number of civilian casualties, and the deliberate dehumanising of the Palestinian people.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Such is the devastation that a Guardian journalist on board a Jordanian air force plane wrote: “Seen from the air, Gaza looks like the ruins of an ancient civilisation.” And he added that Gaza was razed by an Israeli military campaign that has left behind a place that looks like the aftermath of an apocalypse. That does not happen by accident, and it is impossible to view this as anything other than a premeditated attempt to erase Palestinians from their land by making it impossible for human life to survive. By any measure, collectively, all of that constitutes unimpeachable evidence that there has been a serious risk of genocide. And that should have triggered a UK Government response to prevent that becoming a full-blown genocide, but is has not.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The numbers killed, while shocking, do not in and of themselves necessarily prove genocide; there are other methods, including “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” That is why it is important that we look at what else has happened in Gaza since October 2023. Over the past two and a half years, Israel has obliterated the agricultural sector; the fishing industry has gone; the road network has been wrecked; agricultural wells have been demolished; most crop land and greenhouses have been rendered unusable; the vast majority of livestock have been killed; and the vitally important and culturally significant olive tree crops have been targeted and destroyed.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let us not forget that in November 2023 the UK Government formally intervened in the case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar at the ICJ to argue for changes to the definition of genocide that included lowering the threshold when damage was inflicted on children. If it is appropriate for the UK to intervene to protect children from the bombs and bullets of the Myanmar military, why is it not appropriate for it to intervene to protect Palestinian children from the bombs and bullets of the IDF? Of course, genocide is not and never has been about numbers.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When the UK signed the genocide convention in 1948, it promised to prevent and punish this most heinous of crimes. Now, with more 71,000 people dead and 200,000 people injured, Gaza reduced to an uninhabitable wasteland, its population in the grip of a man-made famine and its medical infrastructure obliterated, hundreds of journalists murdered, water and electricity used as a means of coercion and punishment, food and medicine denied to the starving and the dying and the repeated forced displacement of millions of civilians, it is surely beyond any dispute that the minimum requirement for the UK to act to prevent and punish the crime of genocide has been met. Arguably the most damning indictment, however, is that more than 21,000 children have been killed by the Israel Defence Forces since October 2023.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Instead, I want to focus on the mountain of evidence that says there is at least a serious risk of genocide occurring, and that serious risk should have triggered the UK’s legal obligation to act under the terms of the genocide convention, as explained by the International Court of Justice in its 2007 Bosnia ruling—an obligation that comes into effect long before any determination of genocide has been made by a court. The standard of serious risk is designed to be an early warning that ensures that states and international bodies act to prevent a genocide from occurring. In the case of the Palestinian people of Gaza, the UK has clearly and undeniably failed abjectly to meet its legal responsibility when alerted to there being a serious risk of genocide.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Hamas attack of 7 October was utterly appalling, and no right-thinking person could excuse or condone what happened that day. Neither, however, could any right-thinking person excuse or condone the Israeli response, which has been not just disproportionate, but brutal and relentless. Israel’s response has been carried out in such a systematic manner that, in my opinion, no reasonable person could deny that what we have witnessed in Gaza over the past two and a half years constitutes genocide. The Government have denied, and continue to this day to deny, that it is a genocide. It is a decision that the Government will have to explain, and with which they will have to live. Today, however, I am not here to play ping-pong with the Government on the legal definition of what does and does not constitute genocide.”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When asked, each of us will have to answer: did we speak up for the tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children who were killed; did we use our platform to actively oppose the forced displacement of millions of Palestinians from their homes and communities as they were reduced to rubble, and condemn unequivocally the collective punishment imposed on an entire population when the basics necessary to sustain life—water, electricity, food and medicine—were deliberately withheld from them; or did we, either by what we said and did, or by what we did not say and did not do, side with the powerful, look away because it was in our political or financial interests so to do, and give political cover and legitimacy to the Netanyahu regime as it carried out its genocide while our Government supplied it with the weapons and military intelligence to do so?”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What makes moments such as this one so dangerous, so clarifying, is that one way or another everyone is forced to answer.” That question will have to be answered. That may not be today or even this year, but at some point all of us, particularly those who hold positions of power or have a public platform, will have to answer that fundamental question: which side were we on? Were we on the side of justice, or did we side with the powerful?”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the obligation to assess the risk of genocide under international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and may I put on record my thanks to the Speaker’s Office for working so hard to ensure that we have time for the debate this afternoon? Given the pressure on time, and in order to allow as many Back-Bench speeches as possible, I will not take any interventions. In his book, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This”, the Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad wrote: “The moral component of history, the most necessary component, is simply a single question, asked over and over again: When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power?”
House of Commons5 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Try as he might, the Prime Minister cannot escape his responsibility in this latest scandal to engulf Peter Mandelson. Ordering a very limited investigation into Peter Mandelson’s activities is pretty meaningless. We need an investigation that is fully independent of Government and the Labour party, with the scope to investigate not just Mandelson, but those who put him in the House of Lords, those who promoted him to UK ambassador to the United States, and those who have done everything possible to protect him over several decades, despite his scandal-ridden career. Does the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister agree?”
House of Commons2 February 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the interests of improving Government transparency, will the Cabinet Office now publish the details of how the Government reached the decision that allowed Lord Mandelson, the man who described the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein as his “best pal” and who then urged him to fight for his early release following his conviction, not just to retain his place in the House of Lords but to keep the Labour Whip and his Labour party membership card?”
House of Commons22 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Greenland. President Trump’s threat to annex Greenland either “the easy way” or “the hard way” is pushing Europe to the verge of one of the biggest political and security crises we have faced in decades. Now, his threat to impose punitive tariffs on those opposing his illegal annexation means that the President of our closest ally is using economic and military threats against the UK and other European nations simply for defending sovereignty, self-determination and international law. On what basis do this Government view this particular President as being a trustworthy and reliable ally?”
House of Commons19 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State talks about supporting economic growth in Scotland. Perhaps he should check in with the local authorities across the highlands and islands, which, combined, have received absolutely nothing from the UK Government’s local growth fund. Life is tough enough for our rural communities, and the decision to exclude them from the fund will only make things more difficult. Will the Secretary of State listen to the advice of the leader of Argyll and Bute Council, Councillor Jim Lynch, who desperately wants him to rethink this allocation?”
House of Commons14 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I hope the Government can see that, although the persecution of these communities happens so far from our shores, we have a moral and a humanitarian obligation to help—because we absolutely, certainly do.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The largest group of refugees in Thailand are from Myanmar, and they have lived in the camps along Thailand’s northern border for decades. With no legal right to work they obviously make a living in the black market, but in recent months the Thai Government have recognised the reality that such people are unable to return home and could well be an economic asset, and so have loosened the rules to allow them to work legally in Thailand. Perhaps, at least, the Government of Bangladesh might look at that—and indeed, why would the UK Government not look at it as well? What is happening in Thailand could happen in Bangladesh, and here. Refugees can be that economic asset. Allowing them to work will allow them to contribute, better themselves and benefit us all. I again thank the hon. Member for Strangford for securing this debate.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Of course I can understand why the Bangladesh Government would be reluctant to make legislative change that would, in their eyes, encourage 1 million or so refugees to stay within Bangladesh’s borders. But the reality is that these people cannot return home until it is safe for them to do so, and that is not happening any time soon. Last month, I visited Thailand and Malaysia with the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief to meet many of those refugee communities who have been fleeing persecution—chiefly the Ahmadiyyas, Vietnamese Christians, Uyghurs, Chinese Christians and Iranian Christians, but also many more. Like Bangladesh, Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 refugee convention. Legally, in Thailand, there is no such thing as a refugee, despite hundreds of thousands of them living there.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As we also heard earlier, there are other armed players in this conflict who are also perpetrating abuses that disproportionately affect religious minorities—notably, the Rohingya Muslims and Christians. It is a dire situation. I desperately urge the Government to reassess the short-term, counterproductive and frankly inhumane decision to cut overseas aid; every single penny taken out of that aid pot has real-life, real-world consequences for men, women and children. Although the return of UK aid would undoubtedly help considerably, so too would allowing refugees in Bangladesh the right to work and thereby to support themselves and their families.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As much as the Rohingya may wish to return home in a safe and dignified manner, such a return is not possible while the military in Myanmar is pursuing its reign of terror. The stark truth is that the Rohingya will be able to return home only when a Government committed to human rights, religious freedom and the rule of law are established. That prospect is unfortunately a long way off, because Myanmar, as we have heard so often, is in the grip of a man-made humanitarian crisis. The situation for the country’s religious minorities who have remained continues to worsen and the regime ramps up its persecution of those communities by attacking places of worship, forcibly conscripting minorities into its military, and continuing its genocide of the Rohingya Muslims.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This speaks of a Biblical exodus of an entire people terrorised into fleeing.” Yet for those people, living in that unimaginable horror is deemed preferable and safer than returning home. The hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) is right that the situation for Rohingya Muslims living in the camps is only getting worse. Minister, that is in no small part due to the shameful decision by this Government to ape the previous Government and slash UK overseas aid, leaving Bangladesh—already one of the poorest countries in the world—to shoulder a massively disproportionate share of the costs of looking after more than 1 million refugees. When helpless, homeless refugees are dumped on impoverished countries, it leads to the crisis in Bangladesh that was alluded to earlier. We have a moral responsibility to do something about that.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Displacement, murder, repression and widespread endemic gender-based sexual violence are every bit as real a threat there today as they were in 2017, when over 1 million Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh. It is worth remembering that in 2019, the United Nations described gender-based sexual violence as the hallmark of the Burmese military’s operations in Myanmar. The Rohingya are stuck in what has been described as a hell on earth. For the benefit of Members who were not here the last time we debated Myanmar and the situation in Cox’s Bazar and Bangladesh, I will repeat what the journalist and documentary filmmaker Simon Reeve said after he visited one of those camps. He said it was “like nothing I have seen anywhere on Planet Earth.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Since 2021, Open Doors has recorded a steep rise in murders, destruction of places of worship and forced displacement, and has now put Myanmar in the extreme category for religious persecution. State-sponsored religious persecution—as we have heard from every speaker in this debate—has caused Rohingya Muslims to flee, predominantly over the border to refugee camps in Bangladesh, where they are having to endure some of the worst living conditions on the planet, because they are fleeing what the United Nations has described as an “ongoing genocide” at the hands of the Myanmar military. So fearful are they of returning that appalling squalor and overcrowded camps are deemed preferable to the fate that would await them should they return home.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That hideous, racist, sectarian policy excluded minorities from the political process and limited the social and economic development of ethnic minority communities by curtailing their cultural and religious freedoms. The attempt to erase the identity of anyone who is not both Burman and Buddhist has resulted in the most appalling oppression of religious minority communities. Notably, as we have heard, Rohingya Muslims and Christians have been the primary victims of this ethno-religious Burmese nationalism. As we just heard, this year the charity Open Doors declared that Myanmar has risen up its world watch list rankings, and is now deemed the 13th most dangerous place in the world in which to be a Christian.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“With the world on a seemingly endless cycle, stumbling from crisis to disaster and back again, it would be all too easy to forget or choose to ignore issues such as the persecution of religious minorities, but it is vital that we do not do so or allow others to forget or choose to ignore such a fundamental human rights issue. No one would wish us to forget or ignore this issue more than the military regime in Myanmar, where for decades a deliberate policy of religious and ethnic cleansing has been pursued as they seek to Burmanise the country. Burmanisation is the belief that true Myanmar citizens are both Burman and, of course, Buddhist. That is why the citizenship law was introduced in 1982 to strip Rohingya Muslims of their citizenship, rendering many of them effectively stateless and making them foreigners in their own land.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts, for this important debate on religious minority persecution in Myanmar. As I have done so often over the years, I sincerely thank and pay tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), the driving force behind the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, for securing this debate and ensuring that people who have been persecuted for professing their beliefs or—just as importantly—those exercising their human rights not to believe or practise a faith, wherever they are in the world, are not forgotten about.”
House of Commons8 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I sincerely thank the hon. Member for securing this debate. My constituency of Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber is 10,500 sq km in size, with 23 inhabited islands; it is absolutely vast. Life is difficult for people living in rural areas and anything that we can do to make life a bit easier for them should be considered. Does he agree that the scheme should not only be further extended to cover more people in rural areas, in order to stop the scourge of depopulation, but that the value of the scheme, which has declined by 35% since 2012, should be restored by this Government as soon as possible?”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) made the point that getting this rebate was one of the few successes of the coalition Government. The reason there was no political reward for it was that, at £1.60 a litre in rural Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber, it does not feel like a benefit. If the Minister will not make it index-linked, can he tell us what mechanism the Government have put in place to check that this rebate—albeit scant—is actually reaching the consumer? It does not feel as though it is for people living in rural communities.”
House of Commons7 January 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need a resolution in line with the UN resolutions, and one that recognises the inalienable right of the Kashmiri people to determine their own future through a free, fair and transparent referendum. The voice of the Kashmiri people is the most important voice here, but I fear that, unfortunately, to date their voice seems to be the one that is being listened to least. That must not and cannot be allowed to continue.”
House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It was a cynical and blatant attempt by the Modi Government to crush the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination once and for all. I echo the question posed by the hon. Member for Bradford East, when he asked where the international community has been for the last 78 years. Seven decades of issuing condemnatory statements denouncing India has made little or no difference to the lives of the people of Kashmir. Whether we like it or not, the United Kingdom has a historical and moral obligation to take a lead in finding a just and lasting solution to the conflict. The UK cannot pretend to be a neutral bystander, because history dictates that the UK is not.”
House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As we have heard, the ongoing repression took a sinister, unconstitutional twist in 2019, when the Indian Government unilaterally revoked articles 370 and 35A of the constitution. In the wake of those decisions, and in a move straight from the authoritarian playbook, the Indian Government acted swiftly to prevent the possibility of public protests by arbitrarily detaining hundreds of people, including journalists. They imposed a communications blackout and severe restrictions on the right of freedom of movement and assembly. That move was not only unprecedented, unilateral and unconstitutional; it was a direct violation of international law and a flagrant breach of the commitments that India had made to Kashmiri people.”
House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As we have heard from several Members, for almost 80 years the people of Kashmir have suffered persecution, oppression and injustice while the world has, at best, wrung its hands and issued ineffectual statements condemning India’s actions or, at worst, shrugged, looked away and totally ignored their plight, allowing the world’s largest military occupation to continue largely unchallenged and unquestioned. That decades-long military occupation has resulted in a catalogue of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearance, arbitrary detention, media censorship, attacks on journalists and political activists, the targeting of human rights defenders and mass incarcerations. The security forces have also used rape and other forms of sexual violence as a way to control and punish Kashmiri civilians.”
House of Commons10 December 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗