Catherine West
MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet · Labour · United Kingdom
“On 27 March 2026, the Minister for Skills wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) confirming that the Department for Education would release an equality impact assessment on student loan lifetime repayments and other borrower impacts for the plan 2 repayment threshold.”
“We have a long and rich history of challenging hatred, and that means we stand against antisemitism. It has been a frightening and dark six months. On 2 October last year, two Jewish people were killed and three left in a serious condition after a car-ramming and stabbing attack outside the Heaton synagogue in Manchester.”
“On 15 April, we saw an attack on the Finchley Reform synagogue. Three days later, the Kenton United synagogue was targeted. On 27 April, an arson attack was carried out at a memorial wall in Golders Green. Later that month, two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green. We know how quickly my hon.”
“We need to reassure not only our constituents but ourselves that we are doing all that we possibly can to stamp out the scourge of antisemitism.”
“My job is to work with the community to promote Hornsey and Friern Barnet as a beacon of diversity and integration that shines a light on what can be achieved when the whole community comes together. We have a long and rich history of challenging hate.”
“We have had an excellent debate. It is always a good debate when we want to say more but cannot fit it in. I thank everybody, across all the parties, for contributing to it. The problem of tackling antisemitism will take the whole of our polity.”
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“Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) has a background in defence—Chinese vessels and aircraft repeatedly test the boundaries of international law, destabilising regional security and threatening some of the world’s most important shipping lanes. Of course, the increasing military activity in the Taiwan strait, particularly in the last three years, is troubling many of us. No foreign policy question is more fundamental than how the west manages its relationship with China in the years ahead, and it is obvious, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said at the start of the debate, that that starts with our multilateral approach and friends in the US and, of course, in Australia and down in that part of the world. It goes to the question of identity and closed and open societies.”
“I pay tribute to the cross-party group Hong Kong Watch—of which I am a founder; I declare an interest—and to the well-known campaigner Ben Rogers, who is a great stalwart for that campaign. I know that he enjoys the respect of all Members of the House. In Xinjiang, which has been mentioned in the debate, the Uyghur minority are subjected to brutal repression and horrific human rights abuses, including wholesale attempts to eliminate their culture and religion. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is quite right to emphasise the importance of freedom of religion or belief in anything that we talk about in relation to foreign policy. In the South China sea—I know that the hon.”
“Undoubtedly, 30 years of economic progress has catapulted China to become the world’s second largest economy by some measure, with a newly enriched middle class enjoying lives a world away from most Chinese people in the 1980s. However, the more authoritarian and even belligerent look and feel to foreign relations has increasingly caused us to be concerned about the risk to a rules-based international order. In Hong Kong, the rule of law, under which its economy and society flourished for generations, has been worn down, and journalists such as Jimmy Lai—who has already been mentioned—continue to be detained on politically motivated charges. Hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers have fled for a better life overseas, with less repression and more freedoms.”
“It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I was going to begin by saying that I thought I was one of the few Members of this House who had lived in China and spoke Mandarin, but I see that others have turned out in great numbers, including the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mark Logan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle). Many of us taught English to begin with, as I did in Nanjing in the 1990s. All of us agree that the Chinese people gave us enormous amounts of hospitality, and a warm and friendly experience, and showed so much pride in a 5,000-year-old civilisation, a passion to modernise China, and a desire to provide for more Chinese people to no longer live in poverty. As the years have gone by, the tone coming from the Chinese Government has changed.”
“I know the Minister is trying to fit a lot in. Just before discussing human rights, he talked about the difficult decisions regarding industry that affect our national security. Could he respond to something mentioned in the debate, which was the financial involvement in Thames Water and nuclear power plants? If not, would he write to the Members present to go into more detail, if that is more appropriate?”