Alex Sobel
MP for Leeds Central and Headingley · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Leeds is one of the biggest local authorities in England. We have 27,000 households on the waiting list for council housing, 5,000 of which are in priority need. So many constituents come to me saying that they just cannot afford private rented homes. The main issue is that there is just not enough council housing.”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Have any funds been allocated to Ukraine’s water infrastructure—for instance, within the UN WASH cluster project? Has the UK provided funds for defence barrier systems for water infrastructure and/or for a consistent power supply for water and sewerage systems?”
House of Commons27 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One concerning point that my hon. Friend did not raise is the number of houses that will be demolished and the number of people who will be displaced. Heathrow’s own assumption is fewer than 1,000, but that is really only the direct curtilage of the runway.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When I was first elected to Parliament nine years ago, we had people coming in and saying that new technology in aviation—electric planes, hydrogen planes and SAF—would significantly reduce emissions by 2025; I think that was the date given. None of that has happened.”
House of Commons20 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have listened to many of the contributions to this debate. They have been a credit to the House; this has been the sort of well-informed debate that we should be having about these complex and difficult issues.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Our overall conclusion was that the Bill represented “a vast improvement on the Legacy Act in terms of human rights compliance”. However, there were still areas where we felt it could be strengthened; I will come on to those. We also concluded: “The Troubles Bill is an opportunity for the parties to resolve the legacy of the Troubles.”
House of Commons19 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“My hope for today, and it is one I know many others share, is that Members can explain why so many colleagues and so much of the public at large have reached the conclusion that it is time to think again about our electoral system. In doing so, I want to encourage the Government to be bold and to be honest about how unrepresentative British general elections have become.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Just last month, the House voted in favour of PR for the first time ever, by giving leave to bring in the ten-minute rule Bill on the subject moved by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), who I see in her place. That historic vote was an indication of the strength and breadth of feeling among Members on both sides of the House that our first-past-the-post electoral system is not working. It is desperately in need of an upgrade, and we need seriously to consider the alternatives. The last time we did so was through the Jenkins commission in 1998, when elections produced results in which the numbers of seats more closely matched the numbers of votes than they do now.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House has considered proportional representation for general elections. Before I speak on the matter at hand, I note that today is the funeral of one of my party’s and our country’s greatest politicians, John Prescott. I send my thoughts to his family and friends. They include some who would otherwise have been with us today; equally, some of us here would have wished to be there. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time in the Chamber for this crucial debate, and the many colleagues from across the House, and from every nation and region in the UK, who co-sponsored or supported the application. It is right that the House should provide time to consider proportional representation for general elections to this place.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It drives voters either into the margins or away from voting at all. If we in Westminster are content to say, “That’s just the way it is”, it is no wonder that hardly anyone trusts politics.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is hugely corrosive to our trust in politics, and we end up with most people and communities up and down the country saying that they feel “invisible to politicians”, to use the words of the Brown Commission. People can tell when they are being ignored. They can also smell unfairness a mile away. First past the post means that people’s votes are not equal in value. Sometimes, I fear that we in this place are used to that gross unfairness in elections and have become numb to it. But for millions of people, their stake in national politics is the vote that they get to cast in a general election every few years. When they see that a party won 2 million votes and got four MPs, or a party won 4 million votes and got five MPs, it is clear to them that the system is not fair.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“A system that forces parties to prioritise small groups of votes in a handful of marginal seats also forces them to neglect large parts of the country—where to go, who to speak to both directly and through the media, and the policies put forward. People in non-battleground seats, which make up the majority of seats at every first-past-the-post election, never have the resources spent on them that are spent on marginal seats. Candidates and activists are directed away from those perceived safe seats to marginals, meaning less contact in those seats. That is usually reflected in the turnout of safe seats compared with marginal seats, as voters are generally well aware of the relative importance of their constituency.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am one of the lucky few who received over 50% of the vote, so this debate and the changes I am proposing are not of personal benefit to me. Some 266 MPs—41%—were elected with less than 40% of the vote. A few colleagues— I am not sure any are in the Chamber—were even elected with less than 30% of the vote. When most people’s representatives in Parliament do not reflect how they voted, it feeds the all-too-pervasive sense that Westminster is some distant, unresponsive institution in which voters have no real voice. Like all first-past-the-post elections, 2024 was one in which some votes and areas mattered more than others.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They did not get to influence the kind of Government the country has, and it can no longer be acceptable to have a winner-takes-all culture on the basis of a third of the country’s vote. That erodes our democracy. One of the arguments of supporters of first-past-the-post elections is that people are not really voting for a Government, but just for a local MP. Let us take this at face value. Only four out of 10 voters got the local MP they voted for at the last election, and six out of 10 did not get the MP they voted for. We have a system that ignores those six out of 10 people. We are now in an unprecedented situation where 554 MPs—85% of us—were elected by less than 50% of the voters who turned out to vote.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Labour won a historic majority, and like other Labour MPs whose seats are perceived as safe in the living memory of all party members and probably all parties, I travelled around the country to work in many marginal constituencies where we needed to get votes to win. However, this speaks to the failure not to the success of our system. The 2024 general election was a culmination of years of falling vote share for the winning party, and we—the Labour party—won on just one third of the national vote. Of course I always work extremely hard for my party to be in government, and I am delighted that almost 10 million people voted for us. However, 19 million people voted for other parties, and we must admit that they are the vast majority of those who took part in the election.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These growing failures of representative democracy—the widespread feeling that ordinary people do not have a fair say over who speaks for them or how they are governed—are feeding the record low levels of trust in politics and faith in democracy, and that should worry all of us. The Government have a responsibility to face up to those problems and address them before the next general election, starting with the launch of a national commission for electoral reform. The 1997 Government were brave enough to undertake this work at a time when confidence in the electoral and political systems was much higher and those systems were less stressed than they are now. Let me begin by looking at last year’s general election. Most people got neither the party they voted for into government nor the candidate they voted for as their local MP.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Absolutely. The turnout and engagement of voters in general elections should be a matter of concern for everybody in this place and in the country at large. The truth is that first past the post is failing on its own terms. It is becoming less and less representative and producing more and more random results; there are more outliers and more MPs are elected on less than 30% of their constituents who voted. In reality, some MPs represent constituencies in which perhaps 85% of those they represent did not vote for them. These are the lowest figures since the beginning of universal suffrage. The numbers do not lie, and they can no longer be ignored. The public know it, our parties know it and we in this place know it.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government have said that there is no consensus on a new system, but that is exactly why there is a great opportunity to set up a process that begins to build consensus: a national commission to examine the issues that first past the post is causing, and to recommend a fair and democratic alternative.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have received hundreds of emails, even though my name is on the debate. The Prime Minister has made it clear that restoring trust in politics is a key priority, calling the fight for trust “the battle that defines our age”. If the Government are to win the battle, they must address our flawed voting system—one they know is driving distrust and alienation in politics, which means that millions of people’s votes do not count, and which most people do not want to continue with. That is why I urge the Government to take this first step by establishing a national commission for electoral reform, as recommended by the all-party parliamentary group for fair elections, which I chair.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It stated: “The flaws in the current voting system are contributing to the distrust and alienation we see in politics.” I agree, as do almost all the parties on the Opposition Benches. We know that the public agrees—two thirds want the flaws in the voting system to be addressed before the next general election, according to Survation. The long-running British attitudes survey found record majority support for changing to PR, with those who trust politics least the most likely to support change. Are they not the people we need to engage? Just this month, YouGov found that support for PR hit an all-time high, with support for first past the post at an all-time low. Every single MP in Great Britain has been contacted by constituents in recent days asking them to support PR in this debate.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is every reason to think that this trend will continue. That a party, even an extreme one, can win a huge majority with less than a third of the vote is not just senseless but dangerous. If we do not address this now, I fear that election results will become even less representative. Governments and MPs will be elected with lower support than ever, and there will be increasingly chaotic and random results. That will drive trust and engagement still lower. That is unsustainable, and I think the Government know it. Labour’s official policy on first past the post is set out in the final national policy forum document that the party produced in the previous Parliament, which set the policy platform for our manifesto.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am coming to that exact point shortly, and I thank my hon. Friend for raising it. The 2024 general election was a stark illustration of the problems with our voting system, and it is important to understand that it was not a one-off. These problems have been getting worse for decades, and that is set to continue if we keep the system as it is. We have gone from 97% of people voting for Labour or the Conservative party in the 1950s, to just 58% doing so in 2024—a record low. In the first-past-the-post system, that produces hugely volatile and erratic results—electoral chaos theory, as Professor Rob Ford has called it. Back in the mid-20th century, parties needed close to 50% of the vote to win a majority of seats, but that threshold has been falling to new lows for decades— 39% in 1974, 35% in 2005 and, as I said, one third last year.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“None of this need distract from Government’s core mission of delivering their manifesto priorities, but it would demonstrate beyond doubt that they are serious about giving a stronger voice to millions of people who feel increasingly excluded from British politics.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have just said that the first step would be for the Government to set up a national commission. This debate is the first step for the APPG to try to persuade the Government to set up that national commission. We are on a journey. Not everything the Government announced at the start of the Parliament is what they are still announcing. Change is possible. The commission could draw insights from the experience of devolved bodies and other democracies. It could allow citizens, as well as experts, to contribute to evaluating the options and finding a way forward that would command public trust and confidence.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The alternative vote system, which is used to elect the Australian Parliament, is a preferential system, not a proportional system, so we have had a referendum on preferential representation but we have never had a referendum on proportional representation. I do not see why we need to wait a generation, as has been suggested. I certainly do not think that we need to have another referendum on a preferential system, but we need to consider, as I laid out in the debate, a commission to look at the failures in our electoral system, and whether we should move to a more proportional system. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered proportional representation for general elections.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will be brief, because we have had a long and thorough debate. I thank everyone who took part in it, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal), who cut a lonely figure in opposing a change to the voting system. I thank him for his bravery in the face of such opposition; it is a shame that we could not have had more Members speak against changing the voting system, as so many spoke in favour. I thank the Minister for committing to work with the all-party parliamentary group for fair elections, which I chair, and I will follow up on that. Let me make just one substantive point, because I feel that there may be a lack of understanding about something. I am well aware that we had a referendum on the alternative vote system in 2011.”
House of Commons30 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister, with whom I served on the Environmental Audit Committee when she was Chair. At that time we were very critical of the Environment Act 2021, and the lack of delivery on a deposit return scheme and a neonicotinoids ban. Both of those things the Minister has achieved this week. That is delivery in action. Targets are targets, but delivery and action are utmost, and the Government are undertaking that on nature.”
House of Commons24 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yanina, who survived the ghetto, wrote two books about her own life and history; one was about her life in Poland before the war, and one was about her experience during and immediately after the war. Those books are recognised as part of a very important canon of literature on the Holocaust. I am really proud that Yanina and Zygmunt both lived.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Yanina Bauman was a Holocaust survivor, having escaped the Warsaw ghetto with her sister and mother. Like other Jews, they were hidden by amazing Polish families in the countryside. Yanina and her husband, Professor Zygmunt Bauman, came to Leeds in the 1970s, and he worked as a professor of sociology. He was one of the most decorated sociology professors in the world, and his books are world class and outstanding. His literature discussed the theoretical effect of the “Holocaust mentality”, and he came up with the theory of “liquid life” as part of post-modernity. I do not want to get into a sociology lecture, because the Chamber is not the place for that, but people who are interested in those subjects should certainly look up his work.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That was just 23 years after the war, which was very much in recent memory for those people. All of this made attempts to rebuild lives in eastern Europe very difficult, not just in Poland but in other countries. My own parents emigrated from eastern Europe in the ’50s and ’60s, and in the end arrived in Leeds in the 1970s. Similarly, thousands of Jews came out of communist and post-communist countries, found homes and contributed economically, socially and culturally to their new countries. I want to tell a story about two of my former constituents—they are no longer with us—who were very close family friends. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of my time in their house, and they certainly contributed a lot to my own Holocaust education.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Following the Yalta agreement, they were very different countries from what they were before the war. My grandparents hoped to rebuild their lives, as did the few members of my family who survived the camps and ghettos, but it was still very difficult after the war. When I visited Warsaw with my father, he took me to the tower blocks where he grew up and told me stories of how, as a child, he received antisemitic abuse and bullying from Polish children after the war—this was after everybody knew about the Holocaust and the camps. Unfortunately, that was the reality for Jewish people. The state authorities had antisemitic attitudes too, which in the end resulted in the mass emigration of 13,000 Jews—almost the entire remaining Jewish population of Poland—in 1968.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“You go through the killing stations where the Nazis murdered millions of people: Jews, the LGBT community, the Gypsy Roma community, trade unionists and others they decided had to be removed in their genocide—in our Holocaust. That really commits you to wanting to see the future education of generations on this subject. I have also been to the POLIN museum in Warsaw, which documents the history of Jews in Poland. It has a significant section on antisemitism in that country, which I will come to later in my speech. When you visit such places, you can better understand the rise of antisemitism and how things could get to that point. This year the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day is “For a better future”, which is uplifting. My own grandparents returned to Poland and Lithuania after the Holocaust.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On Monday it will be 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. I find this debate quite difficult, so please bear with me. I went with my own family, my father and my two sons, to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the summer of 2023. I know that many Members here have been to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and although it is a difficult place to visit, those who have not definitely should. I thank the Prime Minister for his recent visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. When you are there, you can imagine the industrial scale of murder that happened there. You see many skulls, shoes and clothes. You see the cabins where people had to live.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to work on them in this place, not in an historical or educational way but in a very real and political way. It is our duty as a country to support a better future for everyone who has suffered in conflict and post-conflict zones.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister for Housing and Planning, who is no longer in his place, made an excellent contribution on issues in the Balkans, and I hope we can have a further debate with the Minister for Europe, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), on the contemporary situation in the Balkans, and particularly Republika Srpska. I am planning to visit the Balkans again this year, and we all have that duty because the Balkans are very near, and those events happened in the political lifetime of some of those in charge of Serbia—some of them, including the President of Serbia, were involved in the regime of Slobodan Miloševic. The events are still very close. For the better future of people in the Balkans, these issues are not yet resolved.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have met victims of Slobodan Miloševic’s regime in the Balkans—people exactly the same age as me, with similar backgrounds and experiences, who witnessed and experienced the most awful and traumatic events. I have seen some of the exhibits from the Miloševic regime’s genocidal actions, and many of them reminded me of what I saw in Auschwitz-Birkenau, including single shoes and items of clothing belonging to children who were disappeared and whose fate is unknown—they never found the bodies. Obviously, the genocide in the Balkans was different from the Holocaust, but we recognise it as genocide nevertheless. After the conflict, people in those countries are still suffering, and they still do not have stable countries. Bosnia is still experiencing tensions.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Professor Zygmunt Bauman died in January 2017. He was a great supporter of mine and always had placards outside his house when I stood for election, but unfortunately he never got to see me elected to this place. I want to record my thanks to the Baumans. This debate is about a better future for people from conflict and post-conflict zones, and for those who have suffered genocide. All the subsequent genocides recognised by the United Kingdom happened in my lifetime, including Cambodia, Rwanda and the regime of Slobodan Miloševic and the Serbs. Since I became a Member of Parliament, we have had the atrocious murder of the Yazidis by Daesh and, looking at Syria now, I am afraid that genocide is probably not yet concluded. We need to act on that today so that they can have a better future for tomorrow.”
House of Commons23 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want once again to thank the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister for willing this partnership into life. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine, I fully support all nine pillars of the agreement, as I am sure all members of the all-party group do. Pillar 4 deals with the economy and trade, and there are many things we can do now to deepen and strengthen our trade relations with Ukraine, one of which involves joint ventures. What work will be done to remove insurance barriers and trade barriers, for instance, to give access to kindred or joint venture partnerships between UK and Ukrainian companies in all areas, including defence?”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Leeds general infirmary received outline planning permission in 2020. Two Conservative Prime Ministers came to Leeds and promised that we would get our new hospital, despite knowing that the funding was not there in the Treasury. I thank my right hon. Friend for visiting the LGI. Now that we know we are in wave 2, will he meet me and the chief executive to talk about one of the largest maintenance backlogs in the NHS, how we are going to cope in the intervening period, and how we are going to move forward and hit wave 2 running to get our hospital built before we need to close down our children’s services, which are at risk?”
House of Commons20 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Leeds is home to a population of over 36,000 non-home students. The Bill is imperative to my constituents. Through its measures, I am hopeful that we can establish a rental market that promotes fairness, reduces inequality and strengthens communities across the UK. I am very happy to support the Government amendments.”
House of Commons14 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The expectation that tenants, despite entering into legally binding rental agreements, must secure a third-party guarantor undermines the very purpose of their rental contract. For many students, particularly those who cannot rely on family support, such as care leavers and estranged individuals, that requirement can make renting nearly impossible. The Bill provides a generational opportunity to raise standards of living in the UK to where they should be. As I will not push my new clause to a vote, I would welcome further discussion and engagement with the Minister as the Bill progresses on how we can change the reliance on guarantors in our rental markets. I know that he is open to that discussion. In my constituency, 44.8% of constituents live in private rentals, compared with a national average of 19.4%.”
House of Commons14 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My new clause suggests that the need for a guarantor should be restricted when the following circumstances apply: when a reasonable assessment shows that personal income, including state benefits received and any other lawful source of income, is sufficient for the tenant to pay the full rent due under the tenancy; when arrangements are made for housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit to be paid directly to the landlord; when the landlord has entered into a contract of insurance, through which they are insured against non-payment of rent—that has been covered by other amendments—and in such other circumstances as may be prescribed in regulations by the Secretary of State. That gives the Government a wide avenue for implementing my new clause.”
House of Commons14 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituent Olivia’s up-front costs were so high because she could not get a guarantor. Now that we have set limits on rent in advance, we must deal with the other side of the issue: the requirement for tenants to provide guarantors. The practice can exclude individuals who cannot meet those demands, or limit their access to secure housing. Adults who earn their own income can be excluded from signing up to rent basic accommodation in a shared house simply because they are not related to someone who owns UK property. My new clause 11 would place tighter restrictions on the requirement for tenants to provide a guarantor, especially when a tenant’s rental history or income offer sufficient security. By refining those provisions, we can balance the legitimate interests of landlords with the rights and needs of tenants.”
House of Commons14 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Government new clauses 13 and 14 are landmark measures that ensure that students are not subject to excessive and exploitative up-front costs by limiting rent in advance. That creates a fairer, more accessible rental market. For example, my constituent Olivia was once required to pay £2,500—six months’ rent up front—to move into a four-bed shared property. She is moving to Leeds to begin her masters. Leaving her without savings for a move to a new city is not how we should treat any person vulnerable to the rental market or looking to be an asset to the community. The Government new clauses will help prevent such unreasonable demands and alleviate financial pressure on tenants, so I am withdrawing my new clause 3 on limiting rents, and urge support for the Government new clauses.”
House of Commons14 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will not press my new clause 4, and I urge Members to support those Government amendments. If there is no regulation of the letting season, students are pressured and intimidated by the rental market into signing tenancies with people they hardly know, sometimes nine months before they are due to move in. Students of all backgrounds are forking out deposits to hold properties. Care leavers, estranged students and students from low economic backgrounds are left to either spend money that they do not have or risk housing insecurity for the next academic year. The Government’s decision to limit the letting season to six months gives students the space and time to create healthy social relationships and save money for a deposit for the next academic year, drastically improving their mental wellbeing.”
House of Commons14 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I express my gratitude to the Minister and the Secretary of State for tabling amendments on regulating the student lettings season, and on rent in advance. Both are issues that I have been campaigning on. Over a year ago, I went to Leeds University Union’s cost of living event, where those issues and others were brought home to me starkly. They were also brought home to me by the National Union of Students’ cost of living inquiry, and the all-party parliamentary group on students, which was led by our former colleague Paul Blomfield, and on which I served. I really thank the Government for tabling amendments 18 and 53 on regulating the student letting season, building on the work of Paul Blomfield, who spearheaded work on this in his constituency of Sheffield Central.”
House of Commons14 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate, and for the wonderful way that he has started his speech. It is important to recognise that the abduction of children from Ukraine—from Crimea and the Donbas—did not start in 2022; it started in 2014. It has been going on for 11 years. The figures that he gives are broadly correct, I think, from meetings that I have had with Crimea Platform and others in Ukraine, but the second world war, to which he alluded, lasted only six years. The camps existed for only three years, and we are 11 years into this child abduction. International humanitarian law effectively started with Nuremburg. Does he agree that we will need to take a much longer and deeper look at resetting international law, post the Ukraine war?”
House of Commons6 January 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I once again commend my hon. Friend on his ongoing support for Ukraine and his important trade visit to Kyiv recently. From that visit, he will know that this war has advanced military technology, particularly in the area of loitering munitions and anti-unmanned aerial vehicle technology. I note that we have the defence industrial support treaty, as well as our own defence industrial strategy. What progress are we making on joint ventures with Ukrainian defence companies, and on basing some of that defence capability here, for our future security and the security of Ukraine?”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my right hon. Friend for her diligent work on the very challenging situation in Syria. I am sure that she has seen the reports from places like Idlib, Aleppo, Homs and Damascus of women being forced to wear the hijab, young women being escorted, and other restrictions on women’s rights. That is in stark contrast to the position under the autonomous administration in north and east Syria, Rojava; gender equality is baked into its constitutional arrangements. What assessment has she made of HTS’s attitude towards gender equality and women’s rights? Does she think that there should be a ministry for women and gender equality in the constitutional arrangements of a future Syrian republic?”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does he think that service families who suffered the most egregious examples of poor maintenance should be able to receive compensation from those private companies?”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wish you a merry Yorkshire Christmas, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for the Committee’s report. As we are admitting things, let me say that, in the 1980s, I, too, lived in armed services accommodation for a brief period. It is important for us to remember how many children live in armed services accommodation. I have been raising this issue since 2018, at the time of the CarillionAmey contract. Catterick garrison in Yorkshire has one of the largest stocks of armed forces housing, and I know that my hon. Friend knows how poor much of the maintenance work has been. He has already mentioned mould, rats, and conditions that are unfit for children, or anybody, to live in.”
House of Commons19 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although I do not expect to divide on new clause 1, I would appreciate it if the Minister would comment on how he will report progress to the House, disclose the level of Russian state assets that are here, and state how much of the interest accrued from those assets has been mobilised to support Ukraine in its war efforts.”
House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“—[ Official Report , 20 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 312.] I asked if the Government could disclose Russian assets held in the UK in the same way. New clause 1 goes a long way to providing that. It would ask the Government to lay a copy of a report before Parliament showing under the Act, as it will hopefully become, “monies provided by the United Kingdom to Ukraine” to the following level of disclosure: “the United Kingdom’s share of the principal loan amount and interest accrued under the scheme” and “receipts of extraordinary profits from the Russian immobilised sovereign assets under the scheme.” It would to an extent mirror what our close ally Canada has done.”
House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I want to speak to new clause 1, which I have signed, but I first want to reiterate my support for the Government and the Bill. As I said on Second Reading, it is absolutely right and proper that Russia pays for the damage it has done to Ukraine and its people. The Bill is an important first step in providing that financial assistance from Russian assets to Ukraine. Echoing the comments from around the Chamber, we need to move with allies towards a position of seizing Russian assets, but it is a positive first step that we are using the proceeds of the interest on those assets to support Ukraine. On Second Reading, I mentioned that “Canada has passed the Special Economic Measures (Russia) Regulations, which collects data on Russian assets, freezes them and publishes the value, which currently stands at 135 billion Canadian dollars”.”
House of Commons18 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for addressing the points in my letter to him, particularly on the holistic approach to the health of trans young people. In his statement, he said that the order would “restrict the sale or supply of puberty blockers” to under-18s through private prescriptions. Can he assure me that that will apply to all under-18s, not just those with gender dysphoria? Otherwise, it will be used as an attack on trans young people, as he well knows. Is the order universal rather than targeting trans young people in particular?”
House of Commons11 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Like Minister Falconer, I was at the Doha forum this weekend, and there was palpable relief among the vast majority of delegates that the brutal murderer Assad had finally fallen. However, Sergey Lavrov also attended the Doha forum, and although I boycotted his session, the readout was that he was deeply uncomfortable in answering questions about Syria—rightly so, as he has so much Syrian blood on his hands, alongside his boss Vladimir Putin. Does my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary agree that it is unacceptable for Russia to retain its two military bases in Syria, and that those bases must be closed down for the stability of the region?”
House of Commons9 December 2024Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗