Iqbal Mohamed
MP for Dewsbury and Batley · Independent · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Minister’s response so far, amid the shocking allegations that staff covered up the greater risks of power blackouts during the recent heatwave, but it is not just heatwaves and climate change that are increasing demand for electricity.”
“Will the Minister set out what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure does not compromise our energy security, increase the risk of supply shortages or blackouts, place unsustainable burdens on local infrastructure, or leave local communities bearing the costs while others reap the benefits?”
“A Palestinian farmer named Jamal Daraghmeh was beaten alongside his sons as Israeli settlers tried to harvest olives from the land his family had cultivated for generations.”
“For years, Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and rightly described these “settlements” as illegal under international law—this Government have done so more times than I can count—yet the condemnation rings hollow. If settlements are illegal, why are we still treating their products as legitimate?”
“I thank my Yorkshire colleague the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing this debate, and for introducing it with the passion and power she did.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. As a barrister, he knows, as do many across the House who are not in that profession, that it is incumbent—an obligation—on the UK Government to take any and all practical steps to prevent and stop a genocide happening anywhere to any people, and that includes the Palestinians.”
The complete record
Every one of 600 lines we hold for Iqbal Mohamed, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 1 of 12.
“Will the Minister set out what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure does not compromise our energy security, increase the risk of supply shortages or blackouts, place unsustainable burdens on local infrastructure, or leave local communities bearing the costs while others reap the benefits?”
“I welcome the Minister’s response so far, amid the shocking allegations that staff covered up the greater risks of power blackouts during the recent heatwave, but it is not just heatwaves and climate change that are increasing demand for electricity. Artificial intelligence data centres are expanding rapidly across the UK and internationally, bringing with them significant demands not only for electricity, the demand for which is estimated to double globally by 2030, but for water for cooling, land, construction and infrastructure.”
“Can the Minister explain how today’s proposals will restore confidence among claimants that PIP exists to support disabled people, rather than to challenge their entitlement at every turn, and that those who need it will receive it?”
“I apologise for crossing between you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) earlier. I thank the Minister for Social Security for his statement, for the interim update, which, as he said, is a rare thing as part of a process, and for his approach to dealing with this complex subject with kindness and compassion and treating disabled people with dignity. They really appreciate that. Nearly 300 of my constituents contacted me about the proposed changes to disability support during this consultation period. They consistently described a system that is too often unfair, distressing and mistrustful of disabled people.”
“In the past year and a half, 70 Palestinian children have been murdered in the west bank, at an average of almost one every week. Just last week, Smotrich celebrated what he called the “revolution” in settlement expansion. That a sanctioned Minister is publicly boasting about accelerating annexation while settlements continue to grow unabated shows that this Government’s approach is having zero meaningful impact.”
“A Palestinian farmer named Jamal Daraghmeh was beaten alongside his sons as Israeli settlers tried to harvest olives from the land his family had cultivated for generations. That is how settlements expand: families are terrorised, livelihoods are destroyed and communities are driven from their land, creating the single greatest obstacle to Palestinian economic development and self-determination. These injustices are accelerating before our eyes. As we have heard, since the genocide in Gaza began, settlement expansion has surged, with 165 new settlement outposts established. That is an average of 47 every year, up from just over five between 1996 and 2022. The consequences are also measured in the number of lives taken. According to B’Tselem, Israeli forces or civilians have killed 4,000 Palestinians since 2000.”
“For years, Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and rightly described these “settlements” as illegal under international law—this Government have done so more times than I can count—yet the condemnation rings hollow. If settlements are illegal, why are we still treating their products as legitimate? Every shipment from a settlement carries a human cost in the displacement, deprivation of income and death that it constitutes. It is the economic bedrock of a system of apartheid. Up to 110,000 Palestinian families rely on the olive harvest as their source of income. For generations, olive trees have sustained communities economically and culturally. There has been settler violence for many decades, but during last year’s harvest it reached unprecedented levels, all against the backdrop of a genocide in Gaza.”
“I thank my Yorkshire colleague the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for securing this debate, and for introducing it with the passion and power she did. Every single pound that goes from Britain to Israel is in one way or another helping Israel perpetuate its illegal occupation and apartheid system against the Palestinian people. Just this week, Haaretz reported that Israeli nationalist crime in the west bank is up by 560% since 2019, according to official police data. We know that the vast majority of the crimes by these terrorist settlers go unreported and unpunished, so if the percentage increase is officially 500-plus, it will actually be in the thousands given the crimes that will have gone unreported. These settlements are illegal colonies.”
“Instead of sanctioning the settlers, successive British Governments have actively facilitated and allowed goods and services from the settlements to be sold in the UK. Why do the British Government despise Palestinian life so much?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. As a barrister, he knows, as do many across the House who are not in that profession, that it is incumbent—an obligation—on the UK Government to take any and all practical steps to prevent and stop a genocide happening anywhere to any people, and that includes the Palestinians. To conclude, history will not remember how many times this Government have condemned illegal settlements. It will remember that Britain, for decades, has chosen to keep trading with Israel and the settlements anyway. Condemnation without consequence is nothing less than complicity. Israeli settlers, aided and abetted by the IDF and the Israeli Government, have taken away the rights of the Palestinians to live.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this issue is not just about products coming from settlements to the UK, but companies in the UK trading in goods and services in the settlements? Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia are all selling tourism services in the occupied territories.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful point about big foreign tech companies. Does he believe that our dependency on six tech companies in all aspects of our lives poses a national security threat and needs to be assessed as such?”
“Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the primary obligations of any Government is to keep their citizens and the people living in their country safe from all avoidable harms? AI is a major potential cause of harm, and it is avoidable. Does he agree that the Government cannot wait 25 years to catch up?”
“The right hon. Gentleman says no one knows, but throughout history, when we have approached technologies or situations that we have never experienced before, we have done scenario planning and risk assessments, and we have prepared as best as possible for scenarios that may be plausible or possible. Does he agree that when it comes to AI, we have been absolutely asleep at the wheel and that planning has not happened?”
“I ask the Minister how the Government will fund public services going forward. There are dangers, but there are opportunities from AI. We must try to access them as much as possible, but we must address the societal, economic and safety consequences that AI poses.”
“Secondly, the Government must mandate independent statutory testing for AI before its release, and a yellow card scheme that would be a national register where safety incidents, near misses and harms caused by AI were reported, tracked and acted on exactly as we do for adverse drug reactions. It must not be the manufacturer marking its own homework and hoping that nobody checks; self-certification does not work and must end. Thirdly, every AI system developed in this country must have a kill switch that is triggered automatically the moment a system takes unauthorised action and that any human being can trigger manually at any time without obstruction or AI override. This danger is not only about safety but about who pays the bill as AI unfolds. More than 300,000 private-hire drivers in this country face displacement by robotaxis.”
“The AI Security Institute already evaluates frontier models for biological, chemical and cyber risk, but only if the AI companies allow it to. That is progress, but progress in security assessments is not the same as regulating delivery in the healthcare industry. This Government brought Palantir into the heart of our NHS; in doing so, they handed a US surveillance contractor that is complicit in genocide the keys to patient data that belongs to the British public, not to a share price on Wall Street. I ask the Minister to guarantee the British public that their NHS data will never be given to or allowed to be stolen by Palantir or any other private company.”
“I have spent 20-plus years in the pharmaceutical regulatory industry, and we can learn much from it. We regulate medicines before they reach a single patient. We do not wait for harm; instead, we test, we license and we monitor. That is the entire logic of the GxP framework that underpins pharmaceutical safety in this country, yet AI is being deployed in our hospitals, schools, courts and welfare system with no comparable safety regime at all, not because the risk is smaller but because the oversight is simply not there. I put the following demands to the Government. First, where GxP protects patients from medicine, we need GAIP—good AI practice—regulation to protect patients from algorithms. Any AI system used in healthcare must meet a statutory standard before it touches a single patient record or clinical decision.”
“Responsible AI, done right, could be the saviour of humanity. Irresponsible AI, done wrong, could lead to the destruction of humanity. There is, to my knowledge, no effective, self-regulated industry anywhere in the world that puts consumers and the planet before profit and shareholders. I thank the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this important debate. As he and many Members have highlighted, a handful of companies run by men answerable to no electorate and standing before no constituents are making decisions right now that will shape healthcare, education, employment, childhood and the economy more than most Acts of this Parliament ever will. I will focus on topics that have not been covered and speak about safety and economic risks.”
“Will the hon. Member explain how this will work, then? Human beings at work pay national insurance, income tax and pension contributions, and then they can support their families. AI agents and AI-powered robots do not pay any of that—there are no tax receipts for the Government—so how will Government fund public services in that scenario?”
“I thank the hon. Member for securing this debate and for allowing me to intervene. The Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS trust published data about patients in corridors for the first time only in May, and in that month it recorded 121 patients per day being treated outside clinical rooms and areas. A constituent of mine, Catherine, wrote to me to describe seeing at first hand elderly people waiting in corridors for hours with no family members to support them. Does the hon. Member agree that corridor care has moved from being an exceptional problem to an everyday issue in many NHS trusts, and that the Government must act to address the root cause of this issue?”
“As with prison spaces, we lack the number of beds in our country that the NHS needs to provide safe and dignified care for every patient who seeks treatment. Catherine, one of my constituents, wrote to me to say that she went into hospital with her husband. She waited in a corridor for five hours, but she saw many elderly patients with no relatives or friends with them, who had been waiting there for many hours before she arrived, and nobody was able to look after them or offer them water. They had to keep asking for water from other patients. That experience will exacerbate somebody’s medical condition and increase demand on the NHS. We have heard—”
“For many years, hospitals under pressure often managed overcrowding by keeping patients and ambulances outside emergency departments while they waited to be handed over and moved into clinical areas. That resulted in ambulance waiting times going through the roof and many patients not receiving the emergency paramedic assistance they clearly required. Under the previous Government, that issue was displaced: from holding patients inside ambulances to moving them into the hospital building, freeing up ambulances to go and serve other patients. I am not a medical doctor, but I am a scientist and an engineer, and what is obvious is that the 40 hospitals under the previous Government did not get delivered—not all of them were new, but that is also true of the ones that were to be refurbished and expanded.”
“I congratulate them on their efforts to bring down waiting lists by many, many thousands; my constituents appreciate that. We heard that more and more that patients are being treated away from clinical and sterile places: in corridors, cupboards and other places not designed for treatment. They are being denied their privacy, dignity and adequate support. One doctor described patients dying because they could not access appropriate clinical areas in time. That is not what we would class as a jewel-in-the-crown public service—but that is what the NHS is, and all of us across the House want to restore it back to being the world-class, free-at-the-point-of-need care service for every single person in our country.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) on securing this debate. Some very important points have been made. I am going to skip through some of those important points to reinforce the message, and bring forward issues raised directly with me by my constituents. What we have heard is that what was once regarded as an exceptional state of affairs in the NHS has become so commonplace that Parliament is now debating it as a national issue in its own right. We have heard about the lack of investment and the redirection of resources, and about the issue being compounded over the many years of the previous Government. I acknowledge and recognise the efforts made by the current Government to try to address this, as well as many other challenges in the NHS.”
“All settlers are criminals— not just those who are violent—because they occupy land that does not belong to them. Since the late ’90s, successive Governments have called the E1 a red line because it would permanently divide the west bank and destroy the possibility of a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, more than 700,000 settlers now live illegally over 140 sanctioned settlements and 100 unsanctioned outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and settlements continue to expand while Palestinians continue to be forcibly displaced. The International Court of Justice has made it clear that states must not assist in this unlawful occupation. Is the E1 finally the moment when this Government will match their words with action, or will this simply become another so-called red line that Israel crosses without consequence?”
“I commend the hon. Member for his unity and solidarity with Jewish students and Jewish people. Does he agree that conflating Israel with all Jewish people is also something that should be avoided, as it can lead to an increase in antisemitism?”
“We must be able to hold two truths at once: that antisemitism on campuses is real and must be confronted decisively, and that legitimate political dissent from students and academics, peaceful, principled and rooted in justice, must be protected. If we can strike that balance, we will not only make our universities safer, but we will make them stronger. I conclude by extending my support to the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley and Members across the House in working together to tackle and address antisemitism in UK universities and wider society.”
“Alongside antisemitism, we are witnessing worrying and cascading levels of Islamophobia, with hostility and suspicion towards entire Muslim communities intensifying and spreading in response to individual incidents and subsequent inflammatory comments by politicians and public figures. What is needed is a consistent, principled approach that protects students from harassment and hate, while also upholding their rights to political expression and peaceful protest, and that brings communities together, rather than pitting them against one another. Ultimately, this is about the kind of society we want to be—one where Jewish students are safe and supported, where Muslim students are free from prejudice and suspicion, and where all students can engage critically with the world around them without fear of being mischaracterised or silenced.”
“It is therefore vital that we do not conflate legitimate and courageous defiance of this Government’s apathy in the face of inhumanity with the specific and pernicious form of racism that antisemitism constitutes. Safeguarding free speech and the freedom to protest is not in tension with protecting Jewish students from discrimination. Rather, the two must go hand in hand. If we dilute the definition of antisemitism to incorporate righteous criticism of Israel, we risk eroding trust among students and communities. It is also important to acknowledge that discrimination rarely exists in isolation.”
“At the same time, it would be remiss of me not to say that it also deeply troubles me when I look across the pond to the United States and hear accusations of antisemitism—including at protests on campuses—thrown around without sufficient care in response to criticisms of the Israeli state’s actions in the middle east. Just last week, the independent UN inquiry found that Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza. However, Israel is a state. It is a Government. It has its army. It does not represent or reflect the views or actions of Jews around the world. However, on campuses and across our country, many students are engaging in protests because of their principled opposition to these gross injustices. Those protests cannot and must not include acts or words of antisemitism.”
“This reality is unacceptable, plain and simple—no ifs, buts or maybes. No Jewish student should be made to feel intimidated or of less worth because of their beliefs. We must demand a far more proactive and co-ordinated response from Government, higher education institutions and civil society organisations. Universities must not only have robust policies in place, but actively enforce them. Reporting mechanisms need to be accessible and trusted. Support services must be properly resourced. And there must be a clear message from leadership at every level that antisemitism has no place in our educational institutions or our society.”
“It deeply saddens me when I read news stories about how Jewish students have been feeling increasingly unsafe on university campuses in recent years, or reports about things such as the Union of Jewish Students poll that found that one in five students would be reluctant to, or would never, house-share with a Jewish student. I am not Jewish and I am not going to try to deflect attention away from the subject of this debate, but I share some of the experiences of Jewish students. They may not, thankfully, be as extreme or intense, but I understand some of what those students are or may be going through and I have complete sympathy. I could cite similarly harrowing statistics, but other Members have already mentioned those, so I will skip them because of the lack of time.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. The right to freedom of religion is a fundamental human right and must be protected. I congratulate my neighbour and West Yorkshire colleague, the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), on securing the debate. I speak to join him and others in trying to help tackle antisemitism in UK universities, but also antisemitism anywhere and everywhere in our wonderful country. I begin by placing on the record my clear and unequivocal belief that antisemitism, like all other forms of religious discrimination, is a scourge that has no place in our society, and that we should do all we can to stamp it out. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to hate or to incite hatred or violence against others, including against Jewish people.”
“Does the Minister agree that people who are trying to divide us will sometimes pit one community against another, and where one community is being rightly and legitimately supported, they will try to weaponise that in another community and create friction? Does he also agree that the steps taken by the Government can be replicated across communities, and that communities and leaders in each of the discriminated-against communities should work together so that the support cannot be weaponised?”
“I commend the investment that the Minister has already announced. In Dewsbury, our leisure centre and swimming pool were closed in September 2023, and have stood there, with no repairs or survey. Will she meet me to discuss what the Government can do to help reopen them? Maybe they could have some of the £400 million. The youth in my community are asking, “What can we do during the summer holidays?””
“This deal will increase the cost-effectiveness threshold set by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, curtail the overall cost cap on patented medicines, double the amount spent on such medicines, and increase the share of the NHS budget allocated to medicines. That should worry every Member of this House, because once those safeguards have been eroded, they are very difficult to restore.”
“This is money not spent on tackling waiting lists, not spent on primary care, and not spent on saving lives. As we have heard, the Nuffield Trust has made that point starkly, estimating that the NHS will be able to save 340,000 fewer years of quality-adjusted life in 2035 if the promised spending goes ahead. Despite the magnitude of these changes, the Government have refused to publish the full impact assessment of the deal that they hold. Why? This worrying development can be seen in the way in which the UK-US pharma deal was forced through, with no vote and scant parliamentary oversight. Let me summarise what I wrote on PoliticsHome back in March.”
“Ministers claim that the arrangement will cost about £1 billion over the current spending review period, but independent analysis tells a different story. Using the projections of the Office for Budget Responsibility, the House of Commons Library suggests that increasing spending on medicines in line with the Government’s commitments would require about £1.7 billion extra by 2028, and potentially as much as £14 billion a year by 2036. The Government have been clear on one point, and one point only: they say that those increased costs will come from existing NHS budgets. No new funding has been guaranteed. Every extra billion spent on higher-priced medicines is a billion not spent elsewhere in a system that is already under immense strain.”
“An estimated 229,000 excess deaths by 2036—that is the eye-watering figure that BMJ analysis identifies as the upshot of diverting NHS funding to pay more for pharmaceuticals in response to Trump’s threats. Estimates day debates exist to scrutinise how public money will be spent before that spending has happened, not least when the decisions could have such damaging consequences for the health of our nation. This estimates day debate does not include the full budgetary consequences of the UK-US pharmaceutical deal agreed on 1 December. When we look at the cost, the Government’s figures simply do not stack up. Instead, we see a structural weakening of NHS safeguards on drug pricing, higher thresholds, weaker rebate mechanisms and a commitment to dramatically increase spending, which will prove devastating for patient health.”
“Will the hon. Gentleman to comment on the fact that the NHS pays 10 times the manufacturing costs for over 80% of the licensed medicines that we buy? How is that underpaying?”
“Does the hon. Lady agree that unblocking the reasons why the data is not being made available should be the top priority, and that analysis of that data should be done before any further experiments on children are done?”
“On that point, in normal clinical trials, the active substance and a placebo would be used, and the impact, changes or benefits that each cohort experienced would be checked. If children have a psychological leaning and are emotionally feeling that they are in the wrong body, is there not value in having a cohort that takes a placebo and seeing if that improves their mental health?”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I have huge respect for her and I completely agree that nobody here or outside should be looking to disrespect or harm any individual, whatever their age. Would she agree that parents should also be given all the information available around this condition, its treatments and the paths that children follow? Over 93% of children who experience gender dysphoria grow out of it and then are happy in their natural body. Does she agree that that and other information should be made available to the parents?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for making such a passionate speech. I think we all agree, across the House, that we are here not to politicise or to demonise, but to try to make the right decisions for the safety of children. I think that all Members here share that intention. It was said earlier that these drugs are already used to treat different conditions, such as prostate cancer, endometriosis and precocious puberty. For the first two conditions they are taken by adults for a very short time, and for the third they are taken for a limited period until the child reaches the age of puberty. Such misinformation—or comparison—is not really valid, and should be avoided.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I join my friend, the hon. Member for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley (Tahir Ali), in condemning antisemitism in all forms, anywhere. My remarks referring to Israel refer to the Israeli Government’s actions and organisations’ interactions with parliamentarians in this place. In June 2024, Declassified UK revealed that 13 of the then 25 members of the Labour Cabinet received hundreds of thousands in donations from pro-Israel donors, and that some 180 of Britain’s 650 MPs had accepted such funding during their political careers. That is one in four elected Members.”
“I will continue. The 255 of my constituents who signed this petition, and the 118,000 people who signed from across the country, would like to hold our Government and our system to account for these donations. What are they for?”
“Elbit Systems benefits from substantial British defence contracts. The defence industry cannot become a shield for privileged and secret political access without accountability. No amount of democracy should exempt a state from scrutiny, no lobbying should be beyond accountability, and no Government should let political convenience override the principles of democratic integrity.”
“I will continue because of time. Britain claims to defend its democracy from foreign interference. We rightly sanction Russia for undermining democratic institutions, and warn about the threats from China and Iran to our political system, yet when substantial evidence of foreign influence concerns Israel, our principles of transparency, scrutiny and accountability appear to vanish. Given the lack of time, I will give just one example. Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, operates 16 sites across the UK and supplies around 85% of Israel’s drones and military ground equipment—systems that have been widely used during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Declassified UK reported that in December 2024, representatives of Elbit Systems met Home Office officials in a private meeting, with details withheld under FOI exemptions.”
“I apologise for not giving way earlier. On the point about Israel being singled out, the Rycroft review focused specifically on Russia and China, and did not mention Israel once. It was correctly carried out and nobody had any objections. What is the difference?”