Iqbal Mohamed
MP for Dewsbury and Batley · Independent · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Government’s announcement that they will reduce the deposit for first-time buyers. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the price of housing is so extortionate that, on today’s average wages, someone with a 25-year mortgage will never, ever pay off the debt accrued?”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On the subject of a sovereign wealth fund, would the right hon. Gentleman comment on the fact that under the Tories we sold off our national treasures in North sea oil and gas?”
House of Commons28 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) for securing this debate. Community policing is not simply about responding to crime after it happens; it is about prevention, reassurance and building trust.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I completely agree that the resources for law enforcement and tackling crime should be equally distributed across our nation; no constituency should be faced with a shortfall compared with others. Community policing is one of our most effective tools to reduce crime, improve trust and strengthen community cohesion.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As of April this year, the crime rate in Dewsbury was 30% higher than Yorkshire and the Humber and 53% higher than England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with an overall crime rate reported at 125 crimes per 1,000 residents and with violent sexual offences, antisocial behaviour and public order offences being the top crimes.”
House of Commons21 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Bill will monitor what services are available and where there are deficiencies. I welcome the Government’s commitment to expanding the Healthy Babies programme across England, but we know today that there is a 40% shortfall in the number of health visitors needed; some health visitors are covering up to 1,000 cases instead of 250.”
House of Commons14 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“The Secretary of State talks about deregulation, but we have seen what that has led to in the finance sector, the banking sector and the water industry: consumers end up paying the price. The Secretary of State also talks about AI; speaking way back in 2014, Stephen Hawking cautioned: “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” Why do the Government believe that deregulating AI is going to assist their growth mission? It will put consumers’ lives and the human race at risk.”
House of Commons18 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the best form of defence is peace, and that the overseas development aid budget—as was mentioned earlier by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell)—is a key component of achieving peace around the world through soft power and diplomacy? A great deal of that aid is crucial for people’s survival in many parts of the world.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On indefinite leave to remain, on the journey down from my constituency today, I spoke to the private hire driver. He is on a visa that requires renewal every two and a half years. He will have to do that renewal four times before he is eligible for indefinite leave to remain. He is not really complaining about that, but about the council not allowing him to continue working when his visa is up for renewal and he sends away his documents to be processed. Would the hon. Member agree that that should be looked at, and that there should not be any unintended consequences of that process?”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree, and I think most people agree, that people capable of working should be helped into work, but while the right hon. Member’s party was in government for 14 years, did it do an analysis of or have statistics on how many people on benefits across our country were actually fit to work, and what did his party do to get those people into work?”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman talks about regulation. I have failed to identify a successfully self-regulating industry anywhere in the world. When we remove regulations, we harm consumers, animals, nature and the planet. Will he enlighten or educate me on what the alternative is?”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member is making an extremely eloquent speech. Does she agree that people are sick and tired of living in towns that just look dirty? They are not cleaned or maintained, and sports clubs do not even get the grass on their fields cut. The basic requirement for having pride in our towns and cities is for a council to be funded so that it can do the basics of keeping the streets clean and cutting the grass so that people can play sport.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there needs to be a different model of business rates for small businesses that is linked to profitability and that has a maximum cap, rather than their having to pay the flat rate regardless of what they are making or not making?”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Would the hon. Member enlighten me and help me understand why the Tories, during 14 years in power, did not address the welfare ticking time bomb? What would he do to address the wage disparity whereby people on benefits can be better off than if they are in work?”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In the late ’70s and in the ’80s, 80% or more of the housing benefit that was paid to low-income families and people on benefits went to local authorities, which used that money to provide services. Today, over 80% of housing benefit is going to private landlords, not to councils. Does the hon. Member agree that this money needs to be provided by Government to councils for them to maintain their properties and public services?”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Every time I come to Parliament, I take a taxi from my home to the station. I speak to many private hire drivers, as I am sure many Members across the House do. In the past two years, since the settlement with Uber to class drivers as employees and get some benefits, the commission rates have ballooned. Before, they were fixed at nearly 25%; now, they are dynamic. Drivers sometimes get less than half the fare that customers pay. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government should do more to prevent any exploitation of workers and protect them from modern slavery conditions?”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The two-party system is well and truly finished, and I will not mourn its demise if it means that we get more legislators who pick constituents over their party Whip or their rich corporate donors.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Having said that, I am not sure that colleagues on the Government Benches feel particularly burdened by the Whip at the moment either. I mention the lack of a Whip behind me, but that is the furthest thing from a complaint. The people of Dewsbury and Batley provided me an explicit instruction in 2024, when they returned the first independent MP to Yorkshire in more than a century, and they doubled down on that message last Thursday. Across five wards out of six on Kirklees council that I represent, 11 out of 15 elected councillors are independents. In this election, the people showed that voting for an independent is not a protest vote, but a real alternative to failed party politics.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would like to start by associating myself with the remarks made by Mr Speaker about how we should conduct ourselves in this place: with kindness, compassion and respect, even when we disagree. I will quote Jalaluddin Rumi, a Muslim Sufi philosopher, who said: “Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates. Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?” I believe that if we all followed that principle here, in the other place and in our country, we would be more united and compassionate to each other. I join Members across the House in paying tribute to the absolutely amazing speeches by the hon. Members for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and for Harlow (Chris Vince). They spoke generously about their constituencies, and I intend to do the same, although as an independent Member I will do so without the burden of a Whip.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It also fails to clean up politics by banning dodgy donations and revolving doors. In conclusion, the people of Dewsbury and Batley did not send me here to be loyal to a party; they sent me here to be loyal to them and to stay true to them. In this Session, I will vote against inhumane, unjust and unfair policies wherever they appear; defend our public services and the funding they need to thrive; and give voice to my constituents of every faith or none and of every colour and creed who refuse to look away from injustice abroad. I will fight for Dewsbury sports centre, Batley baths, GP surgeries, local dentists and the buses, schools, charities and communities that hold our towns together.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Similarly, it offers no plan to hold social media companies to account. There is no meaningful framework for transparency, no clear standards for algorithmic responsibility, and no serious enforcement mechanism for those who flagrantly breach the rules. There is no ability to take action to ban addictive platforms or to compel safety by design. This King’s Speech is a programme of progress in parts, problems in principle and profound omissions. It contains measures that I welcome, proposals that I must oppose, and omissions that I and others cannot ignore. It falls short of the radical action that this country needs and has been crying out for. It lacks urgency on material issues that affect people’s daily lives. It avoids hard decisions to tackle vested interests. It fails to hold power and wealth to account.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That framework helped to pause and reverse the damage to the ozone layer from the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. The world had decades to stop and reverse the harms from CFCs, but with AI, the disastrous consequences could be realised during this Parliament. The potential risk from unregulated AI could cause irreversible harm to humanity and our planet. It demands immediate and meaningful Government action to prevent these harms before it is too late. The public is rightfully clear that it wants sustained, forceful action. A 2025 survey by the Ada Lovelace Institute and the Alan Turing Institute found that 72% of the UK public reported that laws and regulations would increase their confidence in AI. However, in today’s Gracious Speech, there was no plan for governance, safety or accountability.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Perhaps the greatest weakness of this King’s Speech is not what it contains, but what it leaves out. It contains no meaningful framework for AI safety, despite overwhelming evidence of the risks posed by this new technology, which is developing at an alarming rate. An Institute for Public Policy Research report has stated that up to 8 million jobs could be lost due to AI disruption in the next three to five years. AI-exposed firms are already cutting entry-level roles and reshaping the labour market. Even more worryingly, many AI experts, including Geoffrey Hinton and more than 300 others, consider the risk of existential catastrophe as a consequence of loss-of-control scenarios to be plausible at best and likely at worst without adequate regulations and global collaboration. Our blueprint should be the Montreal protocol.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It creates what Big Brother Watch rightly calls an “intrusive” system from “cradle to grave” that would be “ripe for mass surveillance and more government control over people’s lives.” These proposals risk trading away hard-won freedoms in the nebulous name of efficiency. That is a trade that this House must scrutinise and stop. Our principles must not stop at our borders. We cannot claim—as this Government so often do—to defend the rule of law and human rights while failing to uphold those principles abroad. The UK must end weapons exports to Israel and to any other state suspected of, or shown to be, violating international humanitarian law, or accused of genocide before international courts. Our commitment to justice must be consistent, otherwise it loses all credibility.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Government continue down this path, they will stand on the wrong side of history, and the UK will be listed with other authoritarian regimes. The immigration and asylum Bill, while framed as “fair but firm”, runs the risk of introducing a system that is anything but—a system in which rights are conditional and subject to contribution, narrowly defined by income. Retrospectively doubling the standard qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five years to 10 would leave an indelible stain on this Government’s legacy. The expansion of digital ID, presented as a convenience, instead represents a wildly unpopular Orwellian shift in the relationship between citizen and state.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There are clearly measures in the Gracious Speech that move us in the right direction—admittedly, they may be too little, too late in some instances, but they are welcomed none the less. I cannot, though, ignore the measures included in this speech that I vehemently oppose. Words do not put a roof over people’s heads or food on their tables. Words do not heat homes or make work pay, and they do not end the cost of living crisis that is affecting the majority of people in our country. The Government’s actions do not address the acute nature of that crisis for many people in our constituencies. The actions that the Government have taken need to be challenged. The continued curtailment of protest rights undermines the fundamental democratic principle of the right to dissent.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is a practical reform that will make a real difference. The Government are also right to prioritise cyber-resilience. Some 43% of UK businesses experienced a cyber-attack last year, with the UK facing major attacks every week on average. This is a real and growing threat, and action is both welcome and necessary. The Government are likewise correct to identify access to SEND provision as a key issue. Parents should not need to go through the lengthy, challenging and dispiriting process of obtaining an education, health and care plan before their children can receive the support they need. However, the Government’s proposals need to be matched with a more comprehensive plan to address the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, in order to ensure that classrooms receive the targeted interventions they need.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I believe that every single Member in this House has a primary duty to their constituents—those who voted for them and those who did not. Every single resident in their constituency has a right to their Member representing them without fear or favour. I look forward to welcoming many more independent and independent-minded colleagues to this place in future. As for the Gracious Speech, it contains measures that I welcome. The Hillsborough law is long overdue—a statutory duty of candour and accountability will finally begin to address a culture of institutional defensiveness that has failed families for too long. There are also meaningful steps on economic security. The small business protections Bill will tackle late payments—a crisis that is costing the UK economy £11 billion annually and closing 38 businesses every day.”
House of Commons13 May 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Q14. Everything international law is supposed to protect is being violated: a genocide against the Palestinian people, the catastrophe in Sudan, the Gazafication of Lebanon. Against that backdrop, last week the Government closed the international humanitarian law unit and stopped funding access to the Centre for Information Resilience database of 26,000 human rights and conflict incidents across Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. That database underpins decisions on IHL breaches, arms export suspensions, and whether the UK is acting within the law. Usually, criminals or their accomplices are the ones destroying evidence of their crimes, not a human rights lawyer or a Government who are apparently committed to upholding international law. My question is simple—”
House of Commons29 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In my constituency, 44.4% of children are living in poverty, according to the latest Government figures. Yet Oxfam reports that just 56 billionaires in the UK now hold more wealth than 27 million people combined in our country, and their wealth rose on average by more than £230 million each last year. Does the Chancellor accept that child poverty is not inevitable but the result of political choices about who this Government want to protect? Can she explain how the child poverty taskforce can succeed without the Treasury being willing to pursue far more fair and equitable wealth distribution, through closing tax loopholes, taxing wealth and not just income, and preventing—”
House of Commons28 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have constituents with court orders confirming genuinely shared care who are none the less required to pay full child maintenance for extended periods while disputes are resolved and/or system processes are completed. How does the Department ensure that evidence of shared care is applied consistently, fairly and speedily by the CMS? What support is available to constituents who face continued financial liability and hardship while they wait for delays in CMS decisions or tribunal outcomes to be resolved?”
House of Commons27 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I also welcome the Minister’s response to the urgent question and the proposal to go British first in our procurement strategy, with over £400 billion spent per year. The Minister is no doubt aware that Members across this House, including myself, have repeatedly raised concerns about Palantir’s ethics, its record of complicity in human rights abuses, including the genocide in Gaza, and the way it has secured extremely large public contracts here in the UK. Can he explain how awarding hundreds of millions of pounds—in many instances with no full, open tender process—to a single US surveillance and technology firm, which over the weekend released a dystopian manifesto for world domination, is compatible with a modern procurement strategy that claims to have transparency, value for money and the public interest at its heart?”
House of Commons22 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Swiss Government have previously rejected engagement with Palantir, raising national security concerns; in the US, hospital systems in New York have moved away from Palantir arrangements, citing data governance and control issues; and here at home, uptake of the FDP remains uneven, with many NHS professionals reluctant—in some cases refusing—to engage with it. Perhaps most concerning of all are the reports that patient data opt-outs do not apply to the federated data platform due to a legal direction issued under section 254 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, yet that direction has not been published or named or been subject to scrutiny. This debate is not about technology; it is about who we trust to sit at the heart of our NHS, and on that question, the Government must think again.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Palantir has long-standing contracts with United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the tools to track and target migrants that it has provided to ICE have facilitated racial profiling, family separation and violations of due process. In January 2024, Palantir entered into a strategic partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defence to support war-related missions, meaning that its advanced data systems are used to perpetuate a genocide against the Palestinian people. Reports from Novara Media and the Financial Times state that NHS staff have been warned that they could be fired for criticising the NHS contract with Palantir, that NHS organisations are under pressure to sign up voluntarily to the Palantir data system, and that technicians have been told to stop working on alternate systems.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. In a briefing for investors, Palantir chief executive officer Alex Karp said: “we are super proud of the role we play, especially in places we can’t talk about…Palantir is here to disrupt…and when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and on occasion kill them.” If it looks evil, if it smells evil and if it behaves evil, then it is evil. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this debate. Given my lack of speaking time, I am going to have to cut my speech short. We must examine Palantir’s record elsewhere in the world in our assessment of its suitability as a supplier to the NHS.”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Health inequality in the NHS for people of ethnic minorities is a challenge that we need to address. The New Orleans police department and the Los Angeles police department both terminated Palantir-powered predictive policing due to the system’s reinforcing racial bias and creating feedback loops to overpoliced communities that were affected. Does the hon. Member agree not only that the company and its leaders are unethical but that the systems it supplies are unethical and racist?”
House of Commons16 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent and serious speech. Does he agree that, in addition to fossil fuels, local government pension schemes are exposed to industries and assets that our constituents rightly consider deeply unethical? They include tobacco companies, arms producers that are complicit in genocide, and other companies that are exploiting nature or our constituents for profit. Does he agree that there should be an ethical investment policy that covers all unethical investments?”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Will the Minister confirm that the consultation is targeted at young people, parents and consumers of social media, and that the Government will not take input from social media companies?”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that banning mobile phones in schools will not harm children, and that not banning them does harm children?”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The hon. Member is making an informed speech. Would he agree that the priority for any Government, and any legislator, is to protect citizens from harm? This amendment would protect children from harm. The technical implementation—how we control access—should not be a consideration, given that harm. As he rightly said, that should be the responsibility of the platform owners, who have access to technology that they refuse to use.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Earlier I asked the Minister whether tech giants and providers of social media have access to the consultation, and she will be writing to me with those details. Does the hon. Lady share my concern that those companies have billions of pounds of lobbying power, lots of bots and lots of volunteers who they could recruit to rig the consultation, and that is why they should not be allowed to participate?”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They were designing in the addictive nature of their platforms, and they know that children want to leave their platforms but feel unable to do so because of their addictive nature. I would class those companies as virtual drug dealers. When people—particularly children—are exposed to the platforms they are providing, they become addicted to those platforms and unable to wean themselves off them.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The scientific consensus shows that well-supported adverse cognitive effects from the use of mobile phones and social media include weaker attention and executive function, language delays in early childhood, reduced learning efficiency, ADHD-related symptoms and atypical brain development patterns. Earlier in the week, I was in the Chamber for the Government’s statement on their intention to halve the use of knives in our society and among young people over the next 10 years. I welcome those kinds of approaches, which protect our children and wider society. We have heard about the recent court cases in the US, and we know from leaked internal tech company documents that the social media companies were fully aware of the harm they were causing.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The use of mobile phones and social media and fast, short-clip videos increases ADHD-like symptoms and attention dysregulation. Multiple longitudinal studies, including analyses of more than 10,000 children, link higher screen exposure to increased inattention, impulsivity and ADHD symptom severity. Let me turn to the cognitive effects of screen multitasking in adolescence. Frequent mobile phone use, particularly media multitasking, is associated with lower working memory capacity, poorer sustained attention and reduced cognitive control efficiency.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That increases the demand on our education system to support the children who are behind in their development, so banning phones will not only protect children, but allow them to learn at the rate that human beings are able to learn. Access to mobile phones and social media also alters brain development. MRI studies provide biological evidence supporting behavioural findings. Higher screen exposure in young children is associated with thinner cortical regions involved in language, attention and higher-order cognition, as well as altered maturation of visual and executive control networks, and reduced structural integrity in the frontal and temporal regions linked to self-regulation. In our society, we have an increase in the number of children with neurodiverse conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Neurocognitive explanations suggest that highly stimulating screens promote rapid attentional shifting, weakening a child’s ability to concentrate in less stimulating real-world environments such as classrooms. Screen time also creates language issues and verbal delays in early childhood, infancy and toddlerhood. Studies reportedly show that higher screen exposure before the age of three is associated with smaller expressive vocabularies, delayed language milestones and reduced conversational turn-taking. That effect is largely explained by displacement. Screen time displaces direct adult-child verbal interaction, which is essential for language development. Importantly, passive consumption and videos and scrolling are significantly more harmful than interactive co-used media.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I rise to call on the Government to support Lords amendments 38 and 106, which would raise the age of access to harmful social media platforms to 16 and ban mobile phones from schools. A broad range of extremely well-informed speeches has already been made in the House, so I will focus on the recent and not-so-recent scientific research that shows the harms of mobile phones and social media in particular. Social media and access to mobile phones for children reduce attention spans and weaken executive function. Screen time, especially from smartphones, fast-paced videos and multitasking apps, is linked to poorer executive functions, including sustained attention, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and working memory.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friends and Members across the House in calling on the Government to commit to raising the age of access to social media to 16 and banning the use of all mobile phones in schools, rather than continuing to leave children exposed to systems that are causing irreversible and unnecessary harm.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Academic studies have found that 24% of suicides among 10 to 19-year-olds are linked to high-risk use of digital technology. Heartbreaking cases such as that of the 14-year-old Molly Russell, who tragically took her own life in 2017 and whose legacy lives on through the Molly Rose Foundation, have demonstrated that social media use is undoubtedly contributing to rising rates of self-harm among young people. This is not some future risk; it is a real and present harm. We do not need more consultation, delay or half-measures; we need this Government to insist on safety by design to protect children from exposure to damaging content and platforms, and not to implement anything that aims at damage limitation. We need this Government to listen to our citizens, not to the tech giants. As such, I once again join right hon. and hon.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do agree with the hon. Member. I sympathise with the Government—there are huge pressures in all policy areas, particularly children’s services, education and healthcare, and now they have to deal with the tech giants. The Government introduced age-gating for pornographic sites so that people under the age of 18 could not access them. That was absolutely the right thing to do; despite the fact that there are workarounds and technical ways for people to bypass that age-gating, it does project the majority of children from exposure to pornography. Now, the Government must deal with the virtual drug dealers. They must implement laws to protect our children from the harms those companies cause, and must also introduce laws to obligate them to change and redesign their platforms in order to design out those harms.”
House of Commons15 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That was not the creation of a new law, but the authoritative interpretation of legislation passed by Parliament. I stand here with women constituents, men constituents, trans women constituents, trans male constituents and people who are still trying to find their way through their biology and feelings, and I stand for each and every one of those without fear or favour. I have met trans people in my constituency, both those who have transitioned fully, so they are either a man or a woman because biologically they have transitioned, and those who have not transitioned and have a gender recognition certificate or live their life as the opposite gender.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But here we are a year later, and the Government have been dilly-dallying and sitting on the ruling, which does not change the law, as the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) said. The anniversary provides an opportunity not only to reflect on the nature of this specific ruling, but to reaffirm the fundamental principle that in a democratic society governed by the rule of law, the judgments of our highest courts must be respected and properly implemented. The Supreme Court’s ruling of 16 April 2025 brought much-needed legal clarity. It confirmed that, within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010, references to “sex”, “man” and “woman” are to be understood as referring to biological sex. How somebody felt that they referred to something else, I cannot understand.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have stood in this place and in the main Chamber talking about women’s rights on healthcare, maternity rights and gender pay equality—things that men have taken for granted but where they have imposed a substandard level of right on women. It is completely unacceptable. But here we are now, questioning the fundamental biology of women—not just in this place, in this country, but everywhere in the world. I cannot reconcile the situation that we have faced. When the Supreme Court finally gave a ruling that clearly defined what a man and a woman are under the law, we expected this gaslighting, this aggressive lobbying and this fighting between fellow human beings to, hopefully, recede with clear guidance, rules and processes at parliamentary level, at a legal level and at an employment rights level.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am struggling to put into words my complete confusion that, in the 21st century in the UK Parliament, we are debating what a woman is. It is Adam and Eve, if you are people of faith or believe in the origin of human beings, and even if you are not people of faith, people have known what a woman and a man are since the beginning of time. I stand here with full respect for those who feel or want to be or, for whatever reason that I do not understand, believe that they are a different gender from the biological sex that they are in. However, women’s rights have been less, and diminished, for centuries, and every single year they are fighting on many fronts for equality.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for securing this debate on the first anniversary of the For Women Scotland Ltd v. the Scottish Ministers ruling. I also thank her and other colleagues in this Chamber for their work on these sensitive issues surrounding sex and gender. They have helped ensure that Parliament continues to grapple with these issues in a careful and thoughtful manner. This issue has faced our society since before I became a Member; and even before I entered this place, it was clear that it was being weaponised, one human being against another, by people who do not always have the best interests of those groups or human beings at heart.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That money should be spent treating women, trans women, trans men and other patients within the NHS. I pay tribute to the Darlington nurses and Jennifer Melle for being here, and for being the light, or the source of information, around this topic, having gone through so much suffering and persecution to stand up for their basic human rights as biological females.”
House of Commons14 April 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗