Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Mohammad Yasin

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am perfectly open to the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) coming in on this question if he is minded to do so, but I am not psychic, so I cannot anticipate his wishes. He needs to stand if he wishes to do so.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

14. The Government’s Brexit shambles are making it more difficult for businesses in my constituency to function, risking jobs and livelihoods. Yesterday’s last-minute withdrawal of the meaningful vote has resulted in more uncertainty for businesses, which cannot plan for the future. How can any Chancellor justify making people worse off, not just in Bedford, but throughout the country?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Mohammad Yasin

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin]

No. 8, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman must have been momentarily inattentive. His question has been grouped with this. His chance is now.

[Mohammad Yasin]

Dunbia Cardington is a major employer in Bedford. Despite years of trying to recruit staff locally, the business relies on workers from the EU, who make up 90% of the workforce. Does the Minister agree that the Government’s future immigration policy, which restricts the low-skilled workforce that the factory depends on, puts the future of the company at risk?

Windrush

Debate between John Bercow and Mohammad Yasin

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock). I speak today as an immigrant who has lived in Bedford—one of the most diverse towns in the UK—for 26 years. I was fortunate to grow up in a tolerant environment, and I have always loved my town, so much so that I wanted to work hard to give something back to my community. That was why I first got involved in local politics back in 2005, when I tried to give something back to a town that had welcomed me, but society is changing. To hear about how the Windrush generation—British citizens—have been treated is chilling for anyone who has come to live in Britain legally from Commonwealth countries and from elsewhere, and now even for EU citizens.

Like most MPs, I receive a lot of correspondence about immigration issues, including from people who want to go overseas to attend important events in their relatives’ lives. Hearing the heartbreaking stories of British citizens not being allowed to leave the country to attend parents’ funerals or a wedding or not being allowed home has been appalling. I have seen the effects of the hostile environment policy since 2014 and have felt the effects of a shift in attitudes towards immigrants—personally and through the stories that my constituents tell me.

In recent years, the Home Office has forced people from parts of Africa and the subcontinent to endure increasingly long waits to have their cases considered, labelling them “complex” and refusing to offer timescales or reasons for the delays. Such cases sometimes involve unaccompanied child refugees who, having made the dangerous journey to get here, have been left in limbo for years with no certainty that they will not be deported when they come of age. Entry clearance officers overseas now seem routinely to refuse visas from certain parts of the world, even when people have visited and returned several times before.

Things have felt different and difficult in recent years. The hostile environment has had a profound impact on our health service and on the social care sector. A manager of a nursing home contacted me just the other day to say she cannot get visas for qualified nurses. Nurses cannot get visas to come and look after sick, elderly patients in my constituency, in an out-of-hospital facility, because of Home Office policy. Meanwhile, our hospital is creaking at the seams and cannot discharge patients. The Government’s decision to make landlords, local authorities, schools, universities and every employer into an agent of Border Force by requiring them to check people’s status has created an environment of fear and suspicion. People have seen job offers withdrawn after incorrect information was passed from the employer checking service, and people have lost rental properties and university places.

Some of the Windrush victims have been detained in Yarl’s Wood—a terrible place that needs to be shut down. Let us not forget that it is Government policy, and Home Office application of that policy, that has led to so many vulnerable people being detained indefinitely in that dreadful place on the edge of my constituency—

[Mr Speaker]

Order.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Bercow and Mohammad Yasin

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mohammad—[Interruption.] It is very good of the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) to drop in on us. We are deeply obliged to him. I call Mohammad Yasin.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

T4. Research from Women for Refugee Women shows that women who have survived rape, female genital mutilation and other forms of gendered violence are still routinely detained in defiance of the guidance on the management of adults at risk. Will the Minister urgently assess why the guidance is failing these vulnerable women?

The Rohingya and the Myanmar Government

Debate between John Bercow and Mohammad Yasin

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on organising and leading such an important debate.

More than half a million people—mostly Rohingya women and children—have fled violence in Rakhine state, seeking refuge in Bangladesh. The latest reports from Amnesty International speak of massacre, murder and brutality on a huge scale, with women raped and tortured, and children shot in the back by the Myanmar military as they flee. The latest arrivals in Bangladesh have said they were driven out by hunger because food markets in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state had been shut down and aid deliveries restricted by the Burmese authorities.

The Government have donated £30 million in aid and pledged to match £5 million in donations to the DEC appeal for people fleeing Burma. The public response to this humanitarian crisis is profound. I pay tribute to all the fundraising efforts in my constituency of Bedford and Kempston—from the efforts of faith groups, mosque leaders, schools and charities to individual giving. That fundraising shows human nature at its best, and I am sure it will make the difference between life and death to those who are suffering terribly.

Families in Bangladesh are living huddled beneath sheets of plastic, with no access to clean water or toilet facilities. Let us not forget that that is the fate of the survivors. It is difficult to know exactly how many people have been executed, burned alive, raped or slain in their homes and villages, but it is in the thousands. Those responsible must be held to account. Myanmar’s military cannot simply sweep serious violations under the carpet by announcing another sham internal investigation.

While aid is vital, we know that money can only do so much. We must find a political solution to end this barbaric persecution so that the Rohingya can return home in a dignified way to rebuild what is left of their devastated communities. The international community must help to ensure that no Rohingya refugees are forced back to Burma if they remain at risk of serious human rights violations.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been rightly condemned for her refusal to intervene in support of the Rohingya, but she has since pledged accountability—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am immensely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but his contribution is at an end. I did not mean that unkindly—he has done very well—but his time is up.