Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I draw the right hon. Gentleman’s mind to the 1970s when, in this country, a Conservative Government passed legislation saying that a married woman, or any woman, coming to this country had to go through a virginity test, and it was the European Court of Human Rights that overturned that British legislation. Are you really telling me that you think that legislation was correct?

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I think the hon. Lady means the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, not me.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Is the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) really telling me that he thinks that decision by the European Court of Human Rights was wrong?

Srebrenica

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we need to recognise genocide wherever it is happening. As he may know, I set up the all-party parliamentary group on Uyghurs, which deals with the genocide, and I know the enormous amount of work that he and other parliamentarians across the House have done on that. These are not party political issues; they are issues about humanity that affect us all.

Reflecting on what happened can strengthen our resolve to stand up to hatred in our society. The othering and scapegoating of marginalised groups is an everyday reality that has been perpetuated by parts of our media and, I am sad to say, by some politicians, whether that relates to refugees, immigrants or Muslims. That is why it is so important to remember this genocide. We cannot allow the suffering of the victims and survivors to be forgotten or denied.

Let us face it: when the persecution of Jews in Germany or what happened with the Bosnian Muslims took place, people did not just get up one day and say, “We are going to start killing our Jewish neighbour” or “our Muslim neighbour”. It was because of the perpetuation of hatred, which carried on over many years. A lot of that was carried out by the media, with their narrative about people. I am sad to say that quite a lot of that is happening with the media in our country, in terms of the othering and scapegoating of people who do not look like us. All of us as politicians should call that out and not—as I am afraid happens in some cases—join in with the othering and scapegoating of communities. We have to be vigilant against hatred and intolerance.

We say the words “Never again”, but we are seeing that same rise of hatred, division, sectarianism and the beast of nationalism rise again. We see fears rising and still-raw wounds being opened. Peace in Bosnia is under threat, and the Dayton peace agreement is under enormous strain. There have been warnings about the rise of the same army that was responsible for committing genocide at Srebrenica. The Army of Republika Srpska successfully co-opted civic society through a careful and systematic process of dehumanising Bosnian Muslims so that the agents of death and their collaborators found common and easier cause in achieving their goal of ethnic cleansing.

Perhaps the Minister can update the House today and set out his views on Serbian succession and what steps the Government are taking to ensure that Bosnian Serbs are not rewarded, in their goal of creating a “Greater Serbia”, by being handed the very territory in which they committed a four-year campaign consisting of forced deportations, torture and mass murder. Although the responsibility to prevent the gravest of crimes from occurring is shared by all states, we in the United Kingdom are uniquely positioned to bring essential global leadership to defuse the tension and support a safer and more unified Bosnia and Herzegovina. The UK must do its part to ensure that the violent, dark days of the 1990s do not return.

I am pleased that we have the opportunity today to commemorate in Parliament the atrocities suffered by the people of Srebrenica, but commemoration must be accompanied by action. I urge on Ministers the determination to learn the lessons of how intolerance takes root, be alert to the markers that identify its growth, and be resolute in working with our diverse communities to tackle it early and comprehensively.

I also call on the Minister to work with his counterparts in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to ensure that the escalating situation in Bosnia is closely monitored and that early diplomatic steps are taken to prevent violence from occurring. We know from what we are hearing and seeing in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia that there has been a rise in Serb nationalism and that the nationalists effectively want to take over Srebrenica as part of their territory. Sadly, they are getting a lot of support from the Russians; we know the steps that the Russians have taken in Ukraine. Hon. Members will remember that the second world war started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Bosnia. I think it is better to deal with the situation in its early stages than at the end, when it may be too late to do anything constructive. I really hope that the Minister will touch on that point in his response. That would be a fine memorial to those who died in the Srebrenica genocide 27 years ago, the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who were killed in that war, and others who were murdered.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee again for allowing this debate. If you will allow me to digress for just two sentences, Madam Deputy Speaker, I also want to thank my brother, Mazhar Hussain Qureshi, who passed away four days ago. One of the reasons I am here is that he always said that as elected representatives we must do our duty to make sure that evils like this do not happen. I really want to thank him—I do not know if he can hear me—for the support that he has always given me, as the most loving brother anybody could have.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am sure that the whole House will join me in giving the hon. Lady our sincere sympathy for the loss of her brother, who was obviously a great man. We all appreciate what she has just said about him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank all my parliamentary colleagues for attending today’s debate. I reiterate my thanks to Mr Speaker for allowing the Speaker’s House to be used on Monday for the commemoration, with my request having been accepted. I see the Chair of the Administration Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker), is in his place, and I thank him for the fact that the Committee allowed for the commemoration and book signing in Portcullis House. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate to take place.

I wish to make a correction, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think I said in my speech earlier that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand caused the second world war—I meant to say the first world war. That was just a slip on my part.

I am glad that the Foreign Office is recognising that the situation in Bosnia is delicate and that it is aware of it. That is important, because one act can lead to a horrendous situation; the first world war came from one assassination, and the second world war also led to millions of people dying. Sometimes strong action at the early stages, when the problem arises, is probably the best way forward. I thank the Government and the Minister for acknowledging that this is a genuine, pressing issue at this moment in time.

Again, I thank Remembering Srebrenica for all the work it has been carrying out, and I thank the UK for being the country in the whole of Europe that has been commemorating the Srebrenica genocide. As always, in so many things, we in the UK lead on these things. I thank everyone in our country, and all my political parliamentary colleagues, not for what they have done today, but for all the assistance, advice, help and working together we have done over the years.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that from 4 to 11 July 2022, the UK marked Srebrenica Memorial Week with commemorations taking place in hundreds of schools, local authorities, places of worship, community centres and police forces to name but a few to mark the 27th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica where over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces; expresses concern about the current threat to Bosnia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty from secessionists who are operating with the support of Russia and the prospect of a return to conflict; commends the invaluable work undertaken by Remembering Srebrenica in using the lessons of Srebrenica to tackle prejudice to help build a safer, stronger and more cohesive society in the UK; and urges the Government to continue funding this vital work which since 2013 has educated nearly 200,000 young people on Srebrenica, enabled over 1,500 community actions to take place right across the country each year, and created 1,450 Community Champions who pledge to stand up to hatred and intolerance in their communities.

Royal Assent

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Act 2022

Energy (Oil and Gas) Profits Levy Act 2022.

UN International Day of Education

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on securing this debate. I pay tribute to her excellent work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global education.

Benjamin Franklin said:

“An investment in knowledge pays best interest.”

We know that, even before the pandemic, vast educational inequality existed. In the world’s poorest countries, nine out of 10 children were unable to read a basic book by the age of 10. The covid-19 pandemic and measures taken to contain it have highlighted and exacerbated that inequality around the world. Communities around the world are struggling, and this virus continues to destroy lives, livelihoods and opportunities.

Members rightly highlighted that the covid-19 pandemic has triggered a global educational crisis and raised that this educational deficit is not new. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) spoke about the equalities goal. I commend her work as Chair of the International Development Committee on overseas development assistance. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) talked about the importance of educating girls, because it lifts the whole country, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) observed the importance of. My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) talked about the importance of clean water. I know that she speaks with expertise, as somebody who worked in the aid sector before coming into the House. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) also argued for the importance of education.

During the first wave of the pandemic, 1.6 billion children in almost 200 countries suffered educational disruption. Save the Children reports that nearly 200 million children continue to be out of education. We know the importance of washing our hands to stop the spread of deadly viruses such as covid, yet globally, half of all schools do not have soap and water available to students. Will the Minister tell us what her Department is doing to rectify this situation?

Nationally, the Government’s record throughout the pandemic, I have to say, has been shambolic. We are still waiting for a clear path to schools opening safely. The UK has an important role to play in pushing global co-operation to ensure that students are able to return safely to school as quickly as possible. However, does the Minister find it difficult speaking with international counterparts, given the abject failure of the Secretary of State for Education, who has lurched from one failure to the next?

Many marginalised children rely on school meals, as well as health services and menstrual hygiene products. School closures have deprived 370 million of the most vulnerable children of their daily school meal. Does the Minister agree that these children deserve a nutritious diet? Almost half a billion children worldwide have not been able to access remote learning while schools have been closed. Where it is accessible, it is not given to girls. The Malala Fund estimates that 20 million secondary school-age girls in poorer communities could be out of school after the pandemic has ended.

We know that investment in girls’ education will suffer. However, proper investment in girls’ education can lead to global equality, which can then help nations to prepare for the effects of climate crisis as well.

This pandemic has threatened to turn the clock back on gender equality. We know that girls are far more likely to be kept out of school, take on burdens of care and forced into early marriages or domestic duties. Will the Minister make it clear that our Government will take action to tackle the structural causes of gender inequality, through the G7 later this year? What steps is she taking to overcome the causes, not just the symptoms? What contribution will her Government make to the replenishment of the Global Partnership for Education?

We are aware that the Minister and her Department are currently developing the girls education plan. What assessment has she made of the risk that the narrow targets for the girls education plan, announced in November last year, would lead to box-ticking programmes that do not genuinely tackle the multiple barriers that girls face in getting quality education? How will she ensure that the barriers for girls, teenagers and young women are all considered and that access is widened?

We have heard over and again that the Prime Minister is committed to advancing girls’ access to education, yet he has decided to signal the UK’s retreat from the world stage by scrapping a world-renowned Department in the middle of a pandemic, when that Department should have been rightly focusing on saving lives. He also refused to disclose the details of the cuts to lifesaving and lifechanging aid programmes. It appears that the slashing of the aid budget was purely politically motivated.

Unless swift action is taken, the current cut to the aid budget will put those commitments at risk at a time when poor countries that are already suffering are going to suffer even more. In fact, last year the Government cut a project that supports 200,000 young people in Rwanda and which had led to a reduction in teenage pregnancy and sexual violence. Does the Minister agree that cancelling a project that invests in the future of Rwandan girls is totally at odds with the Prime Minister’s stated commitment to girls’ education? Was that a mistake, or was it a lack of oversight and strategic vision within this newly created Department? Given the state of global education and the clear need for extra support, how much official development assistance will be spent on education in 2021, and how will it compare with 2019 and 2020?

Finally, what signal does the Minister think the Government’s bluff and bluster and cuts in aid, contradicted by sanctions, sends to our allies, such as President Biden?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Just before I call the Minister, I should explain, for those who can see, either in the Chamber or elsewhere, that the clock in front of us is wrong by about three minutes, so the official time up there for when this debate will finish is 5.3 pm. I do not want the hon. Ladies who are about to speak to think that they are being short-changed in any way whatsoever. They are not. It will, in fact, be 5 o’clock in the real world, but it will say 5.3 pm up there.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

The provision of home schooling—[Inaudible.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. There is something deeply wrong with the sound system. We will try to come back to Yasmin Qureshi, but meanwhile we will go to Brendan Clarke-Smith.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab) [V]]

I hope everyone can hear me. I welcome the Bill—all three clauses of it—but it is not sufficient to deal with the problems that have been happening in relation to buildings across the country. The Grenfell fire occurred three years ago, and although the taskforce reported last year on the things that needed to be done, none of them has yet been implemented, despite the Government promising that all the recommendations would be encompassed, lock, stock and barrel. I hope that the Government will soon introduce a Bill that does all those things.

The Bill is very welcome, but it requires proper resources. The Fire Brigades Union has estimated that it will result in hundreds of thousands more buildings needing to be inspected, which is obviously the right thing to do. However, since the Government have, for years now, been cutting fire brigade services, we have fewer fire officers and less equipment. The response can therefore often be slower than it should be. Since 2013, £141.5 million of cuts have been made to the fire budget. Clearly, if the Bill is to have an impact, money must be provided to the fire brigade so that it can carry out its work.

There has rightly been talk about the Grenfell fire, but in my constituency of Bolton South East, The Cube, which was student accommodation, also erupted into fire, leaving 200 students homeless. Fortunately, no one was injured. The university has been great at looking after the students, even though the building did not belong to it, and the local community has been fantastic. I thank the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service for dealing with the situation so speedily and effectively. However, it leads to the question about the height of buildings. High buildings are considered those of 18 metres; The Cube was just 16 cm short of that.

The Cube’s cladding was what is called high-pressure laminate, unlike Grenfell, which had ACM cladding. People rightly talk about ACM cladding, but there is unsafe cladding across buildings in this country, some of which is high-pressure laminate and some of which is not. It is imperative that the Government test every single building in our country to ensure that they are safe for the people in them. Although such things cost money, at the end of the day, people’s lives are destroyed. The Grenfell Tower showed the tragedy of how many people died and how many lives were destroyed.

Although I welcome the Bill, I urge the Government to introduce a Bill that deals comprehensively with fire safety across all buildings—not just high buildings, but smaller buildings, such as hospitals and shopping centres. We need to have proper regulation, and proper inspections should be carried out for new buildings. I ask the Government to please sort this out. People’s lives must not be played with.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We will now go back to Barbara Keeley. The connection is not good enough to give us a video connection, but we will have an audio connection.

Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Thursday 13th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My right hon. Friend is right. It is amazing how other countries reacted to the evidence. The medical association in the UK was first alerted by Dr Isabel Gal in 1967, a paediatrician who said that her research showed that there was a link between women who had taken the drug and deformities in babies. Her letters and her research were dismissed out of hand by Dr Inman, who headed the regulatory authority. In a letter the authority referred to her in a derogatory manner as a “pathetic eastern European woman”, completely ignoring what she had to say.

We know that other information was available. For example, in February 1969 a committee received a letter from a Dr Dean of the Royal College of General Practitioners, who stated that

“Primodos should be withdrawn from use”.

However, the chief scientist of that committee, Dr Inman, refused to support that and instead wrote to the manufacturer of the drug, Schering, stating that

“the opinion expressed by Dr Dean that Primodos should be withdrawn should not be taken into account. Some women deliberately use excessive doses of Primodos with the intention of ridding themselves of an unwanted pregnancy”.

We have heard that Norway and Sweden banned the drug in 1970.

Again the Committee on Safety of Medicines took no action. Similar notices were issued in Finland, Germany, the USA, Australia, Ireland and the Netherlands, but again the committee took no action. In fact, in 1974 a letter from Schering—from PGT Bye—stated that

“after discussion with the Committee on Safety of Medicines we agreed some time ago not to recommend for the use of pregnancy diagnosis. It is not recommended for early pregnancy since the possibility of virilisation of the female foetus cannot be excluded with certainty”.

Yet still the committee issued no warning.

A further letter stated that

“side effects cannot be reliably excluded”

and that

“Primodos should no longer be recommended for the diagnosis of pregnancy.”

Again the committee said nothing. There are countless such documents. One of our concerns is that panels should have sight of those documents and be given sufficient time to read them, because they must be looked at properly and not ignored.

In 1975 the Committee on Safety of Medicines issued its first warning, stating:

“A number of studies have shown a possible association between Hormone Pregnancy Tests and an increased incidence of congenital abnormalities.”

On 15 October 1975, 41 years ago, Dr Inman wrote:

“We are defenceless in the matter of the eight-year delay”.

In November 1977, eight years after the committee had first been alerted, an adverse reaction leaflet was issued to the medical profession, stating:

“Further results have now been published and the association is confirmed.”

I want to refer briefly to some of the documents, many of which were archived in Berlin and at Kew. Marie Lyon, who chairs the victims association, has painstakingly gathered the documents, and the panel has been informed of them. I want to pay particular tribute to Marie Lyon, who has been doing a considerable amount of work over the past five years. She has spent months and months working on the documents, travelling the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and visiting Germany. She has effectively been working alone, with no support from Government bodies or local authorities. She and the victims association have been on their own. The only support they have had has been from members of the all-party parliamentary group and the Members in the Chamber today who have been fighting their cause. I also want to thank Jason Farrell of Sky News, who has been instrumental in getting some of the documents from Berlin and having them translated.

Translation of the documents is another issue, because many of those that came from Berlin are in German, as is to be expected. I want to know whether all those documents will be translated into English for the panel, because clearly it cannot carry out the inquiry if they are in a different language. We need to know whether all the documents that the victims association has gathered will be looked at and presented to the panel and, if so, in what format? When I used to prepare a large case with thousands of pages, there was a way of presenting the evidence so that the jury could understand it. Will that be done for the inquiry? If not, why not?

The reason we are asking these questions is that I have tried to contact the chair of the panel, Dr Ailsa Gebbie, and written letters to her, asking her to answer numerous questions, and, to be honest, we have not received a satisfactory answer to any of them. If anything, Marie Lyon, who has observer status on the panel, has been put under what I would call a gagging clause, which means she cannot talk about anything, because if she did she would be criminally prosecuted.

One of the things I remember from our discussion with the Minister was that the purpose of the inquiry was to have transparency and openness. We accept that there is obviously a need for a degree of confidentiality when evidence is presented, but we need to know what is going on. We need transparency, because without it, what is the purpose of this?

One thing the Minister promised was that the inquiry would have the victims at its heart. Yet, how have the victims been treated in this inquiry, which has been going for over a year now? I got a letter from one of the victims who turned up, and it is so distressing. The victims were told they could come and speak for a few minutes. Some travelled for five or six hours across the country to get to the hearing. They were promised at least 15-minute slots, but some were given three minutes or five minutes. Nobody even spoke to them properly; they were just asked to get on with it and to say what they had to say.

Fortunately, the victims who gave evidence were not subject to the gagging clause, so we were able to find out a little about what happened on the one day that seems to have been allocated for the victims. The panel heard from a few of them, but it did not ask them any questions. They were not cross-examined; they were not asked for anything—they just had three minutes. One lady said she was devastated; it had taken her five hours to drive there, and she was given three minutes. The victims said they were sitting so far from the panel, where the microphones were, that they were not even sure the panel was hearing what they had to say.

How can an inquiry that has victims at its heart not take more than a day to listen to them and, when they turn up, give them just three minutes? That is why we are having this debate. Given the way this inquiry is going, I do not think that any of the Members of Parliament who are supporting and assisting the victims have any confidence in it. As in the Hillsborough inquiry and the sexual abuse inquiry, everybody accepts that it is all about the victims; it is not about protecting regulatory bodies or the scientific community—it is about the people who have been affected.

There is another thing the Minister said. Obviously, it goes without saying that any inquiry must be independent—the panel members must be independent. When I raised that in a letter to Dr Ailsa Gebbie, the chair, she said, “Well, we got the expert panel members just to declare that they had nothing to declare.” There was no independent vetting or investigation into the background of any of these people. We have to understand this: people in the medical community, scientists and people in the pharmaceutical companies often work with each other. People have been advisers or consultants to somebody, or they have gone from the pharmaceutical companies into medicine or hospitals. There is a community of people who are linked.

We do not have the resources, but our basic research has shown that one of the panel members, Laura Yates, put on her social media that she does not think that Primodos caused any defect. How can this person be part of the panel? Then we have information about Doctor Schaefer. This man has worked with the company concerned, so he is directly linked with Schering—and he is still on the panel. That is two people, just from our basic inquiry. We want to know from the Minister whether the panel members will be properly vetted to see whether they are really independent and to find out about their connections. Again, without that, we will not have any faith in the inquiry.

We have asked the inquiry how long it will go on and how many sessions it will hold. There has been no response—nothing. We have tried to find out for well over a year, but nobody knows what on earth is going on with this inquiry. That leads to another question for the Minister. How long is the inquiry going to carry on? How many days have been set aside for it? How many hours have been spent on the inquiry to date?

In addition, how have the experts been chosen? We do not even know by what methodology they have been chosen. There are about 15 people on the panel, but does it need that many? Who are they, and how relevant is their experience to what they are looking at?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I am sure the hon. Lady will soon be drawing her remarks to a close, in the knowledge that many other Members wish to speak this afternoon. She has vastly exceeded the guideline length of time, but I will allow her a peroration.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I was just coming to the end of my speech, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Lastly, we are very grateful that the inquiry has been set up, but we have genuine concerns about what is happening with it and where it is going. As has been said, at the end of the day, there is no point in having the inquiry if it does not look at the things that matter, one of which must be to provide an explanation of the regulatory failures and the cover-ups in the 1960s and 1970s.

Famagusta

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Monday 16th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and I have just returned from a visit to the area with other members of the group. While we were there, we met the President, Mr Akinci, and other politicians, including the Prime Minister. They seemed very optimistic that there would be a deal and settlement very shortly. We also met and discussed these matters with the British ambassador in Cyprus. I understand that the issue of Varosha is very much part of the discussions that have taken place there, and I sensed from the discussions in which I engaged that it was hoped that, sooner rather than later, there would be a settlement of some kind.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady will have plenty of opportunities to make a speech later: the Labour Benches are not overpopulated. It is bad form to make a very long intervention.

Counter-terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I am sorry, but I have only a little time, and I have something to say that is different from what everybody else has said, so I would like to be able to take the opportunity to say it.

People do not seem to appreciate that a lot of these people are mentally unbalanced and have other issues. The Prevent programme has shown that spying on young people, taking them in and questioning them incessantly simply traumatises them—I have spoken to some of them. It does not help them in any way, shape or form, and it makes them even more frightened to say anything. Programmes like Prevent, in channelling people’s thoughts or what they say, are effectively stopping them discussing things. If I come across somebody who has a certain view and take the law enforcement agencies or the local authorities to them, they will clam up and we will not hear anything that they have to say. These things are completely counter-productive. The former director general of MI5, the noble Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, is not somebody who does not know what she is talking about. She and a number of people like her have said that Prevent does not work and we do not need it. If people do not want to listen to me, why cannot they listen to people like her and intelligence officers who have been involved in these kinds of things and say that ideology is not the reason behind them?

Finally, I want to talk about an aspect of the Bill that I hope the Home Secretary will reassure me about—part 4, on ships and aviation. I hope that these provisions will not end up stopping people from a particular country being able to travel to this country. Some of my constituents have expressed the fear that if certain parts of part 4 are applied, the way that the law is currently worded could allow people to say that because people from one particular country are coming here with some issues and challenges—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, but perhaps she does not realise that this is a very short debate. I trust that she will soon be coming to a conclusion.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank you for your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I hope that the way the provisions in part 4 are put together will not lead to airlines or countries saying, “We will not allow people from this particular country to travel here.” I hope that reassurance will be provided in the guidelines that are produced later on.

I know that what I am saying may be different from the conventional view of some people in this House. However, as somebody who talks to young people all the time and deals with people who commit criminal offences, defending and prosecuting, I have a very good knowledge of the criminal justice system and the people who often come into it. Most of them are unhinged and most have problems. Prevent is the worst possible thing to put on to a statutory footing. It will criminalise people. I do not often agree with Peter Hitchens of the Daily Mail, but I agreed with his article of 15 January where he said that these kinds of things are going to lead to people being banged up, and in 10 years time we will ask how that happened. It happened, I am sorry to say, because not enough people in this House got up and said that Prevent is a bad idea and the whole process of looking at these things is wrong.

Energy Company Licence Revocation

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. There seems to be a difference of opinion. We say that the grounds on which a licence can be revoked are very limited and technical. If I understand the Secretary of State correctly, he is saying that there are much wider grounds for revocation. Perhaps the way to resolve the dispute would be to take advice from expert legal counsel as to whether, legally speaking, our position or that of the Government is correct, because that way—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady waited a long time to make an intervention, but it is not a speech.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady replies to that intervention, I know that she will be careful to stick to discussing secure colleges which is a matter in the Bill, rather than straying back to the subject of sheep stealing, which is one of the few things not in the Bill.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. She and I were on the Bill Committee and I know that the Government members on it could not have helped but be struck by what was said by the experts—different people such as probation officers—who were dealing young people. They were all saying that secure colleges were a bad idea.

Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Eleanor Laing and Yasmin Qureshi

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

No; as I said, I am not going to give way.

I am very concerned about how animals are treated and reared and concerned that they should not be treated cruelly when they are transported. We should have a proper scientific debate about slaughtering, because the evidence is out there. Concern is perpetuated because most people do not know how the halal or kosher methods of slaughter take place. If they looked into the studies that have been done in America—I do not have the time to go into all of them—they would find that this is a proper system with the animal’s level of pain being monitored—[Interruption.] I know that Government Members do not want to hear this, but I am sorry: they are going to have to listen to me. I have the Floor, and I am not—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The House must listen to the hon. Lady.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am probably saying something that a lot of people are finding a bit difficult to swallow, but it is about time that the counter-argument and the full facts were presented to the country and to Parliament. For far too long, the debate has been skewed, because certain sections of the media want to deal with just one aspect, but they are misleading people. A myth is being perpetuated that somehow kosher and halal methods, carried out as they should be, are more painful and cause more suffering to the animal, but that is incorrect. The stunning method is probably more painful, so banning things or labelling based on “humaneness” or whether animals are being treated properly is wrong. I want to say more, but I will leave it at that, because others want to speak.