Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to speak in this debate, and I hope that I would be making this contribution regardless of which party was in power. At a reception in your apartments, Mr Speaker, you were asked who were the best ever orators in Parliament. You said that there had been many, but two that you often quoted were the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke)—who, sadly, is not in his place today—and the now deceased right hon. Robin Cook. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) referred to Robin Cook’s speech this afternoon, and I think it goes to the heart of why we are here today. The role of Parliament is important because there is an element of having to persuade not only one another but the country of our views, our principles and our ideas.

That is an important principle that came out of the very lengthy Chilcot inquiry. I was on the shadow Front Bench during that time, and I had to pinch myself to stop from crying at times because of the pain that was in that report. Today, we have to reflect on what we have learned from the report, not just about the importance of Parliament and our role in scrutinising the Executive, but about two other key elements. One of those involves the need for a plan. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) made a fantastic speech yesterday in which she mentioned the cross-party group on Syria and its steadfast commitment to the Syrian people. She spoke about the importance of having a plan, and one of the sticking points over the past week has been the lack of a sense of what we should do next. There has been a sense of “this feels fine for this weekend, but what happens next?”

The second element is the need for high-quality intelligence and evidence. This goes back to what was crudely referred to as the “dodgy dossier”, which has haunted us in our political debates from many years. We still need to ask those questions. Many of us will make no apology for asking questions. That is our job as Back-Bench Members, whatever role we might have.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that when someone asks a probing question on these kinds of issues, it is neither fair nor right to accuse that person of being an apologist or a traitor?

[Catherine West]

I often feel that the language used can prevent us from getting to the goal that we want to achieve. That is certainly the case in relation to questions about peace and war.

It has been mentioned that Lord William Hague committed himself and others to enshrining this kind of an idea in law, in exact legal language, but I understand that he has now changed his mind. Due to other commitments, I did not have time to listen to his contribution this morning, but I will go back and listen to it because I am interested to know why he felt this matter to be pressing when he was in this place and why, now that he is no longer in this place, it is no longer so pressing. We carry a certain mantle on our shoulders as parliamentarians in this House, but I do not think that that sense of responsibility applies in the other place to the same degree. There is not that same sense of the ballot box and the sense of our being pushed here. We have to live up to that responsibility.

In conclusion, there was plenty of time last week to recall Parliament, and I wish that we had had yesterday’s debate—perhaps not with every single security detail—at that point. Many of us could have taken losing a vote—or, indeed, winning a vote. Whatever might have happened with that vote, at least we would have done what we always do, which is to debate, to contend, to get cross, to get sad, or to get happy. We would have done what we do in this place and gone through the Lobby to produce a result for the people we represent.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to confirm that to my hon. Friend. She will know that we are making progress on this in Scotland, but we need to go further. Programmes such as local full fibre networks and 5G will allocate funding directly to local projects, based on the quality of the bids put forward. The Minister for Digital, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), recently confirmed in the House that we will deliver the next generation of technology directly to local authorities in Scotland, rather than going through the Scottish Government. We will make sure that Scotland is not left behind.

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

Q8. In 2014, an inquiry was set up to look into the drug Primodos—it was given to millions of pregnant women in the ’60s and ’70s—which caused deformities. Documents show a clear cover-up. Last week, a report was published, which was condemned by MPs across the House as being a whitewash and misleading. Will the Prime Minister meet the victims and order a public inquiry, so that justice can finally be done for these people?

[The Prime Minister]

I know this is an issue that a number of Members have been concerned about and I recognise that the result of the review was not what some Members and families were hoping for. It was a comprehensive, independent scientific review of the available evidence by experts. All the meetings of the expert working group were attended by Nick Dobrik, as an invited independent expert from the Thalidomide Trust and at the request of the patient group, the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests. I am informed that the overall conclusion is that the scientific evidence does not support a causal association, but that does not detract from the very real suffering experienced by the families. I recognise that these conclusions are hard to accept, but the Department of Health is focused on implementing the review’s recommendations which will strengthen detection and better communicate the risk of medicines during pregnancy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have set the target of 3 million apprentices during this Parliament. I think that is achievable, just as we achieved the 2 million apprentices trained during the last Parliament. I wish her well with what I hope is the first of many apprenticeship fairs in her constituency.

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

Q5. Before I ask my question, may I thank the Prime Minister for the support he gave my campaign to get an inquiry into a drug called Primodos, which was given to pregnant women in the 1960s and ’70s and resulted in thousands of babies being born with deformities?Our universities are global success stories, outward looking and open for business with the world, and attracting the brightest and the best students and researchers to produce ground-breaking research in areas from cancer to climate change. In the last year, UK universities received £836 million—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I need a single-sentence question. Forgive me, but there are a lot of other colleagues who want to take part.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

What assurances can the Prime Minister give that, in the light of the fact that we are now out of the European Union, that money will be safe?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me thank the hon. Lady for her thanks. She has raised the case of Primodos many times. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has been gathering evidence for a review by an expert working group on medicines, and it has met on three occasions. I think we are making progress.

On universities, until Britain leaves the European Union, we get the full amount of funding under Horizon and other programmes, as we would expect. All contracts under them have to be fulfilled, but it will be for a future Government, as they negotiate the exit from the EU, to make sure that we domestically continue to fund our universities in a way that makes sure that they continue to lead the world.

ISIL in Syria

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Angus Robertson]

I have the greatest of respect for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and he makes good points. Later in my comments I will come on to some of the questions he raises. I note respectfully, again, that we have not heard an answer to the question that I have posed. Those on the Government Front Bench have the opportunity, again, if they wish, to tell the House—I note that they do not.

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

As a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I was in the middle east last week. We went to Cairo, Amman and Beirut—cities that have also suffered destruction. We spoke to military people, counter-terrorism people and politicians, and I can give the right hon. Gentleman the answer that he seeks. There are about 10,000 to 15,000, and that was the answer given by everyone there.

[Angus Robertson]

My goodness, Mr Speaker. That is a very important intervention from the hon. Lady. From her experience, having travelled to the region, she is suggesting that the Government’s figures, with which we have been provided, are massively wrong. This is a very important point. We are now hearing, on a crucial issue raised by the Foreign Affairs Committee, that far from the 70,000 we have heard about repeatedly, the number is significantly less. That should worry us all.

--- Later in debate ---

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

No one voting against the Government’s motion is not bothered about the security of the United Kingdom and the people who live in it. We and our families all live in it. I therefore find the suggestion that those who intend to vote against the motion are terrorist sympathisers or are somehow pacifist extremely insulting.

As I mentioned earlier, I happened to be in Cairo, Amman and Beirut last week, which is important because the three countries concerned are currently fighting Daesh at their borders. What they have to say about what we in the United Kingdom can do to help fight Daesh needs to be heard in this Chamber. First, every single person agrees that extension of the airstrikes into Syria alone will not achieve anything without a massive boots on the ground presence. When I say “massive”, just taking back Raqqa, a city of about half a million people, would need an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 ground troops, along with air support, command and intelligence, headquarters, surveillance and so forth. That is just Raqqa. Then there is the challenge of how to hold the territory that has been taken. Unless and until the Prime Minister says that we are going to get those boots on the ground, whether from surrounding Arab countries or the international community, we are not being really serious about containing and destroying Daesh. We need both those strategies.

Let me make it clear that I have no sympathy with Daesh, because 99% of the people killed by Daesh and Assad are actually Muslims. The slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Muslims is taking place, so I as a Muslim have no truck with Daesh. I would happily support today’s motion if I genuinely believed that it was going to make a dent in Daesh and make the United Kingdom safer, which is an important point.

With all due respect to the Prime Minister and the Government, what I think is going on here is basically a symbolic gesture to show that we are in the international community and siding with France. Of course we were all devastated by what happened in Paris, but using that as the main reason to extend our involvement is wrong.

When I spoke to people in the middle east, apart from the armed troops, they thanked the UK for all the help we have provided to the Jordanians and to the Lebanese army and intelligence services, but they said that that sort of help has to be provided to the other countries involved, such as Nigeria, Mali, Kenya—poor countries that do not have the intelligence or capability to deal with al-Shabaab or Boko Haram. All those groups have to be dealt with.

Assad has to be out of the picture for there to be any settlement, so the Russians and the Iranians have to come on board. We also need Saudi Arabia and the other Muslim countries around the area to be involved. In fact, there has been a suggestion that ground forces of Sunni Arab nations should be the ones going in. But the people out there said that if we cannot get the Sunni Muslims in, that is fine: western troops would be fine too, because what we need to do is to control and stop Daesh.

Finally, General Hitit of the Lebanese army, a Christian Maronite, explained what was central to the whole issue. Some people may strike me down on this, but it was said that the Israel-Palestine conflict has to be the key. That was said not just in Beirut but in Cairo and Amman. It is key; it is a big recruitment driver. Until that situation is sorted out, there will never be peace in the middle east.

On the extension of airstrikes, General Sir Richard Shirreff, who was the allied deputy NATO commander, recently said that the Americans had already put in 57,000 sorties in Iraq alone and that many different countries had bombed Daesh in Iraq, and that with the aid of some ground troops, a bit of the territory had been regained. We have no such troops in Syria.

Syria: Refugees and Counter-terrorism

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. and learned Friend makes an important point. Giving someone asylum and refugee status is not an act that is just completed with a piece of paper; it has to be completed with a warm welcome. We have to say to these people, “You will be welcome in our communities. Your children will be welcome at our schools. You will be welcome to use our hospitals.” These people will be able to take jobs in Britain. They will have all those rights. It is very important we make sure that the welcome is warm and well organised, which is why I think the scale we are looking at is about right.

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

The Prime Minister must be aware that there has been a sharp rise in crimes against Muslims and in anti-Muslim sentiment in the UK and Europe. Will he, as Prime Minister of this country, assure me that religion will not be a criterion to grant humanitarian relief? Will he resist the temptation to use the term “Islamic terrorism”? It is not Islamic. It is just pure terrorism.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we should not take people on the basis of their faith, but on the basis of whether they are being persecuted. I describe it as “extremist Islamist terrorism” because I think simply to say that what we are facing from ISIL and others is terrorism is not a proper description of what we are facing. The religion of Islam is a religion of peace. The overwhelming majority of Muslims want to condemn—and do daily condemn—these fanatics, but the fact is that the fanatics themselves self-identify as Muslims. That is why it is so important that British Muslim communities—as they do—stand up and condemn them and say, “You are not acting in the name of our great religion. You are perverting it.” But simply pretending the problem does not exist by just calling it terrorism will not work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wilson]

Obviously the Rotherham child sex abuse case is complex, and most of the responsibility for the matter lies within the Department for Education, but the hon. Lady makes a good point. It is important that we all learn lessons across Government, and the Cabinet Office is as keen as any other Department to do so.

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

4. What recent steps he has taken to address barriers to small and medium-sized enterprises participating in Government procurement.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

Central Government spend with SMEs increased from £3 billion in 2009-10 to £4.5 billion in 2012-13. They benefited from a further £4 billion in indirect spend through the supply chain, so we are on track to deliver our ambition that 25% of Government’s direct and indirect spend should be with SMEs. In addition, we are implementing further changes to procurement rules that will benefit small businesses.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The majority of local authorities are still not using the Government’s Contracts Finder, resulting in local SMEs losing out on opportunities. What are Ministers doing to ensure that more local authorities submit their procurement opportunities to the website?

[Mr Maude]

I draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the fact that a new and greatly improved version of Contracts Finder will be launched early in the new year. It is a massive opportunity for local authorities to procure better and cheaper, but also to be able to support local businesses. There are now more than 1,000 suppliers on our G-Cloud framework, 87% of which are SMEs, a number of them based in Bolton. They are all now able to provide services directly to public sector purchasers, which helps growth and jobs as well as providing better value for the taxpayer.

Ukraine (Flight MH17) and Gaza

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I cannot exactly tell him that I feel the enormity of what has happened has got through to the Russians yet, not least because of the way their media operate, but the repeated calls by Prime Minister Abbott, Prime Minister Rutte, Chancellor Merkel, François Hollande, Barack Obama and myself must be giving some impression that the whole world is coming together in saying that what is happening in eastern Ukraine is absolutely unacceptable.

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

The Prime Minister will be aware that nothing happens in isolation. One of the reasons for what is happening is that in Gaza, in the past 60 years more than 6 million Palestinians have been forced out of their homes, forced to live in squalor while moving from one country to another, unlawfully imprisoned and treated really badly. All those people have legal documents to prove their ownership of their homes, yet we have done nothing. I am sure that if all those people were given back the homes to which they are legally entitled, the ceasefire would occur immediately.

[The Prime Minister]

I do not accept that we have done nothing. Britain is one of the largest donors to the Palestinian Authority, and we repeatedly meet and work with the Palestinian leadership. We have been staunch in our view that the settlement activity is illegal, and we have done a huge amount to try to bring about a two-state solution. But in the end, we cannot want it to happen more than the parties themselves want it to happen. They need to negotiate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It would not be right for me to comment on a CPS decision in a specific case, but on the general point about whether we should be intolerant of breaches of care against elderly people, particularly those with dementia and who are reliant on others, yes, we should. Our dementia strategy is all about not just increasing the research into trying to tackle dementia but about making sure that our care homes and hospitals and, indeed, communities become more dementia-friendly.

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

Q14. Did Gus O’ Donnell or senior civil servants raise directly with the Prime Minister any concern they may have had about Mr Coulson?

[The Prime Minister]

A number of senior civil servants gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry and were closely questioned by Leveson. The whole process of the employment of Andy Coulson, his arrival in No. 10 Downing street, his vetting and the warnings that were given—each and every single one was dealt with by the investigation that the Leader of the Opposition supported, but the Leader of the Opposition cannot bear the fact that an independent, judge-led inquiry came to that conclusion. He is the first Leader of the Opposition not able to ask for an independent judicial inquiry—because he has already had one.

Debate on the Address

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Labour had 13 years to act on zero-hours contracts and did absolutely nothing. We are outlawing exclusivity in zero-hours contracts. I thought this was one of the problems with the Leader of the Opposition’s response—[Interruption.] Oh, too late we are told. Hold on, Labour had 13 years to do something and did nothing. One of the problems with the Leader of the Opposition’s response to the Gracious Speech was that I was not sure he had read it. He asked when we are going to make sure that employment agencies cannot only advertise overseas—we have acted on that. When we are going to have higher fines for not paying the minimum wage? It is in the Queen’s Speech. When are we going to stop exclusivity in zero-hours contracts? We have done it. Those are all things Labour has talked about and never acted on.

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

The Prime Minister is aware that there is an enormous gap between the rich and the poor. I am not making a party political point, but in my constituency many people are on the minimum wage and it is not enough to make ends meet. Why did he not consider increasing the minimum wage in the Gracious Speech today?

[The Prime Minister]

I support increases in the minimum wage, and it has just increased at a faster rate than average earnings, which is actually the policy the hon. Lady supports. I want to see a £7 minimum wage, but what we need to do, while keeping the process of setting the minimum wage independent, is cut taxes for people on minimum wages. That is what we are doing. The income tax bill of someone working 40 hours a week on the minimum wage is down by two thirds—that is what has happened under this Government.

On inequality and poverty, let us just be clear about what has happened under this Government: today there are half a million fewer people in relative poverty than there were under the last Government; relative child poverty has been lower in every year of this Parliament than in any year of the last Government; the proportion of workless households is at its lowest since records began; and inequality is at its lowest since 1986. The facts may be inconvenient for the Labour party, but none the less it should listen to them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend’s latter point is constantly reviewed, and it will come as no surprise to him that his urging is supported by many Select Committees. On his first point, for the first time all permanent secretary appointments are for a fixed tenure of five years. We publish the objectives of permanent secretaries, and all this is beginning to be more accountable than it has ever been before.

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

T7. This week concerns were expressed in the media about the move to a shared network for emergency services. Why are the Government refusing to share the risk assessment, saying that it will prejudice the procurement process?

[Mr Maude]

I am not familiar with the particular issue that the hon. Lady raises, but I will happily look at it and get back to her.