Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, the Government for allocating time for it, Members from across the House for supporting the application, and 32,000 constituents for writing to their MPs and asking them to attend and speak on this important issue.

Two embattled generations have grown up in the ashes of the collapse of the Oslo accords. What little hope was cultivated then—the promise of two states, of dignity and of democratic rights for all—has been replaced with abject misery. This is how injustice survives: not through one dramatic moment, but through gradual acceptance, the lowering of expectations and the repetition of the same statements while the reality on the ground continues to change.

For years, successive British Governments have said that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal under international law, that settlements undermine peace and that they threaten the viability of a two-state solution, yet the settlements continue to expand. I pose to the Government the simple question that sits at the heart of this debate: if settlements are illegal, why have we not banned trade with them outright? What exactly is it that we are waiting for? Why do we continue to maintain a status quo that has rewarded Israeli expansionism while punishing Palestinian aspiration—a status quo that has expected Palestinians to quietly accept that their humanity, rights and self-determination must always play second fiddle?

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making such a powerful speech; she always holds up a moral compass to us all in this place. Does she agree that those who deny access to medical treatment to children as young as four—who, while waiting for medical treatment, get to the point of near-fatal dehydration—and those who deny cancer patients in their thousands access to medical care in these settlements, are and should be defined as terrorists? If these settlers should be defined as terrorists, is it not incumbent on us and this Government to strain every diplomatic and every technological sinew to ensure that not one single pound of our money is spent enabling this behaviour?

[Abtisam Mohamed]

I agree with my hon. Friend; he makes a powerful point.

Some time ago, the Palestinian ambassador, Dr Husam Zomlot, reminded parliamentarians that Gaza, East Jerusalem and the west bank are not separate issues, but all parts of the same national story. They may be separated, occupied and besieged, but they are all connected by the same struggle for freedom. Together, they are the beating heart of one state of Palestine—a state that the UK, our Government, has quite rightly taken a historic step to recognise. Yet, although we have recognised Palestine in its entirety, we have failed to make that recognition a meaningful reality through any follow-up action.

The expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the west bank has seen almost 500,000 acres of Palestinian land appropriated since 1967. In the last year alone, more than 120 checkpoints and obstacles have been installed to control Palestinian movement. More recently, the E1 settlement plan, which was approved by the Israeli Government, includes just short of 3,500 housing units. It includes the construction of a new neighbourhood, a new employment and commercial zone, and a new bypass road, which is for Palestinians only.

Oral Answers to Questions

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Blair McDougall]

I absolutely wish the hon. Member’s constituents all the best. It is entrepreneurial spirit like that that drives the economy forward. I will give one example of the support: there is a big extension of UK export finance so that such businesses can find new markets, because the best way to become a more resilient business is for them to open up and diversify their markets. I will gladly put his constituents in touch with people at UK Export Finance to discuss that.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

4. What recent steps his Department has taken to support the advanced manufacturing sector.

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Peter Kyle)]

Strong delivery of the 10-year modern industrial strategy is ongoing, including the investment in the British industrial competitiveness scheme—the long-term industrial intervention to address energy costs. We also have the advanced manufacturing sector plan, which includes sector specific cross-cutting measures to support manufacturers right across the United Kingdom.

[Dr Ahmed]

The Secretary of State will know very well that Glasgow South West is home to a storied, nationally significant collection of advanced manufacturing, from Type 26 frigate construction at BAE Systems, to small satellites at Craft Prospect, to the maritime supply chain at the Malin Group. What conversations is the Secretary of State having with businesses in Glasgow and Glasgow South West specifically about how we can grow this advanced manufacturing base, so that Glasgow can play its full part in Britain’s reindustrialisation?

[Peter Kyle]

I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the extraordinary achievements of our country that have stemmed from his constituency. As he knows, on the Clyde they have adapted from manufacturing the Dreadnought through to the frigates that he mentioned. We are in another era of change, and the Government are on their side in this latest transformation. They will have access to a range of sector-focused interventions from the industrial plan, as well as support for access to finance, innovation and tech adaptation. He will also be aware that the Glasgow city region will receive £50 million through the local innovation partnerships fund—a fund that I launched when I was in my previous job at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. I am pleased to see it being put to good use in his constituency.

Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

2nd reading
Saturday 12th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alan Gemmell]

rose—

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

rose—

[Stephen Flynn]

I am afraid that I will not give way because we are all constrained by time, in the same way that Labour Members will not take interventions either.

The Secretary of State’s answer to me earlier was that £200 million has been put forward through the National Wealth Fund. Each and every one of us knows that that is not in the gift of the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State to dictate. It ultimately relies on the private sector coming forward with a proposal. Indeed, in evidence given to the Scottish Affairs Committee just last week by EY, which has done the Project Willow report, it was quite clear in its observations that there will be no progress until 2030 at the earliest. That is simply not good enough, because while the Government mobilise every effort to save British Steel, they allow Grangemouth to fall on the back burner.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Alan Gemmell) referred to industrial strategies. He seems to forget in that context that energy is a reserved matter for this United Kingdom Government—something the Secretary of State is all too familiar with, given our previous roles in this here House.

The final thought I will leave with Labour Members is that they should remember the fact that the Bill they are supporting extends solely to England and Wales.

Fireworks: Sale and Use

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for presenting this debate on restricting the public sale of fireworks. It has strong public support, including in my constituency of Glasgow South West. I am delighted to support my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) and her private Member’s Bill to ban the sale of the loudest fireworks and to ensure that fireworks are purchased only from licensed premises. If the Bill is passed, the public sale of fireworks would be restricted all over Britain, including in Scotland.

I will share some of the adverse experiences that have taken place in Glasgow South West. For many years, Pollokshields in my constituency has suffered the impact of over-the-counter fireworks on bonfire night and the weeks around it. I saw the disasters that resulted from fireworks when I worked as a junior doctor many years ago in my local A&E—not only burns, but penetrating injuries from the increasingly high velocity of more sophisticated fireworks. This year, the situation in Pollokshields could have been helped by the introduction of a local byelaw using a firework control zone. Devastatingly, the paperwork was put in too late by Glasgow city council and it did not come to fruition.

Instead, in the weeks around 5 November, Pollokshields residents—my constituents—were subjected to loud, intrusive fireworks being set off on roads and pavements, from inside cars, and everywhere in between. On bonfire night itself, there were fires on roundabouts and disturbances into the early morning of 6 November, with even the police fearing for their safety. That was not an abstract fear because, in the previous year, 40 police officers across Glasgow were injured in firework-related incidents.

In Pollokshields the morning after, shrapnel was left in and around parks and gardens, risking injury to children, and the remnants of fires could still be seen down the main promenade of Albert Drive. Despite the criminality on their doorstep, community council members led by chair Ameen Mohammed, and local schools and residents, engaged in a massive clean-up operation to bring back dignity to the streets that were once their own.

I also held an emergency public meeting where community members engaged with the police and councillors in an attempt to reconcile themselves to what had taken place and to raise concerns. As a result, the police spent precious resources scouring hours of CCTV to make arrests and send a strong signal that criminality will not be tolerated in our community. IGlasgow South West is probably the most culturally diverse community in Scotland, where fireworks are often used in festivals and religious celebrations. I personally know the significance of such celebrations, which should of course be facilitated, but it is time to accept that there need to be controls on general sales so that they are curtailed for the common good.

Over and above the impact of fireworks on pets, children and the vulnerable, I note that when my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) asked on 30 October whether an impact assessment had been done on the effect of the noise of fireworks on the mental health of veterans, the answer was that there had not. At a time when our mental health services are stretched beyond recognition, we must be cognisant that veterans can often suffer from PTSD, as has been mentioned, and other mental health issues for which fireworks are a recognised trigger.

Directing fireworks to controlled settings has many benefits beyond safety. They can become a focus for community cohesion and a stimulus for small businesses to diversify into servicing those events. Moving forward, I hope to work constructively on the Fireworks Bill with Members from all parties, because it is clear from these petitions that modern society demands that this issue needs to be sorted.

Budget Resolutions

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

I congratulate hon. Members who have delivered maiden speeches today on their thoughtful contributions.

This Budget marks the end of an era of austerity inflicted by the Conservative party over the past 14 years, during which time take-home pay was cut to the bone and our public services almost reached existential crisis. In Scotland, we had the trouble of two failing Governments. The SNP promised Scandinavian-type public services, while the Conservative party promised North American levels of taxation. The result was broken public services and a complete misuse of taxpayer money.

I am proud of many things in the Budget, but I am most proud that next April the national minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour. That will lift the earnings of 200,000 people in Scotland and 3,000 people in my Glasgow South West constituency. This Labour Government will ensure that work pays, and that it is secure and dignified.

The Budget continues and increases direct investment in Scotland through the innovation accelerators programme, which supports 11 projects in Glasgow. It also establishes Brand Scotland, and supports Scottish trade abroad by contributing £750,000 to the Scotland Office. This is the biggest uplift in Scotland’s funding through Barnett consequentials since the beginning of devolution in 1999, with £3.4 billion of additional funding. Within that funding, Labour has increased the overall education budget by 3.5% in real terms and increased local government funding by 3.2%, so SNP-run Glasgow city council has no excuse to be cutting 450 teaching posts over the next three years. It must not rob young Glaswegians of their future, because theirs is the contribution that will make our economy grow.

Conservative Members used to tell us frequently that they believed in Britain, and SNP Members—conspicuous by their absence today—used to tell us that they were stronger for Scotland. What better embodiment of strength and of that belief than investing in our infrastructure and our people? We on the Labour Benches have made our decision; it is now up to them whether they back Britain or not.

Uyghur and Turkic Muslims: Forced Labour in China

Zubir Ahmed Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK supply chains and Uyghur and Turkic Muslim forced labour in China.

Thank you for chairing this debate, Mr Dowd, and for the opportunity to highlight the issue. I thank the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Lothian East (Mr Alexander), for being here to respond to the debate: in his last period in office and during his sabbatical from this place he was a consistent advocate for the dignity of people all over the world.

That human rights have never been respected by the People’s Republic of China is a given, but the persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims since 2017 has been unprecedented even for the Chinese Communist party. More than 1 million Muslims have been imprisoned in an enormous network of camps; possibly as many as 3 million out of a population of 11 million Muslims have made their way through the camps at some time. This is the largest mass arbitrary detention since the second world war. Uyghur women face forced sterilisation, forced abortion, sexual violence in the camps, and forced marriage to Han Chinese men. Thousands of mosques have been demolished. Hundreds of Muslim graveyards have been bulldozed. Countless sacred Islamic shrines have been destroyed. Uyghurs are forced to consume pork, drink alcohol and eat during the Ramadan fast.

These crimes are part of a deliberate effort to destroy the Uyghurs as an ethnic group with a distinct culture and religious identity. International organisations and human rights groups too numerous to list assess that crimes against humanity are taking place in Xinjiang, and this House of Commons has voted to recognise that what is going on is a genocide—an intentional policy that seeks to destroy a people.

All of that provides context to the issue of forced labour in Xinjiang, but it is important to understand that Uyghur Muslim slavery is not a by-product of the attempt to destroy a people; it is an integral part of China’s project. Indeed, as the camps were built, factories for forced labourers were constructed alongside them. For those Uyghurs who are not inside the camps, the threat of incarceration is used to coerce them into the PRC’s wider labour transfer programme.

There is a dark contradiction at the heart of all this. The atrocities are happening in a region that is increasingly closed to those who would testify to the crimes, the journalists and human rights groups who would document them and of course those who would flee to freedom if they could. However, at the same time that the region is closing down, it is increasingly open to and integrated into the global economy. Xinjiang mines, refines and manufactures for the world. Some of the best-known global brands are profiting from the destruction of a people.

The scale of slavery in the region is enormous and is barely disputed: four years ago, official Chinese Government documents acknowledged that 2.6 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities had gone through labour transfer programmes. The scope of the industries affected is too large to cover in the time afforded to us today, so I will focus on three areas that especially expose the UK’s economy and that risk consumers being unwittingly complicit in Muslim slave labour: clothing, cars and climate change.

Xinjiang produces a quarter of the world’s cotton. The idea of hundreds of thousands of slaves working in cotton fields evokes an image of slavery and forced labour from another era, but this is not historical practice. It is a well-documented economic reality in the Uyghur region today.

[Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate and for illuminating an issue that still too few in the international global order are willing or brave enough to talk about. I assure him that Muslim communities across the country will be particularly grateful to him for securing the debate. Important as it is for us to be ethical about our own supply chains, does he agree that as a major global player we should double down on our efforts to persuade China’s near neighbours to adopt a similar ethical approach to the one that he espouses?

[Blair McDougall]

I could not agree more. I thank my hon. Friend for the time he has taken to meet me and meet Uyghurs in the UK, and for his concern.

On cotton, it is highly likely that high streets around the UK are today selling goods made by Muslim slaves from Xinjiang for brands such as Primark, Next, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, Pull&Bear, Mango, Guess, Jack & Jones, Levi’s, Burberry, Nike, Adidas, PUMA and Max Mara. In my city of Glasgow, I have identified 15 retailers on the famous style mile that stock brands that have been identified as at risk of being implicated in Uyghur forced labour. The same story is true of every shopping mall and high street across the UK. The price of disposable fashion is Muslim forced labour.

I turn to cars. The automotive industry is also deeply compromised: the steel, aluminium, electric vehicle batteries, electronics, tyres and spare parts used all have chains stretching back to the Uyghur region, to companies that we know take part in PRC-mandated labour transfer programmes. Audi, Honda, Ford, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Tesla, Renault, LEVC, which is the maker of electric London black cabs, Aston Martin, Bentley, Daimler, Jaguar and Rolls-Royce have all been identified by researchers as having supply chains at high risk of being compromised by Muslim slave labour.

Even if we were not appalled at the inhumanity of the persecution of Muslims, the theft of children from their parents, the sexual violence and the sterilisation, we should be angry as a nation at the economic unfairness of it. We cannot build our own manufacturing industries and create good jobs for our own people while competing with companies that have little or no labour cost. This Government are building a new green energy future for the country, but we cannot generate the green jobs that are part of that vision while competing against Muslim slave labour.

That brings me to my final point, which is on climate. The primary material for the production of solar panels is polysilicon. That manufacturers of polysilicon in the Uyghur region use forced labour is not in dispute. Every single polysilicon manufacturer in the Uyghur region has reported its participation in labour transfer programmes or is documented as being supplied with raw materials by companies that have participated in those programmes. More than a third of the global production of polysilicon takes place in the Uyghur region. No company or public authority in the UK should be sourcing solar materials that originate in that region. A further third of global production of polysilicon takes place in other parts of China, with a high likelihood that those supply chains ultimately begin with Muslim slave labour.

I am keen to hear the Minister expand on the welcome pledge that the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero made during the passage of the Great British Energy Bill that the Government are working to ensure that the extension of solar energy in the UK is not built on Uyghur forced labour. I would argue that the only real solution, given the Chinese dominance of the market, is an urgent international effort to develop alternative supply chains that, from quartz to panel, never pass through China. The measures in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 have not stopped companies profiting from the slave labour of Uyghurs and other Muslims in China.

Nothing that I have said today is new. These stories have been splashed over front pages and broadcast on television news. Shame, it seems, is not a greater motivator than profit margin. Sunlight is not disinfecting. Legislation based on transparency and reporting alone is not getting the job done. Other nations in the European economic area have gone further than us by requiring companies to conduct human rights due diligence on their supply chains. I ask the Minister whether it is time to introduce UK legislation that emulates the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which was signed into law by President Biden and which creates a presumption that any goods manufactured wholly or in part in the Uyghur region should be assumed to be the product of forced labour unless clear and convincing evidence proves otherwise.

I recognise that supply chains can be difficult to unravel and that exports often pass through multiple companies on their way into our economy. However, there is a direct freight flight from the Uyghur capital Ürümqi to Bournemouth that brings goods from the epicentre of forced labour in China. Yesterday, a flight from Ürümqi arrived just before 7 pm; another will arrive on Friday, and another on Sunday. That will continue week after week. This is not opaque or convoluted: it is a clear and obvious route and there is a significant risk that those flights will contain goods compromised by Muslim slave labour. I ask the Minister whether import inspections have been or can be carried out on the goods arriving on the freight flight to Bournemouth from Ürümqi.

After the results of yesterday’s election in the United States, there will be much debate about the state of the global struggle between autocracies and democracies and between strongmen and human rights. As we look for a policy response, we can begin by ensuring that our own economies are not funding the worst excesses of such regimes.