Arms Export Licences: Israel

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Zarah Sultana]

We have a licensing regime, but there are loopholes that are often exploited, which is what we are seeking to address.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and she rightly highlights the humanitarian nightmare people in Gaza face. Does she agree that it is an absolute duty on our Government, as it is on other Governments, that where arms or components used in arms are used in violation of international law and to commit war crimes, there must be an immediate suspension of exports and a review?

[Zarah Sultana]

Absolutely—I completely agree with that intervention.

Just to go back a little, we know that we have issued arms licences to the Israeli military worth £474 million since 2015. Included in those licences are parts for F-35 fighter jets—stealth aircraft that are currently unleashing hell on Gaza.

According to US arms company Lockheed Martin, which is the lead contractor for these jets, they are:

“ the most lethal...fighter jets in the world.”

Some 15% of the parts for these aircraft are made in British factories, including the Brighton factory that makes the weapon-release system on the jet, allowing it to unleash deadly airstrikes on the people below. We must ask whether it was a British-made release system that sent death screaming on to Safaa and her baby girl in Rafah? Was Nour robbed of her dream of becoming a doctor because a British-made weapon launched an airstrike on her home? And were British-made arms involved in robbing Khaled of his beautiful grand-daughter? The answer is that we do not know, although there is no doubt that British-made arms have been used in the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Despite hollow protestations by Ministers, there is also no doubt that Israel has committed clear violations of international law, as the UN Secretary-General, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others have said.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow some excellent speeches, largely from Opposition Members. I wish that I could say different. Whether people agree or disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I think that everybody would agree that he has considerable experience in the decades that he has been here. For him to say that this is the first time that he has seen the Government Benches so empty on the day after an autumn statement speaks volumes. It is a tragedy that we now have a Government who not only have delivered an autumn statement that will do nothing to address the real issues in our communities, but fail to turn up to defend it.

Like hon. Members across the House, on the weekends I try to be out and about in my constituency, talking to local residents about their concerns. Outside of an election period, I usually expect some friendly chat—not always, but usually—and for local issues around transport, education, policing or the environment to be discussed. Last weekend, however, conversations were largely about the autumn statement—people’s expectations, and their families’ struggles with the rising cost of living.

What was clear from those I spoke to was the sense of utter despondency and despair about their economic situation, and that of the country, even among those living in the parts of my constituency that are considered more well off, and those who identified themselves as previous Tory voters. They knew that, while their family grapple with the rising cost of living, the Government just tinkered around the edges or sat on their hands, making it clear that the autumn statement would not deliver for my constituents, make their lives easier or leave them better off than before, regardless of how hard they worked. If they watched the Chancellor deliver his autumn statement yesterday, they will have been bitterly disappointed, but they will not have been surprised. They will have been vindicated in their low expectations of the Chancellor and in their realisation that ultimately they will never be better off under a Tory Government.

After all, what was there in this autumn statement for those who have just about managed to get by over the past 13 years—those who have just about managed to make ends meet with rising energy bills, rising food costs and rising fuel prices, but who last year had their household finances pushed over the brink by the reckless budget of an ex-Prime Minister who still, bizarrely, thinks that the country wants to hear her economic ideas? The answer to that question is “Nothing”.

The four-point plan that the Chancellor announced yesterday to tackle the cost of living included uprating benefits, unfreezing local housing allowance and increasing the state pension. While those are all welcome measures, none of them are applicable to a typical family struggling with mortgage, fuel, food and energy costs, and if the Government think that the fourth measure, which means that a pint will not cost any more than it does now, is the priority for that family, that just shows how woefully out of touch they really are.

What that typical family needed to hear yesterday was a real plan to spread economic growth across the country: a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants, who continue to make billions of pounds, a guarantee that the very richest will pay their fair share, as that family is doing, and a strategy not just to raise the wage floor with a rise in minimum wage, but to raise middle and average incomes, which have stagnated in real terms over the past 13 years. Instead, they heard more of the same steps, measures and announcements that they have heard over those years, the same ones that have led us to the economic mess of low growth, low ambition and low pay that we are in now.

Not only does the Chancellor’s autumn statement fail to support such families, but it fails to offer any meaningful support to those in Bradford living in poverty, in some of the worst deprivation in the country, who need the greatest help in overcoming the barriers placed in their way through no fault of their own. As I have had to say in this Chamber before, 50% of my constituents are now living in poverty, and I should not have to say this, but they did not choose to be in poverty.

The tragedy is that time and again from Conservative Members and from this Government we see a narrative that somehow people wake up one day and choose to be born into poverty or to live in poverty. We are the fifth-richest country in the world. It is disgraceful. It is disgusting. The poverty that we have in our streets today is sickening. The destitution we have today is disgraceful. It is disgraceful and sickening that children today are going without food, that people are being forced into homelessness and that mental ill health is now dramatically on the rise without any treatment whatever.

Let us be clear about what got us here. It is political choices, and 13 years of this Government, with their ideological austerity agenda and their attacks on the poorest, have contributed to that. What does this autumn statement do to address any of that? It does nothing. For the poorest and the most vulnerable, the Chancellor ultimately offered nothing—and in some cases, as other hon. Members have said, he even launched an outright assault on them.

The Chancellor may have increased benefits in line with the higher September rate of inflation, but not before dangling the possibility of a much lower rate, causing sleepless nights for 2 million households who have even had to turn their fridge or freezer off because of the cost of living crisis. He may have ended the local housing allowance freeze, but he has still not provided real investment to deliver social housing, which means that, while people will find it a little easier to pay their rent and put food on the table, many still will not have a table in their own home to put it on.

The Chancellor also failed to fix the vital welfare safety net, left broken by his predecessors, which is no longer able to guarantee the essentials for those facing hardship. He has also set in motion another wave of brutal austerity by front-loading his tax cuts and deferring the tough decisions, making it clear that not only is David Cameron, now Lord Cameron, back in Government, but so too is his brutal agenda of ideologically driven austerity cuts to services that the most vulnerable people rely on. The Chancellor has also deliberately ignored an opportunity to create a more compassionate system that is responsive to the needs of the less fortunate, and he has launched an outrageous attack on disabled people with his ill-thought-through plan to try to get them into work.

Last month, I spoke on a panel on how Governments can support disabled people in the workplace and into employment. The panel discussed improving flexible working arrangements, fixing a broken sick pay system and strengthening the rights of disabled people at work. It certainly did not discuss threats and coercion to force those who cannot work to take up employment. It is clear that once more the millions of disabled people across the country are being used as scapegoats by a Government that have lost their moral compass. All I have to say is, “Shame on the Chancellor and every Conservative Member who condoned this attack on some of the most vulnerable in our society.”

After the passage of 13 years, people across Bradford expected to be better off. They did not expect to be in a worse position than they were a decade ago. Yet, after this Government’s reckless mismanagement crashed our economy, that is sadly where we are. Instead of a real plan to fix the country and undo the mess that they have made while they have been in charge, all we got yesterday was a last-ditch effort from a Tory Chancellor to recover his own credibility and prop up the disastrous premiership of a Prime Minister whose fingerprints from his own time as Chancellor are all over the mess they have left us in.

I join the call, which I think the Opposition have made clear, for a general election now, so that the British people can have their say and remove this Government that have been in for too long, causing misery to people’s lives.

Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I also start by welcoming the Bill brought by the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton). As a Member of this House representing one of the most deprived constituencies in the country, which is not unlike my own, he too will know the role that bad pay, long hours and few rights play in trapping working people in a constant cycle of poverty and deprivation and entrenching poverty in his constituency—again, not unlike many constituencies up and down the country.

I am glad this Bill to address one of the biggest challenges faced by working people is finally reaching its conclusion today. I am glad the Government have supported the Bill through its passage. Given the negligible trickle of Bills that relate to the employment rights of working people have come before the House during their more than a decade in office—unless, of course, they concern taking rights away through their anti-trade union restrictions—in contrast with the recent flood of employment rights legislation proposed from the Back Benches, it would seem that the Government have suddenly discovered the exploitation suffered by working people. But that is not the case.

At the end of 2019—well over three years ago—the Government promised to introduce an employment Bill, which many, including Labour MPs, hoped would address the exploitation of working people and would help create an economy and workforce fit for the modern day. We warned the Government years ago, long before even the 2015 general election, about the exploitation of those on zero-hours contracts and in the gig economy. Trade unions have been banging on the Government’s door urging for stronger protection for workers in a changing economy. We know full well that the Government knew of the hardships created for working people because of zero-hours contracts, so pleading ignorance is no defence for their failure to act. In fact, there is no defence at all.

[Dr Mullan]

Forgive me if the hon. Member was going to clarify this, but is it still the Labour party’s position that it will ban zero-hours contracts?

[Imran Hussain]

Yes, it absolutely is, and I will go on to clarify that in my remarks. The Government’s only excuse for their refusal to tackle the exploitation of working people before their support for this Bill is that Ministers were too busy hailing the alleged benefits of being on zero-hours contracts. The reality is that the advantages of these contracts asserted by the Government are frankly alien to people on them. What they face is no utopia of flexibility, but a prison of exploitation by bad bosses at worst or a world of uncertainty at best. As has been pointed out during the passage of the Bill, people are often compelled to accept shifts that they do not want—and so they struggle to work—because they know that if they turn them down, they may not get any hours at all in future.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Member says, and I note his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan). My Aberconwy constituency is known for its tourism, hospitality and all that comes with that, including shift working. The reality for many residents in my constituency is that zero-hours contracts give them flexibility to juggle family and other commitments and to balance a range of employment. Does he accept there is some virtue of this model for some people some of the time at least?

--- Later in debate ---

[Imran Hussain]

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency is known for the things he has said. He will appreciate there is a huge difference between shift working and zero-hours contracts. Those are two very different concepts, and I do not think anybody is arguing against shift working. Equally, nobody is saying there should be no flexibility. I accept that in a minority of situations—perhaps, for example, in the case of students, as was mentioned earlier—there may need to be that flexibility.

To answer the question from the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan)—I will cover this later as well—the reality is that over the past decade we have gone from around 150,000 people on zero-hours contracts to more than 1 million, as the Minister will know. To suggest that the majority of those people somehow benefit from some flexibility in zero-hours contracts—or some of the points that the Minister may outline later—is just not true.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

The hon. Gentleman suggests that it is not true that a majority of people like that relationship, but surveys show that some 64% of people do not want more hours. He would ban zero-hours contracts, even though 64% of people want them. Where is the sense in that?

[Imran Hussain]

I will refer the Minister to another survey. By far the most over-represented groups of people on zero-hours contracts are women and those from ethnic minority backgrounds. The Minister quotes statistics, but in the current market people who have a choice between zero-hours contracts or no work at all are a different case altogether.

[Dr Mullan]

As this is obviously a strongly felt position from the Labour party, I assume that there is not a single Labour-led local authority employing people on zero-hours contracts. If the hon. Gentleman cannot confirm that, will he write to me and explain what steps he will take with his Labour local authority leadership figures to ensure that they do not make use of these contracts, which the Labour party clearly feels are immoral?

[Imran Hussain]

The point that the hon. Gentleman makes is political point scoring on a very serious issue. The fact remains, and this is perhaps where he could direct his energies, that his Government ordered the Taylor review more than five years ago, the findings of which were published in their “Good Work Plan” in 2018. Where has he been for the past few years not questioning his own Government on why they are failing working people, and frankly, why they have failed those being exploited by zero-hours contracts until today? That is perhaps the question he should be asking.

People on zero-hours contracts often face having the shifts they had planned and budgeted for cancelled, leaving them unable to make their bills add up at the end of the month. They are often offered shifts at short notice, forcing them to go to great expense to arrange childcare and transport. As I set out on Second Reading, when the Conservative party came to power, just over 150,000 people were employed on zero-hours contracts. At the last count, more than 1 million were employed on them according to the Office for National Statistics.

As the Bill recognises, for a small group of people who are okay with varying shift patterns and do not face significant outgoings, the contracts may fit better, but let us not kid ourselves: the flexibility of zero-hours contracts is flexibility for the employer, not for working people. As I have mentioned, it is also not as though the Government have never had a chance to improve the rights of working people before this Bill today. They commissioned Matthew Taylor to carry out a review on modern working practices and then accepted his recommendations in full as far back as 2018, but rather than implementing the recommendations, they sat on the review instead. Many of them, including recommendation 13 to allow workers on zero-hours contracts

“a right to request a contract that better reflects the hours they work”,

have gone unfulfilled. That is, until the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) introduced his Bill last year, four years on from the Taylor review.

That lack of progress in implementing the Taylor review’s recommendations almost five years later is lamentable for us, but is devastating for those working people who would be helped by the greater security at work that the recommendations would provide. It is right that the hon. Member’s Bill addresses that issue to some degree. We therefore support the Government in ensuring that this Bill and Bills like it get on to the statute book, because long overdue as it is, it is a step in the right direction towards stronger rights and better protections for an overexploited workforce. However, I cannot let the opportunity of today’s debate go by without asking whether Government support would have been quite so forthcoming had it not been for the relentless pressure they have faced from our trade unions, which have long campaigned for zero-hours contract workers to get the protections they need and deserve.

Although it has taken this Conservative Government years to take some form of action on strengthening workers’ rights by supporting the private Members’ Bills brought by several hon. Members, rather than by introducing their own employment Bill, the next Labour Government will not be so timid. As set out by the leader of the Labour party—the next Prime Minister—within the first 100 days of taking office, a Labour Government will bring legislation to the Floor of the House to begin to deliver our groundbreaking new deal for working people, which will ensure that our economy is fit for the 21st century and will transform the rights and protections afforded to ordinary working people for the better. That includes stronger protections for those on zero-hours contracts, with a ban on contracts without a minimum number of guaranteed hours and the right to a contract reflecting hours normally worked, and a requirement for employers to provide reasonable notice of shift changes, with wages paid in full to workers whose shifts are cancelled without notice, so they are no longer left to shoulder the burden and suffer the costs of unexpected last-minute changes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said before, no single lever will solve this problem, which is why it is right that we work on all the different things that will make a difference, including close co-operation with the French. That is why I was pleased at the end of last year that the Home Secretary and I announced the largest ever small boats deal with France, with a 40% increase in patrols and greater co-operation. We look forward to strengthening that co-operation and furthering that discussion this Friday.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Q13. Let us be absolutely clear in this Chamber: under this Government’s new dystopian, far-right-appeasing, anti-refugee Bill, those who are trafficked to the UK would still face deportation. Can the Prime Minister therefore clear up whether Sir Mo Farah, who last year bravely revealed that he was trafficked to the UK as a child, would have been removed under this Bill?

[The Prime Minister]

It is precisely because we want to help the world’s most vulnerable people that we must stop our system being exploited and overwhelmed by illegal migrants who are being trafficked here by criminal gangs. There is nothing compassionate or fair about supporting that system continuing, which is why our new laws are the right way to deal with this. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can see that and support them.