Equality Act 2010 Guidance: Gynaecological Conditions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) on an excellent opening speech, which has covered so many of the aspects that we have spoken about for so many years.

I started to raise the issues of endometriosis about a decade ago in this very room. Again, like the hon. Lady, it came to my attention through someone coming to see me in a constituency surgery. I then realised I had a close friend whose wife had suffered from endometriosis since her teen years. What is striking straightaway is how many people do not know about the condition. Therein lies one of the great problems. I remember when I first started doing this, I got lots of comments about why I was bringing this up as a man. I always found that comment particularly strange—surely we are elected to represent all our constituents, and well over 50% of my constituents are women—but it spoke to a greater problem: people do not understand women’s health needs.

Women’s health needs are exceptionally different from those of men. The reality is that men can sympathise, but cannot empathise, because they are unlikely to suffer from chronic diseases throughout their lives, from teenage years through to old age. Women can have endometriosis long after the menopause—it is not to do with being of a fertile age. Also, the growth of the endometrium is not linked just to having a uterus, as it can spread to other parts of the body.

The hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate outlined some of the problems, but—I am sorry for this, Ms Jardine—I will get a little more graphic and try to paint a picture of what some gynaecological conditions can mean. If a person who has stage 3 or stage 4 endometriosis, there is a real chance that it has invaded their digestive system—indeed, that can be when problems start to become apparent, but by that time, it can have progressed a long way down the line. I am sure that everybody in this room will have suffered from food poisoning or an upset stomach, when—I do not want to be too graphic—they could not get off the toilet. We all know what is like, and it is horrific, but we stay at home, take our salts and fluids, and work our way through it for 24 hours. What happens is that we feel a bit rotten for a couple of days, but then we go back work.

For people who have reached such a stage of the disease, that happens all the time. They will be sitting at work and will suddenly have to rush to the bathroom. One thing that people recognise is that endometriosis can cause heavy bleeding, and how embarrassing that can be for a teenage girl. The very fact that people may soil themselves without realising is a great problem, which needs sympathetic employers to arrange an office space and position things so that they are able to go to the toilet quickly. There needs to be understanding from fellow employees, and we need to make sure that employers recognise the issues.

I will not dwell on this point, because many other hon. Members want to speak, but education plays an important role. I worked with some girls born in the 21st century who did not know about the condition, which shocked me. If it is taught to all sexes in schools, understanding will come through. If people do not know what a disease is, it is easy to try to dismiss it and say, “This person just takes time off work. Women get heavy periods. They’re just a malingerer—they’re not doing anything.” As I have spoken about for so long, such conditions need to be protected under the Equality Act. I am proud to chair the board of The Endometriosis Foundation, and that our brilliant chief executive officer, Carla Cressy, who has stage 4 endometriosis, has done so much to support people. Research shows that around 90% of affected people experience a mental health impact, and 50% think about taking their lives—unfortunately, about 30 women a year do take their lives. That is how serious the subject is.

If I can leave people with just one message, it is just to think about it. As an employer or a man, think about if you had to go to work every day, not knowing whether you will suddenly soil yourself while sitting at your desk. Think about that, and about how we should be dealing with people who suffer from this terrible disease.

[Christine Jardine (in the Chair)]

I ask Members to stick to an informal time limit of three minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Equalities (Satvir Kaur)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I will endeavour to speak at pace so that I can cover everyone’s points and respond accordingly.

I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq) for introducing this important debate on a serious issue faced by so many women and girls; I am sure that we can all agree that she spoke extremely passionately. I thank her personally for her ongoing efforts in this campaign. I extend my thanks to the campaigners in the Gallery and acknowledge the challenges that my hon. Friend’s constituent Sanju Pal has faced, which led her to create this petition to add gynaecological conditions to the Equality Act 2010 guidance.

I thank everyone for sharing their stories and for their contributions. I am personally passionate about this issue. The stats speak for themselves; I am not going to repeat them, but we all know that behind every one of them is a woman potentially suffering in silence—a woman getting dismissed and a woman who needs support.

This Government recognise the difficulties and pain that women and girls face in managing symptoms related to gynaecological conditions. As today’s debate has highlighted, menstrual and reproductive health issues can have a significant impact on the physical and mental wellbeing of women and girls, including on their participation in the workplace. The struggle is real and I have felt it myself, so I can relate to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey). I personally thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate for her efforts inside this House as well: I have definitely reaped the benefits from those internal campaigns. For example, I have been able to vote by proxy when struggling with my health.

As a Government, we do not believe that anyone in this country should have to choose between managing their health and pursuing their career. We are committed to protecting the rights of women against unlawful discrimination in the workplace and ensuring that they have access to redress. As Members will know, depending on the circumstances, the Equality Act already provides protection from discrimination on the grounds of sex, age or disability. The Act’s definition of disability focuses, for the most part, on how a condition affects a person’s day-to-day life, rather than listing specific conditions or impairments. That flexibility is important to allow the law to cover a vast range of conditions, as well as to avoid the risk of excluding changing, fluctuating or progressive conditions that impact on individuals differently.

My hon. Friend and other Members may be aware that the Government intend to produce guidance explaining how the law protects against combined discrimination. We can, of course, consider how gynaecological conditions can form part of that, and I will ensure that that is considered effectively. Alongside that, my hon. Friend and others will agree—I know that she made noises to this effect—that the issue can be addressed more effectively and quickly through ongoing efforts to help employers themselves to take more effective steps to support the health and wellbeing of their female employees: strengthening rights related to sick leave and flexible working, and improving how the health system addresses these conditions.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I am listening carefully to what the Minister is saying, and I do not doubt for one second her belief in the policy moving forward. However, I am concerned—and it is just a concern—that putting it into the Act will make employers recognise that it is specifically there, whereas saying that the Act can deal with it is still a bit opaque. This is one of the problems we have had; we want specificity, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate said, to make employers recognise just how serious the situation is.

[Satvir Kaur]

I accept that making it clearer will absolutely help; that should be considered as part of the combined discrimination guidance. I reassure Members that that will be considered. It is also important that we stress what else the Government are doing to address these issues. This debate has been healthy in reflecting that this is a wider issue that cannot only be addressed in legislation, although legislation is, of course, important.

We want to encourage employers to implement workplace adjustments, which have been raised by several Members in the debate, to help women remain in work and thrive in their careers. This Government are committed to that—not just because it is the right thing to do, but because equality is a precondition to our economic success, as many have already pointed out.

By creating more supportive and informed workplaces, we can help ensure that women with endometriosis or other health conditions can remain in work, progress in their careers and reach their full potential. That is why there is a great deal of action being taken by this Government to improve the support and protections available to women experiencing symptoms relating to gynaecological conditions.

In April this year, Mariella Frostrup was appointed as the Government’s women’s employment ambassador. In that role, she will campaign on women’s health throughout their life course, working with employers across the country to strengthen workplace support, raise awareness of key health issues and address wider challenges affecting women in work, highlighting the vital economic contribution that women make.

The ambassador attended the launch of the “Endometriosis (Not) in the Workplace” report. In her remarks, she emphasised that supporting women’s health in the workplace is not only the right thing to do, but vital in retaining talent, reducing inequalities and strengthening the economy. This work will also include engaging with Sir Charlie Mayfield’s independent “Keep Britain Working” review, which highlighted the scale of economic inactivity due to ill health and disability, as well as the important role employers can play in helping people to stay in work.

During the vanguard phase, we have worked with employers, providers, unions and people with health conditions to develop and refine approaches that will help people thrive in work, including promoting early conversations about health needs and supporting reasonable workplace adjustments for women’s health conditions.

As we develop workplace health systems, we are considering how health and work interact across different stages of life, including the impact of endometriosis and other long-term fluctuating menstrual health conditions on people’s ability to remain and thrive in work.

We welcome the involvement of Endometriosis UK in the vanguard phase, which provides valuable insight into the experiences of people living with these conditions and helps inform our approach. As well as taking steps to create more supportive and informed workplaces, the renewed women’s health strategy, published in April, represents a decisive shift towards addressing long-standing failings in women’s health outcomes, experiences, and access to care. Some of the stories shared in this debate are heartbreaking, and all of them have led to this important shift. The women’s health strategy identifies endometriosis as a priority condition and states our commitment to improve the treatment and ongoing care for every woman affected.

Through the plan Make Work Pay, we are strengthening support for people and managing health conditions alongside their work by requiring employers to accept flexible working requests where it is reasonable for them to do so. We want to ensure that all employers are supporting their employees’ health and wellbeing, because that will benefit the employees and their organisation. That is why the Government are getting large employers to publish action plans, which my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate mentioned, setting out how they will make meaningful changes to tackle the barriers women face throughout their working lives, including the steps being taken to improve support for menopause and endometriosis and to address the gender pay gap.

Importantly, the EHRC was mentioned. As Members will know, that is independent of the Government and will make its own operational decisions. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, and I am sorry if I did not get to everyone’s points.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential merits of adding gynaecological conditions to Equality Act 2010 guidance.

Immigration: Earned Settlement

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. The Health Secretary and her team are working hard on all the reforms needed to ensure that the care sector is functioning properly, including a workforce plan, which I believe is due before Christmas, and the fair pay agreement that will be in place in 2028. My hon. Friend knows that the Government also have the wider Louise Casey review on the country’s care needs and how they can be met. Taken together, all that work means a fundamental change to how the care sector works in this country.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

It is weeks since I wrote to the immigration Minister, but I have not had a response—out of generosity of spirit, I will say that the Government have been busy—so I will take this opportunity to invite the Home Secretary to come to the proposed site in Linton-on-Ouse. It is an integrated village. If the Home Secretary were to come and see it for herself, I think she would be quite shocked. I do so in the full, open spirit of working co-operatively—I do not even mind if I cannot be there on the day. I really want the Home Secretary to come to site with the Linton-on-Ouse action group and to see for herself just how inappropriate it is.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I hear the passionate point that the right hon. Member makes as a constituency Member of Parliament. He will know that no decision has yet been made, and I will ensure that his letter is responded to promptly. He will also know that the Government have saved a billion pounds a year by closing asylum hotels and that we will go further to close all asylum hotels in this Parliament. As we do so, it is important that we move to a new model of providing asylum accommodation that includes more use of military sites. However, as I said in relation to the specific site he mentioned, no decision has yet been made.

Public Confidence in the Police

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jo White]

Thank you for your question. You made that request in your earlier contribution—

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order. I regret to interrupt the Minister, but Members should not use the word “you” to refer to each other. They should speak through the Chair, who is here to adjudicate, so that the debate does not become too fractious.

[Jo White]

Thank you for correcting me, Sir Alec. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) asked earlier about meeting the Policing Minister, and I am happy to pass that request on to her.

We will introduce stronger national standards through the national police service, ensuring that the service the public receives is more consistent. To respond to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer), the reform programme will enable a new funding formula that will include policing areas such as Cleveland.

In 2010, the number of officers in full-time employment was 143,734. During the period of austerity under the previous Government, officer numbers dropped by over 20,000 to a low of 122,405 in 2018. From 2019, the previous Government funded forces to hastily increase officer numbers, but that has led to officers being hired—and, in some cases, put in desk jobs—to meet arbitrary headcounts. The rush to recruit also led to a situation in which over 35% of officers had less than five years’ experience, placing a further strain on forces.

The Government are focused on what the police are doing, not just on officer numbers. That is why we have scrapped the officer maintenance grant and focused on rebuilding neighbourhood policing, with over 3,800 more police and PCSOs now where the public want to see them—out in neighbourhoods, proactively preventing crime and dealing with antisocial behaviour.

Dover and Portsmouth: Protests

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I agree that we should not give them political legitimacy. Of course, there are well-known connections between violent men and the types of violence they inflict, and it is not always in one area; it can be across lots of different behaviours—sexual violence, domestic abuse and the rest. We have no truck with these awful groups, and the gentleman to whom my hon. Friend refers seems particularly awful. Of course, the police will do what they need to do. They need to disrupt and remove the protesters so that people can go about their business, and in both cases that is what they did. We will ensure that we learn lessons and that arrests are made where they need to be. From the conversations that I have had today with the police about their response, it is clear that they were proportionate and managed to get the result that we wanted, which was the removal of the protesters and enabling people to go about their business.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

I am grateful that it is the Policing Minister who is making this statement. I have spoken to North Yorkshire police, and there is a proposal for RAF Linton-on-Ouse to be made into an asylum centre. The trouble is that calling it an “asylum centre on a military site” does not paint what it is. It is just a mass hotel, because people are free to come and go, and they will all be men. The Home Secretary said in a statement that she would not allow an asylum hotel anywhere near a primary school or a nursery, but within 300 metres of the entrance to the base is a primary school and a nursery. North Yorkshire police have made it clear that they would find it exceptionally difficult to constantly police protests, and these protests are coming from far and wide. Given the change to the way that protests are happening, the fact that North Yorkshire police would find it very difficult to police them, and the fact that there is a primary school and a nursery close to what would be a mass hotel for 1,500 people, can the Minister confirm that it is still the policy of the Home Secretary that she will not open such hotels near schools and nurseries?

[Sarah Jones]

I suspect the right hon. Gentleman has already had conversations with immigration Ministers about this particular case, and I suspect he is making the same arguments to them. I would not want to get in the way of that, and I am sure the relevant Minister would be happy to have those conversations. We need to bear down on the overall number of arrivals, which is what we are trying to do. We are not just closing the hotels, but reducing the number of arrivals and reducing the incentives for people to come in, which is why we are introducing the raft of policy interventions that I spoke about earlier.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I reassure my hon. Friend that we work closely with local authorities, accommodation providers and safeguarding partners to ensure that families and vulnerable individuals receive the support they need throughout any move, and that is true across the whole UK. We understand that hotels can impact community tensions, and although people have a right to protest peacefully, nobody has the right to intimidate communities or vulnerable families.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Building on the last question, RAF Linton-on-Ouse, where up to 1,500 asylum seekers may be put, will have open gates, in a village of 600 adults. Close to the site is a primary school. In the light of the comments about community cohesion, will she now rule out RAF Linton-on-Ouse as an inappropriate site, because of the proximity to the primary school?

[Shabana Mahmood]

No decision has been taken, and all these factors, including other community assets, such as schools and community facilities, are taken into account as part of the decision making.

Asylum Accommodation

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I thank my hon. Friend for his questions. To answer your question from the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will of course be very happy to meet you, as I always am—indeed, I am often summoned to do so. You are in the inimical position of not being able to clearly state on the record just how opposed to Crowborough you are, but I am in no doubt about that, given that you tell me basically every single day via the telephone or face to face, or through whatever tortures in this Chamber you can imagine. I may have more of that to come.

The points made by my hon. Friend are very important. I appreciate that local communities will want to do one of two things, and I encourage them to do both of them at the same time. I understand that many if not most people in my hon. Friend’s community, like others, will oppose the Government doing this, which is a perfectly noble endeavour in a democracy. There are also questions about how this can be done best—how do we limit the impact, be it on health services, the police or local amenities? I believe we can pass that test clearly, and I hope communities will also engage with those questions.

As for planning, my hon. Friend knows that we have previously used a number of different planning devices for different sites. We have not made final determinations for Barnham or for the other sites—we will be doing that over the course of this work.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Linton-on-Ouse, in the heart of my constituency, is a small rural community and is very much isolated. Four years ago, this plan was rejected on technical grounds. Three times the local population would be put into the area, with no means to secure people within that site. They could roam into the village, which has no amenities and does not have a village shop. The area would be overwhelmed.

I wanted to question the Minister on Thursday, but it was not possible. I have had many constituents ask some of these questions over the weekend, and I would like the Minister to answer them now. Northern Powergrid previously indicated that the system would not be able to cope and that the electrical upgrade needed for supply was not possible. Does that mean that industrial generators will have to be brought in, creating noise pollution in this quiet rural village? Yorkshire Water spent millions of pounds upgrading the sewage works to ensure that it correctly met effluent discharge requirements, based on a threefold increase in the area’s population under the proposal, so will there have to be effluent trucks, or would the water drains be polluted? On that note, people who closed down the Linton-on-Ouse base tell me that the drains were concreted in at the time.

The Minister has said that some of these sites have already been vetted, but I find that hard to believe, when the issues on the base have not changed. The highway network has bridges limited to seven and a half tonnes, so site traffic will have to go through limited road routes. On healthcare, the local NHS says that it has no spare capacity. What is perhaps more worrying is that I have been told on good authority that local companies have been asked to tender for the work that would be needed at this site. I ask the Minister directly: have local companies been contacted to tender for work? If they have, I wonder whether it is a feasibility study. On that note, who will make the planning decisions? Will that be for North Yorkshire council, or will it be overridden?

To call it a plan is too grand. The Government do not know what they are doing. They have not thought it through, and they have not had the decency to consult local people about it. In the words of the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) in 2022, this

“tells you just about everything you need to know about the state of chaos they are in.”

This is happening under his watch, so what has changed? This is still an inappropriate site, given those technical issues.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for that series of questions. I gently say that there is a slight unfairness in the right hon. Gentleman’s saying that he and his community want a greater say in the details, while at the same time saying that we do not have a plan. The whole point is that rather than inviting providers or contractors to tender for services and to be around on sites and our saying, “Nothing to see here”, we are being honest that we are looking seriously at this site. The final decision is not made yet, but we are looking. That is a better way to do it, but I appreciate that there may be differences of view.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about roaming. That is in no one’s interest, and what we have managed to do at Wethersfield and Crowborough is to ensure that people do not just come off-site and roam. They are non-detained, as he said. Nevertheless, by the provision of activities and of transport, we can ensure the lightest local impact possible. That would be our commitment for these sites, too.

The right hon. Gentleman mentions electricity and sewage. Those are important parts of the process that we are in now. We are well aware of the history, which transcends this Government—it goes back to the previous Government—but we would not be taking forward this site if we did not think we had viable answers. Nevertheless, it is only when we get on site and start turning over the rocks, as it were, that we can get to a final point on viability. That is the process we are doing here.

It is not our intention that the site would impact on the right hon. Gentleman’s local healthcare services, outside emergency services perhaps. What we have been able to do elsewhere is to have ordinary healthcare provided for on-site to ensure that there is not an impact on the local community. Those are the types of models—[Interruption.] An hon. Member asks if I will give way. I am trying to answer questions fully. Perhaps I cannot win either way.

Firearms Licensing

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask Members who wish to speak to remain standing for a moment. They probably know that it is helpful to tell the Clerks before the debate that they wish to speak, because then they will be on the list and will be called before anybody else. This is a long debate; it can go on until 7.30 pm. If Members leave the Chamber, they are expected to be back for the winding-up speeches, and those speeches may come before Members expect. Some Members have approached me and offered apologies for prior commitments, which I have accepted, but I expect everybody else to follow the protocols.

Police Reform White Paper

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I can, 100%.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

It will not take much of a Hansard search for Members to see that many years ago I asked Baroness May, who was then Home Secretary, to do something very similar to this, but the devil will always be in the detail. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, West and South Yorkshire are far more densely populated than North Yorkshire, which is now a big chunk of my constituency. May I ask the Home Secretary who will be involved in the consultation on the smaller policing areas, and how much credence those people will be given—because this very much has to come down to local level and local councils—and may I also ask what scrutiny we, as local Members of Parliament, will be able to give that consultation? Ultimately, that is what it will all hinge on.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman takes a keen interest in these affairs, and I will happily discuss some of the details of these proposals with him. I will announce the appointment of a reviewer in due course, and it will be for the reviewer and the supporting panel to set out how they intend to conduct the review, including the consultation. However, I absolutely take the right hon. Gentleman’s point that these reforms will work if they have the buy-in and if they make sense based on geography. They will reflect that, and I will ensure that when I receive the reviewer’s report, that is the same lens through which I will look at the proposals.

West Midlands Police

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my hon. Friend for her point, which was well made, about the stain of antisemitism in our country and the breadth and depth of ways in which it presents itself. I am well aware of those problems and working hard to resolve them. A cross-Government effort is under way, and we will have more to say in due course. I assure her that, as Home Secretary, my duty is to ensure that our legal system—law and order, and policing—is robust enough to withstand attempts to frustrate or improperly influence that system. It is important to remember that Sir Andy Cooke did not find that antisemitism was a motivating factor for the police officers who made the decisions in this case—nor were they subject to improper political interference or acting with malign intent. I accept her broader point, however, and reassure her that we are working on that carefully.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

To build on the comment from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), the Jewish community in my constituency have felt under siege for a decade now. It is worth paying tribute to the Prime Minister, who, when he was Leader of the Opposition, drove out of the Labour party the people who had given antisemitism a safe space. Let us not be under any illusion, however, because many people still feel that they have a safe space for antisemitism—be it in our universities, where huge numbers of students believe that they can hassle Jewish students with impunity, or in our hospitals, as outlined in the Lord Mann and Dame Penny Mordaunt report, which I know the Secretary of State is trying to address. Antisemitism is blatant and people are allowed to get away with it.

We must call out antisemitism at all levels, so I call out the deputy leader of the Green party, who I am ashamed to say is a Leeds city councillor. He drove the Jewish priest of the University of Leeds into hiding, and he is still hiding. That must be called out. Will the Home Secretary use every effort of her office and across Government to ensure that where antisemitism is still given a safe space and is not addressed, the Government call out the leaders of those institutions and consider what action may be taken? This is another watershed moment—as odd as that sounds—and this time, something really must be done.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the Government are taking action across a range of different Departments—Education, Health and the Home Office—to drive out antisemitism in every way it presents itself. I am particularly cognisant of the impact on our institutions and of how the democratic underpinning of our society can be overcome, frustrated and thwarted by antisemites undermining the very basis on which we run our country. I assure him that every effort is being made.

As someone who has suffered racism and discrimination because of my faith and race background, I think I can speak for most ethnic minority people on the view that we generally take on these matters, which is that none of us is safe until all of us are safe. There has to be solidarity across our country and for every one of our communities. It is the collective whole that makes this country great.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood]

I say to the hon. Gentleman and all Members of the House that we should be led by the findings of the independent inspector, who has been very clear on where evidence was overstated and where it was understated. He has said that he believes that confirmation bias was at work and that there have been significant failings by West Midlands police in this matter. That is why I have said what I have said in my statement today.

I reiterate more broadly to the hon. Gentleman and everybody else that there are people in this country who want to set our minority communities against one another. Every Member of this House should want to police that boundary and to make sure that that does not take hold in our country. We can only be confident that we are subject to the same law, wherever we are in this country, if we all trust that the police will apply themselves without fear or favour. It is in everyone’s interests to make sure that these issues are dealt with properly. Every citizen deserves the same sort of response from the police, so that when they tell us that something is true, we can believe them. That has not happened in this case and it needs to happen in the future.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance on whether it is appropriate for Members of this House to call into question the intentions of Members when asking questions of the Home Secretary on this issue and to accuse us all of peddling Islamophobia.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I remind all Members to be careful and moderate in their language and to treat this Chamber and Members within it with respect. If we do so, we cannot go far wrong. Although that is not a point of order, it is a matter for the Chair and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising it. That concludes the statement.

I will now announce the result of today’s deferred Division on the draft Public Order Act 2023 (Interference With Use or Operation of Key National Infrastructure) Regulations 2025—[Interruption.] Order. The Ayes were 301 and the Noes were 110, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I would very much like to talk to Lord Mann about the work that he has done, which was prior to me being in post. I will pick that up.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

Let us cut to the chase: Jew hatred in this country has been on the rise for over a decade. It was given a safe space in the past, and that has grown. I have a significant Jewish population in my constituency, who will tell you that Leeds sometimes feels like a really threatening place because of the protests. But the reality is that the protests that take place are okay under freedom of speech, which I support, as long as they do not break the law.

These fans were not breaking the law, and they should have been allowed to go to the match, but it appears that there were people—for example, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) outlined, in the safety advisory group—who had a biased intent. Will the Government start to analyse and audit these groups, which are supposed to be independent? We have seen bias at the BBC and a rise in antisemitic language and incidents in the NHS—which, despite the Health Secretary saying they are unacceptable, the General Medical Council clears. It is reported that 51% of students in Russell Group universities feel that it is okay to insult Jews. Can there please be a root-and-branch review from the Government to make sure that bodies are truly independent and are not hiding their blatant antisemitism?

[Sarah Jones]

To the right hon. Gentleman’s first point, the Prime Minister’s view was very clear: the wrong decision was made. That is our position. We believe that the decision made was the wrong one.

On the safety advisory groups, we have asked the inspector to look at them, their role and their function. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that across all our public bodies, we need to stamp out antisemitism in all its forms, wherever we find it and wherever we see it. I will certainly support him in that.