Kashmir: Self-determination

Debate between Gareth Snell and Iqbal Mohamed

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain) on his continuing leadership on this issue, not just in this House but around the country.

It is quite disappointing. The last time we debated this subject in Westminster Hall was in March. I think about the many hours that we spend debating foreign policy issues in this place, and the fact that Kashmir does not often get the hearing it deserves and the prominence that it demands, given the issue’s impact on so many hundreds of thousands of our constituents throughout the country and its importance on the international stage.

I want to impress on the Minister, so that he hears it from all of us in this place, that the line that this is a bilateral issue is wearing thin. It really no longer holds water, not least because of China’s increasing interest in the Aksai part of the region. If we are serious about taking a leadership role through our UN Security Council membership, saying that these issues are bilateral makes it look as if we are not interested and pushes it back to two peoples we know are looking for help and leadership on this issue.

What I find most disheartening is that I have many Kashmiri constituents and many wonderful Kashmiri local councillors, and they hold a hope in their heart that the resolution promised to them in 1948 would, at some point, become a reality that would allow them and their families in Kashmir that very basic and fundamental right of self-determination, but that light of hope is fading. Time is passing and the clock is ticking, and it seems we are getting further away from a peaceful resolution to allow for the self-determination of Kashmir than we have been at any point in my time in the House. That cannot be allowed to continue under any Government, but specifically not under a Labour Government, given that we not only have a fundamental commitment to the basic premises of human rights but put such things at the heart of what we do.

I want to press the Minister, and I hope he can provide some answers, because the issues around the UK’s relationship with India are genuinely important. Since the previous debate in March, there have been three significant interactions with India: the trade deal delegation went out in October; Prime Minister Modi visited in July; and the Minister for the Indo-Pacific, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), visited India in November. Those are three high-level interactions with India.

Will the Minister confirm that in each of those interactions the issue of human rights in Kashmir was raised with Indian Government representatives? It would be wonderful if he is able to say what those representations were. I appreciate that he might not, but knowing that the Government are using every lever available to them, and every diplomatic and political opportunity, to continue to push for the plight of a group of people who are looking to us for leadership would give us some hope that the thing we all aspire to is not completely off the Government’s agenda.

I want to press the Minister on something else. When I speak to representatives of the diaspora community in the UK, there is sometimes a feeling that direct engagement with the Government is not what it should be. There is a feeling that sometimes, as has been mentioned, the words “Kashmir” and “self-determination” are said, and there are tick points that have to be referenced in order to get through a meeting, but actually the commitment is becoming more skin deep.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Gareth Snell]

No, I will not.

The Minister is a diligent man and takes these issues very seriously; will he outline what regular engagement there is between the Foreign Office and representatives of the Kashmiri diaspora in the UK? How are we making sure that the voices of people who have a deep and meaningful connection to Kashmir are heard at the highest levels of Government? Will he potentially commit to making statements, so that we do not have to do these things through Westminster Hall debates and the whole House can discuss these issues with the prominence that they deserve?