Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Robinson Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under the Conservative party, we saw child poverty increase by 700,000. This is a Budget that not only invests in our NHS and our schools, but ensures that working people will not face a penny extra in their payslips or at the petrol pump. That is because when it comes to the tough decisions on tax, we have not touched national insurance, income tax or VAT, just as we promised, on working people. We also gave 3 million of the lowest paid a pay rise, something that the Conservative party seems to be opposing.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

Lebanon is in crisis, and my constituent Catherine Flanagan is in despair. Her three-year-old son David Nahle has been out of her care for the past two years. The Belfast High Court has indicated that he should be returned to his mother and has issued a bench warrant for the arrest of his father. However, when my constituent fled domestic violence in Beirut, she got no help or assistance from the UK embassy, and when she has sought assistance from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be reunited with her son—to see her son again, and for this British citizen to come back to the UK—she has not received the assistance that she, or I and our community, expect she should. Will the Prime Minister engage with this issue and, at the very least, ask the Foreign Secretary to assist my constituent in her earnest desire to see her three-year-old son again?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Member for raising this case, and for all he is doing on behalf of Catherine and David—I hope they get some comfort from knowing that they have an MP working so hard on their behalf. It is a complex and difficult situation, but of course I will make sure that the relevant meetings are set up with the relevant Ministers to ensure the right hon. Member gets the answers he needs on behalf of his constituents.