Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Monday 23rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Samantha Dixon]

Performance continues to improve steadily across gateway 2, and decisions are being made increasingly quickly and at higher volumes. We will continue to press the BSR to do better, faster.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

11. What assessment his Department has made of the level of need for additional social and affordable housing in Bradford.

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

There are 1.3 million people on local authority housing registers across the country. It is not in dispute that there is acute need across England as a whole. National policy makes clear that it is for local authorities, informed by local assessments of need, to set out requirements for the proportion and type of affordable housing that should be delivered through new development, including the minimum proportion of social rented housing required, and planned, to meet that need.

[Imran Hussain]

The Minister will know that Bradford is one of the youngest and fastest-growing cities, yet we are urgently and desperately in need of social and affordable housing. The reality is that homelessness is on the rise, and we have record numbers of people on waiting lists. Families simply cannot get decent houses. While I welcome the Government’s ambitious home building programme, will the Minister assure me that adequate measures are in the programme to address the need for social and affordable housing? While local government will have some say, we must give clear directions.

[Matthew Pennycook]

Given the acute need for affordable housing in Bradford, I understand entirely why my hon. Friend continues to press so vigorously for an uplift in the supply of affordable, and particularly social rented, housing in his constituency. I know that he will welcome the fact that, in the coming days, bidding will open for grant funding from our new £39 billion social and affordable homes programme, 60% of which is targeted at social rent. He will also note that the Government are currently consulting on a new national planning policy framework, including on proposals designed to further support the delivery of social and affordable housing, such as setting a national expectation of at least 10% social rent on all new developments.

Local Government Finance

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the hon. Lady for speaking up on behalf of rural areas. In addition to what I have said to a number of hon. Members, I would add that it is not just in adult social care that we recognise the difference that rurality makes. Overturning 14 years of Tory misrule of councils will take time. We will engage with all councils, including her council, and it is my objective to get local authorities back on a sustainable footing.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

The reality is that for years the Tory Government relied on formulas that decimated local government and services for the poorest, while giving funding to affluent Tory suburbs, so clearly the Tories will not like the formula set out by the Minister. Today must be a turning point that corrects the grave wrong carried out by the previous Government for 14 years. Will the Minister confirm that the new formula, which I welcome, will mean that places like Bradford, which have some of the highest levels of poverty and deprivation, will finally begin to see their fair share in the settlement?

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend is right to describe the serious and challenging situations that lots of parts of the country face. I am anxious to ensure that we make progress in Bradford, not only because Bradford and places like it suffer from the consequences of poverty, but because Bradford has one of the youngest populations in the country. It is part of our future: we must back our young people, and I want to see Bradford grow and its people do well.

English Devolution and Local Government

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for recognising the positivity that devolution can unlock for local areas. The deal she mentions was not included in this round because it was not developed enough. However, I urge Members and those local areas to continue to work with the Government because we want to deliver for them and we will continue to make sure we can deliver devolution across the whole of England.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, councils such as Bradford have been cut to the bone. We have lost £350 million—60% of our funding—since 2010, forcing impossible cuts in social care, in homelessness support, and in special educational needs and disabilities services. The reality is that 14 years of Tory failure have resulted in our communities being devastated and our services decimated. Even though additional council tax flexibility has been granted to places such as Bradford, that is no long-term solution. Frankly, it is not fair on residents to have to pick up the tab for 14 years of Tory failure. Will my right hon. Friend confirm how the Government will deliver a long-term sustainable settlement to put councils on a stable financial footing, which must reflect real need?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is right to categorise what the Conservatives have done to local authorities, and it is not party political to say that; many councils of all different political persuasions will say that the way the previous Government went about local government was not to respect them and not to fund them. We recognise the vital public services that local government delivers and we recognise what it does. The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution will be setting out our plans to give sustainable funding for local government into the future, because we recognise that local government is vitally important and consider its work to be critical to this Government’s mission.

Employment Rights Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Ind)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I support and welcome this transformative Bill. I place on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald), the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), and the Deputy Prime Minister, with whom I have had the pleasure of working to play a small part in bringing this transformative legislation to the House.

In reality, the balance of power in our workplaces has been fundamentally set against employees for too long, meaning that the UK has some of the weakest labour protections in Europe, with legislation curbing the rights of working people to organise in defence of their rights, and insecure contracts and poor wage growth leaving one in five people struggling in poverty.

Under the last Tory Government, we saw an explosion in the growth of exploitative zero-hours contracts, unscrupulous fire and rehire practices, and the unforgiving and abusive gig economy. Ordinary working people across the country have experienced the most sustained period of wage stagnation for hundreds of years compared with our counterparts across Europe. Despite that exploitation of working people by bad bosses, the Tories never strayed from their mission of dismantling the power of trade unions to secure better jobs, pay and conditions for the ordinary people they represent, even in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

The Bill that we are discussing today, however, sets us on the road to implementing the transformative new deal for working people and to repealing the last Tory Government’s draconian anti-trade union legislation, which restricts people from organising in defence of their pay, terms and conditions. Spanning over 30 different measures, the Bill could give any of us a lot to talk about. However, as time does not permit that, I will concentrate on two or three areas.

With the establishment of a framework for fair pay agreements in the adult social care sector, the Government have acknowledged the immense benefits that collective sectoral bargaining can play. Social care workers are among the most crucial yet worst paid and badly treated groups of workers in our economy. I very much hope that the Government will introduce that framework for further sectors, and I encourage them to do so. Secondly, by ensuring that workplaces offer a guaranteed-hours policy to end the exploitation trap of zero-hours contracts that millions of workers find themselves in, the Bill ensures that we can provide the eight in 10 workers who desire greater stability more certainty over their contracted hours.

Thirdly, the Bill takes an important step towards widening access to statutory sick pay by removing the requirement to earn the lower earnings limit, and by making SSP payable from the first day of sickness. My sincere request to the Government is that, with the rate currently at £116.75 per week, we need in the consultation process—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I call Alison Griffiths.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

My constituency has some of the highest levels of health inequalities in the country, which have been further increased by the cost of living crisis and the continual cuts to our council budgets. If the Government are serious about levelling up, why was Bradford East’s bid to reduce health inequalities knocked back?

[Michael Gove]

The Labour leadership in Bradford Council must look to its performance. I think there is a distinction to be drawn between the Labour leaderships in Leeds and in Bradford—Bradford could learn a lot from what Leeds has done. This is not a party political point; it is a point about failure specifically in Bradford.

Extremism Definition and Community Engagement

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a very important point, because obviously our intelligence and security agencies, our law enforcement actors and sometimes those working abroad to keep us safe will have to deal with and engage unsavoury individuals. The definition does not cover that activity.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Let us be clear and call this what it is. It is not a serious and genuine attempt to address a very important issue. It is a further draconian attempt to continue the Tory agenda of culture wars. It is disappointing that countless civil liberties groups, and three former Home Secretaries, have warned the Secretary of State against politicising such an important issue, but it seems it has fallen on deaf ears.

If the Secretary of State is serious about addressing these issues, I ask him to condemn the extremist, vile and dangerous language used by some of his own Back Benchers and some of the Tory donors who are bankrolling his party.

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I hope he will appreciate that both I and the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) are determined not to politicise this matter but to make sure we can operate consensually. Of course there will be debate, challenge and differences of opinion and emphasis in what we seek to do, but it is a shared endeavour. Indeed, we have been working with independent figures such as Lord Walney to achieve consensus.

[Imran Hussain]

Condemn those on your own side.

[Michael Gove]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman feels it necessary to make a party political point about my colleagues. I extend to him the same courtesy that I extend to every Member of this House by respecting his mandate and his voice, and not indulging in that sort of unfortunate personalisation.

Financial Distress in Local Authorities

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We clearly set out that the problem is due to a cut in funding. That is the result of a reduction in the central Government grant, with council tax increases only partly, but not wholly, replacing the funds. That issue needs addressing if we want councils to continue not only performing social care functions, but doing everything else that our communities rely on. We need fundamental reform; that is what we are calling for in the longer term. That is a challenge for any Government—I look at both Front Benches here—because if we reform local finance, some people will have to pay more and some will have to pay less. I always say that those people who pay more never forget about it and continue to blame the Government for years to come. Those who pay less will thank the Government and then forget about it next year. There is always a challenge when it comes to spreading the tax take around differently. But we will have to do it differently, because these council services—not just social care, but the parks, the buses, the libraries, the roads, the environmental services, the planning, and the economic development, which has almost fallen off the scale in some councils—are really important.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

The reality is that 14 years of ideological austerity cuts have left many authorities on the brink of bankruptcy. From 2015 to now, Bradford Council has had £100 million-worth of cuts, which has left our services decimated and our communities devastated and deprived of much-needed services. I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his report. I particularly welcome the call for much-needed and immediate funding for local authorities. Does he agree that the much-needed funding must be given, and if it is not given, any blame for section 144 notices should lie directly and squarely at the door of this Government?

[Mr Betts]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. The report says that not every section 144 notice can be blamed on the Government. There will be circumstances in which councils get themselves into difficulty, but what we have said is that there are general problems coming down for councils, which have been created by a shortage of funding. We did make reference to Bradford. Bradford’s problem is the young age of its population—the number of children. Children services are run by trustees appointed by the Secretary of State for Education. That body has demanded from the council an amount equivalent to about 50% of its council budget. We could get the ridiculous situation in which the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities sends in commissioners to run services to try to find the money to pay the trustees who are appointed by the Secretary of State for Education. That does not seem a great way for local government to operate.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Imran Hussain Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Let me be absolutely clear that the Bill before this House, which should be rejected, is not just bad and unworkable but fundamentally flawed and dangerous. Hon. Members across the House have rightly stated that it does not just prevent public bodies such as local councils involving themselves in foreign policy—as the Government innocently declare—but meddles in the autonomy of local government pension schemes to make the best investment decisions, and swings a wrecking ball through the UK’s obligation to respect international law and countless United Nations resolutions.

The Bill undermines the ability of public bodies and civic society to divest from those who are harming our environment and driving climate change. It provides the Government with unprecedented and deeply alarming powers of enforcement that curtail freedom of expression and democracy by gagging public bodies that have the audacity to speak and act on their conscience. It forces public bodies and civic society to kneel, against their own moral convictions, to the Secretary of State’s foreign policy.

Most alarmingly, by preventing public bodies from adopting positions that deviate from this Government’s foreign policy of turning a blind eye to persecution, oppression and injustice in other countries, the Bill quashes the ability of those individuals, public bodies and members of civic society with any sense of humanity to take a stand against human rights abuses, at a time of rapid increase in those abuses right across the world.

Each of those reasons alone is enough to bin the Bill but, taken together, they make it not only one of the most far-reaching and dangerous pieces of legislation this Government have ever sought to make law, but one of the most repressive. That is why it must be struck down today.

As pointed out by hon. Members across the House, the Bill directly contradicts decades of established UK foreign policy on illegal Israeli settlements built on occupied land. It is astounding that it has to be repeated in this Chamber time and again that settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal under international law. Why does the Bill not recognise that international position?

Instead of introducing legislation to Parliament that provides cover to the Netanyahu Government’s illegal annexation of Palestinian territory, Ministers must decide whether they agree with the established position of the rest of the international community that the settlements and the Israeli Government’s repeated disregard for international law are illegal. As hon. Members have stated, the Bill as it currently stands is in direct contravention of not just international law but United Nations resolutions.

Many of us fear the anti-democratic precedent the Bill will set. Effectively, if a human rights campaign does not enjoy the support of the Government, it will be criminalised for attempting to bring abuses to light. The Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the Rohingya in Burma, the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the Kashmiris in Indian-occupied Kashmir—members of those communities, many of whom are resident in my constituency, have now had their fear doubled. Not only are they witnessing numerous human rights abuses in their countries of origin, they are now being silenced here, too. Indeed, until just recently the UK Government refused to approve sanctions against the Burmese military despite the horrific genocidal campaign it waged against the Rohingya, with Ministers declaring that they did not want to unbalance what existed of Burma’s democratic Government. Instead, it was left to other organisations and groups to lead the resistance against a genocide taking place while the UK Government looked on. The Government are in a better place on that issue today, but we are still left with the question of what happens if there is a return to the same form of democratic Government in Burma that existed before and which allowed the Rohingya genocide to take place. It is clear that Ministers will lift sanctions and force local authorities to do the same through the Bill, leaving the perpetrators of genocide able to escape justice and accountability for their grave crimes against humanity.

The impact the Bill will have on human rights in Indian-occupied Kashmir, where Kashmiris continue to face persecution, oppression and injustice is even more alarming, because it is in this region that UK foreign policy under this Tory Government is not only most unreliable but most spineless. Even as the Indian Government blatantly engage in violent, physical and psychological suppression of any resistance to the military occupation, however peaceful it may be, and seek to deter further opposition to their brutal rule by making an example of campaigners such as Yasin Malik, whose execution Indian prosecutors are now seeking, all the UK Government remain focused on is securing a trade deal with the right-wing Modi Government before the next general election. They could not even bring themselves to object to and boycott, as other countries did, the shameful decision to hold the G20 culture working group summit last month in Srinagar. In the absence of the UK Government stepping up to fulfil their historic, moral and international obligations to the region, it is once again left to local councils and public bodies to do what they can to protect human rights in Indian-occupied Kashmir by refusing to engage with those whose hands are stained with the blood of Kashmiris. Yet under the Bill the Government will put a stop to that and force public bodies to be party to human rights abuses because they think it is in the UK’s best foreign policy interests.

This rotten, unworkable and dangerous Bill is an alarming overreach of Government powers that breaks the UK’s international obligations and undermines efforts to protect our environment and fight climate change. It protects human rights abusers in countless nations and gags democratically elected local representatives. We cannot pick and choose which human rights abuses to act on and which to turn a blind eye to. Let me be clear: human rights are a universal obligation and a universal right. It is time the UK Government accepted that. I will therefore be standing up, as I always have done, for democracy, for our environment and for human rights by voting for today’s amendment that will reject the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

The Government do remain committed to stamping out anti-Muslim hatred and all forms of religious prejudice. I have had conversations with the hon. Gentleman and I am due to meet the all-party parliamentary group on British Muslims very shortly. We will outline our next steps in due course but we are actively working on this.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I have listened to the Minister, but the tragic reality is that Islamophobia is on the rise and is rife in our society today. If anyone is in any doubt, they should speak to the Muslim communities up and down this country who have to face this evil on a daily basis. How can my constituents have any confidence in a Government who cannot even tackle Islamophobia in their own ranks?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely reject the accusation made by the hon. Gentleman—it is completely untrue. We are doing everything we can to tackle not just anti-Muslim hatred but all forms of prejudice in our society. On this issue, we have supported Tell MAMA with just over £4 million between 2016 and 2022 to monitor and combat anti-Muslim hatred. Over the past five years of the places of worship grant scheme we have awarded 241 grants worth approximately £5 million to places of worship. In November 2020 we awarded £1.8 million through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s faith, race and hate crime grant scheme.

Levelling Up

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I could not agree more. I have nothing against Leeds; I love Leeds. [Hon. Members: “That’s not what it says about you!”] My name is hymned by children in Leeds streets, I know. The serious point is that there is cultural investment in Kirklees, not least in Huddersfield, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that more needs to be done for all the authorities in Kirklees and for the towns in West Yorkshire surrounding them.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

The stark reality is that someone who lives in the inner city of Bradford is likely to live 10 years less than someone who lives in an affluent suburb. Although I accept that the Government plan commits to raising health and life expectancy, it does not go far enough. One of the issues is the top-down approach. I sincerely and constructively ask the Secretary of State to meet me to discuss transformative new proposals that are being put forward by local grassroots community groups in Bradford to change health inequalities and to address the real issue.